VAAI and SRDF performance considerations

I wrote a Dell EMC KB (000533648) article last week about VAAI and SRDF performance considerations to assist customers in certain corner cases, but my support colleagues tell me they've had more than a few requests for the information, so I'm going to put most of it here as reference. The intent of the article...

Online SRDF device expansion with PowerMaxOS

Beginning with PowerMaxOS on both the VMAX All Flash and PowerMax arrays, Dell EMC supports dynamic, online expansion of all SRDF pairs except SRDF/Metro (check this post for a workaround of sorts). Expansion prior to the introduction of PowerMaxOS, requires dissolving the SRDF pair, expanding each device independently and then re-creating the pair. This is...

SRDF SRA 6.2 – Metro, Witness, and DR

Dell EMC SRDF SRA 6.2 is now available for download and use with the latest HYPERMAX OS Q3 SR. This SRA brings support for a couple features which greatly enhance SRDF/Metro capabilities in SRM. The first is the ability to use the SRA with a Metro pair that is protected by a Witness (physical or...

What’s in a name? The SRDF Utilities for SRM

I've spent countless hours documenting our SRDF SRA for SRM and the accompanying Utilities.  Unfortunately there are subtleties in the product pair which continue to confuse both our customers and our own employees who work with those customers.  After writing yet another email response about this topic the other day I thought I'd take a stab at...

SRDF SRA TechBook update

I finally got around to updating the SRDF SRA TechBook for the latest release of the SRA - version 6 - which went GA in October.  You can find it here:  SRDF SRA TechBook.  My focus was on updating the compatibility matrices indicating the accompanying versions of Solutions Enabler and SRM that the SRA 6.0...

SRDF SRA 6.0/SRDF-AU 6.0

As I mentioned in my post on the Q3 VMAX3 release, the SRDF SRA and SRDF Adapter Utilities (SRDF-AU) lag the VMAX3 releases by about 2 weeks - yes I was off by a week sorry about that.  In any case they are here today so the wait is over.  The SRDF SRA and SRDF-AU...

VMAX3 HYPERMAX 5977 2015 Q3 SR

Today we add more features and functionality to our flagship array the VMAX3.  The official HYPERMAX release is 5977.691.684 and includes the new code for the VMAX3 as well as Solutions Enabler/Unisphere for VMAX 8.1.  In a quick bullet list here are some of the new and updated features along with a couple links: Device...

EMC SRDF SRA 5.8/SRA-U 5.8

The latest release of the EMC SRA 5.8 and accompanying VSI SRDF SRA Utilities (SRA-U) 5.8 is now available for download.  This release follows closely after our Q4 release (https://drewtonnesen.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/emc-srdf-sravsi-sra-u-vmax3-support/) which was the first SRA to support VMAX3.  That release, SRA 5.6, however, only supported 2-site SRDF - synchronous/asynchronous.  The SRA 5.8 and SRA-U 5.8...

EMC SRDF SRA/VSI SRA-U VMAX3 Support

Well here we are together again, my fourth post in under a month.  I'm way past my quota at this point and working on fumes!  When the news is good, though, it must be spread...  Today we have another great release, the EMC Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) for SRDF version 5.6 and the companion software...

VMware SRM 5.8 GA with EMC SRDF SRA

A couple days ago VMware released Site Recovery Manager 5.8.  Ben Meadowcroft from VMware has a nice write-up of the major features it contains which you can find here: http://www.benmeadowcroft.com/ .  Although there are lots of items on the list, the most obvious change is the removal of the vSphere Client (thick client) and integration...