Dell SRDF SRA 10.0.1 and Targetless Gold Copies

As part of the PowerMaxOS 10 SR released today, we have a new SRDF SRA which has a feature I've been requesting for, well, years: targetless gold copies on failover (planned or disaster recovery). The new capability will enable customers to avoid creating extra devices when they are in need of a pristine copy of...

PowerMaxOS 10 Service Release

We've dropped our latest service release (SR) for PowerMaxOS 10 (6079) which covers the PowerMax platforms 2500 and 8500. You can find all the documentation here. Service releases are generally focused on bug fixes and performance enhancements, and this release is no exception, but sometimes they include features which did not make it into the...

Veeam PowerMax Plug-in Update

Let me start by getting the obvious question out of the way. No, the update is not about REST 10 support. This is a patch for the current plug-in to enhance functionality with REST 9. I highly recommend it, however, so please read on if you use the plug-in. PowerMax Plug-in Version 1.0.90 Veeam posted...

Dell EMC CSM with replication

Dell EMC has created a GitHub for container storage modules or CSM. Dell EMC writes that "the Dell Container Storage Modules (CSM) enables [sic] simple and consistent integration and automation experiences, extending enterprise storage capabilities to Kubernetes for cloud-native stateful applications." Quite a mouthful. To de-marketize the statement, CSM sits on top of other integrations...

PiTs with SRM and the SRDF SRA

I wanted to revisit this post on using point-in-time (PiTs) with SRM and the SRDF SRA having just demonstrated SRM with virtual and physical infrastructure. A dual purpose environment was the original impetus for adding the parameter IgnoreActivatedSnapshots so many years ago now, and as it has been four years since the post I thought...

The Dell EMC PowerMax Veeam Plug-in

Today the Dell EMC PowerMax Veeam Plug-in for Veeam Backup & Replication went GA and is available for download from their website here under the Storage Plug-ins tab.  The plug-in has been a high priority ask from our customers for a while because taking advantage of our local replication technology provides the same type of...

Oracle RAC on VMFS – SnapVX restore for testing

I've had some questions from customers running Oracle RAC on VMFS who would like to use TimeFinder/SnapVX to test, rather than Oracle tools like RMAN. This is a sensible course given that for large databases RMAN takes a long time to restore, and SnapVX is basically instantaneous. But why use either solution when I can...

VSI 8.6 – PowerMax snapshot policies and hosts

VSI 8.6 is available for download today. This version does away with the previous process for registering the vCenter as part of the OVA deployment. Instead it provides a new interface which I'll cover below. Along with registration updates, there are a number of new features for PowerMax. At a high-level these are the new...

VSI 8.5 – Snapshots + Manual UNMAP

We've dropped release 8.5 of Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) today which brings snapshots into the plugin. My last post on VSI was for 8.3, because the 8.4 release was only for the introduction of the PowerStore platform and their team took care of that. The 8.5 release is more universal, including features for our multiple...

Snapshot metrics in VMware Virtual Volumes (vVols)

I was working on an update to the vVol whitepaper for our next release (VASA 3), and I realized that I failed to include a more detailed explanation of snapshot reporting in the VASA 2 paper. I'll try to get that done in the next couple weeks (done), but in the meantime let me run...