1. technology and computing
2. software

VMAX 101
VMAX 101 with vSphere
Recommended Practices
David Robertson
vSpecialist
Twitter: @daverdfw
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
1
Agenda
• History of Symmetrix
• VMAX Hardware/Software Overview
• What’s new with Enginuity 5875 (Danube)
• Recommended Practices for Using VMAX with
VMware
• Q&A
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
2
Evolution of Symmetrix
Continuous Improvement in Efficiency and Effectiveness
Centralized
Distributed
Virtualized
Single servers
Single applications
1985–1995
Multiple servers
Multiple applications
1995–2005
Virtualized servers
Consolidated applications
2005–2010
Direct Attached Storage
Storage Area Networks
Virtual Storage
Symmetrix
4400
Symmetrix
5500
Symmetrix
3000/5000
Symmetrix
8000
Symmetrix
DMX-1/-2
Symmetrix
DMX-3
Symmetrix
DMX-4
Symmetrix
VMAX
Flash
Drives
World’s first
integrated cached
disk array (ICDA)
World’s first
terabyte ICDA
disk array
“Open Symmetrix” Created new
Direct Matrix
World’s first
World’s most
managed data
“enterprise
architecture
incrementally
cost-effective,
from all major
storage”
revolutionizes scalable 1 PB disk high-performing,
server platforms market category high-end storage
array
secure, energyefficient high-end
array
Purpose-built
to deliver
infrastructure
services within
the data center
Symmetrix is the enabler to evolving high-end infrastructure
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Symmetrix Evolution
Symmetrix 4
Symmetrix 3
Symmetrix 2
3330/5330
3430/5430
3700/5700
Symmetrix 5500-3
16Mb DRAM
1GB Cache Board
Symmetrix 4400
4Mb DRAM
256MB Cache
Board
5.25” HDA
Hyper Volume
Extension
3.5” HDA
Symmetrix ESP
SDMS
EOS
EDM
‘90 ‘91 ‘92 ‘93 ‘94 ‘95 ‘96 ‘97
Symmetrix
4200
Dynamic
Sparing
NonDisruptive
Microcode
Load
DMX
Symmetrix 4.8
DMX800
DMX1000
DMX2000
3630/5630
3830/5830
3900/5900
Symmetrix
3000*
Symmetrix
4800
Symmetrix 6
DMSP
System Calls
Ultra SCSI
SA-Failover
PowerPath
Fibre
Channel
SDDF
‘98
Symmetrix 5230-4
InfoMover
Symmetrix 5100-9
Celerra
RAID-S
FDRSOS
FWD SCSI
SRDF Ext Dist
SRDF Host Comp
Symmetrix Manager
DataReach
MPLF
TimeFinder
3380/3390 Intermix
3GB/9GB Intermix
SRDF
PDS Assist
SDS
HDC
DMX-4
Dynamic Cache Partitions
Virtual LUN
RAID-6
2107 CU mainframe
Symmetrix 6.5
DMX-2
Symmetrix 5
8130
8430
8730
‘99
>4GB Cache
SymmOptimizer
File SMMF
New TF Splits
Switch SRDF R1/R2
FC Fabric Support
Virtual Provisioning
Instant VTOC
Flash Drives
1TB SATA Drives
FAST VP
FLM
VAAI
FAST
‘00 ‘01 ‘02‘03‘04‘05‘06‘07 ‘08‘09‘10
Symmetrix 5.5
8230
8530
8830
Symmetrix 7
DMX-3
DMX-3
DMX1500
950
DMX2500
DMX3500
DMX4500
VMAX
Series
Virtual Matrix
Autoprovisioning Groups
Enhanced Virtual LUN
20 Years of Storage Leadership!
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Symmetrix VMAX Series with Enginuity
• Supports from 96 to 2400 drives
– Up to 240 drives per Storage
Bay
– Up to 10 Storage Bays
• Connectivity:
– Fibre
– FICON
– iSCSI
– GigE
• More host connection ports
– 128 Fibre Channel host/SAN
– 32 Fibre Channel remote
replication
– 64 iSCSI
– 64 FICON host
– 32 GigE remote replication
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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EMC Symmetrix:
The World’s Most Trusted Storage
Platforms
 96 to 2,400 drives for up
to 2 PB of usable
capacity
 One to eight VMAX
Engines (16 directors)
 Fibre Channel, iSCSI,
Gigabit Ethernet, FICON
connectivity
 Up to 1 TB (512 GB
usable) global mirrored
memory
 8 Gb/s Fibre Channel,
FICON, and Fibre
Channel SRDF
Symmetrix VMAX: Virtual Matrix Architecture
Symmetrix DMX:
The Direct Matrix Architecture
 32 to 2,400 drives
 Two to 12 front-end/back-end directors
 FICON, ESCON, Fibre Channel, iSCSI, Gigabit
Ethernet connectivity
 Up to 512 (256 usable) GB global memory
CAPACITY AND PERFORMANCE SCALABILITY
Note: Combinations may be limited or restricted based on configuration
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Symmetrix Architecture – “Big Picture”
 Host Reads
– “Cache Hit” if data is already in cache
– “Cache Miss” is staged from disk
Host Systems
 Host Writes
– All host writes are to cache
– “Write Pendings”are asynchronous written to disk
Front-end Host Adapters
Global Memory (Cache)
Back-end Disk Adapters
• Front-end connects hosts to the system
• Back-end connects the physical drives
– Director
– Physical drives
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Symmetrix VMAX Virtual Matrix
Architecture High-Availability
Symmetrix Director Pair
Up to 128 ports per
system, two hot-pluggable
modules per director
Back-end connections
for Flash, Fibre
Channel, and SATA
disks (up to 128 ports,
2,400 disks, 2.1 PB)
Four Quad-core Intel
processors at 2.33 GHz
per core (16 cores per
engine)
Global mirrored memory
and redundant CPU
complexes that can be
accessed and shared
across Symmetrix
engines
Virtual Matrix interface
connects and shares
resources, providing
massive scalability in a
single system
Up to eight engines
per Symmetrix system
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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VMAX Hardware Overview
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VMAX Engine Overview
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VMAX Engine Overview
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VMAX Engine Overview
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Engine IO module layout
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Engine Numbering and Population Order
Population Order
System Bay
Engine #
Populated 8
Engine 8
Populated 6
Engine 7
Populated 4
Engine 6
Populated 2
Engine 5
Populated 1
Engine 4
Populated 3
Engine 3
Populated 5
Engine 2
Populated 7
Engine 1
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
Director #
Dir 16
Dir 15
Dir 14
Dir 13
Dir 12
Dir 11
Dir 10
Dir 9
Dir 8
Dir 7
Dir 6
Dir 5
Dir 4
Dir 3
Dir 2
Dir 1
14
VMAX Storage Bay Configuration
Standard Configuration
 Up to four directly connected Storage Bays
 Up to six daisy chained Storage Bays
 Up to eight Disk Director pairs (Octants)
Daisy
Chained
Daisy
Direct
Direct
Connect Chained Connect
Direct
Daisy Direct
Connect Chained Connect
Daisy
Chained
Engine 8
Dir 15/16
Octant 6
Engine 7
Octant 2
Engine 5
Engine 7
Dir 13/14
Engine 6
Dir 11/12
Octant 4
Engine 6
Octant 8
Engine 8
Octant 3
Engine 3
Octant 7
Engine 1
Engine 5
Dir 9/10
Engine 4
Dir 7/8
Octant 5
Engine 2
Octant 1
Engine 4
Engine 3
Dir 5/6
Engine 2
Dir 3/4
Engine 1
Dir 1/2
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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VMAX Drive and Protection Types
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Supported Drive Types
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Data Protection Options
Option
Characteristics
RAID 1
RAID 5
RAID 6
Unprotected
Protection
Performance
Cost
 Write to two separate physical
drives
 Read from single drive - DMSP
2
1
2
 Parity based protection
 Striped data and parity
– 3+1 and 7+1 Configurations
3
2
1
 Two parity drives
– 6 + 2 and 14 + 2
 Data Availability is primary
 Performance is a secondary
consideration
 New with Enginuity 5772
1
3
1
 Not recommended
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
N/A
18
Choose RAID Protection That
Makes Sense for Your Workload
Highest
Availability
RAID 6
MIRRORED
RAID 5
High
High
Highest
Performance Requirement
Color indicates performance overhead
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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RAID types and Recommendations
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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VMAX Service Processor
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Symmetrix Service Processor
• EMC personnel interface to the Symmetrix
– Rack-mounted server with KVM & UPS
– Windows XP Operating System
• Runs SymmWin application
– Used to:
• Configure the Symmetrix
• Run diagnostics, procedures, and other maintenance utilities
• Launch Inlines commands
• Service processor also runs Solutions Enabler SYMCLI and Symmetrix
Management Console server
• Secure Service Credentials ensure only authorize access
• EMC Remote allows Support Engineers to access the service processor
remotely
– Secure IP network connection
– Modem
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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SymmWin
• Graphical-based tool for configuring and
monitoring a Symmetrix System
– Runs locally on the service processor
– May also run on stand-alone PC
• Provides interface to Inlines
• Automatically runs periodic checks and
performs “Call Home”
• Can be accessed remotely using
EMCRemote
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Enginutiy Release Numbering
Major Release Level
Service Processor Code
(Minor Release Level)
5874.34.29.[03]
Family Number
Supported Hardware:
8
Symm8
VMAX
7
Symm7
DMX-3,
DMX-4
6
Symm6
DMX,
DMX-2
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
Emulation Code
Level
(Build #)
Revision Number
of QA test code
24
VMAX Device Configuration
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Symmetrix Device
• Logical abstraction of a disk drive
– EMC terms often used are hyper-volume, slice, split, device, or volume
•
Industry term is LUN – Logical Unit
– Approximately 64,000 devices per system
• Each devices is assigned a unique hex identifier
– Emulates either a FBA and CKD device
– Maximum size = ~240 GB TDEV
• Meta Devices can be created to go beyond this limit
Symmetrix
Device
DEV 1bc4
• Mapped to persistent locations on physical disk
– Protection from media failure
• RAID 1 Mirroring
• RAID 5 and RAID 6 parity based protection
– Replication
• Local
• Remote
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Symmetrix Device, continued
• Symmetrix Devices are provisioned to hosts
– Physical connectivity
– Map to front-end director port
• Assign Channel Address
– Mask device to specific HBA
– Feature referred to as Auto-provisioning Groups
Symmetrix
Device
DEV 1bc4
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Hypervolumes
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Physical Disk and Hyper Volumes
Physical Disk
Hyper Volumes
10 GB
8 GB
9 GB
6 GB
146 GB
8 GB
11 GB
8 GB
36 GB
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Metavolumes
A metavolume is two or more Symmetrix system hypervolumes presented to the host
as a single addressable device.
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Gatekeeper Devices
• A Gatekeeper can be any volume
accessible to the host
Gatekeeper
– Appear like any other volume
(Typically <10MB)
– Usually configured as a small device
– Should not be used by the host for normal data processing
• Best practice is to dedicate devices as Gatekeepers
– When a SYMCLI session is started, gatekeeper and database
locks are used to avoid conflicts
• Semaphore
– Once the CDB sequence is processed, the gatekeeper is closed
and the lock released, freeing the device for other processing
• Solutions Enabler commands executed on the Symmetrix Service
Processor uses a pseudo Gatekeeper device
– Storage Processor does not have direct access to any devices
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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In-Band Communicates
• Host to the Symmetrix communication is performed using
standard SCSI Write Buffer/Read Buffer commands
• Devices designated to receive commands are called
Gatekeepers
– Typically minimum sized volumes
– Simply used to pass commands and return response
Gatekeeper
SYMCLI
Commands
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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VMAX Virtual Provisioning
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Virtual Provisioning Device Types
• Thin Device
– Host-addressable device
– Seen by the operating system as a “normal” device
– Used in the same way as other host-addressable devices
• Can be replicated both locally and remotely
– Physical storage need not be completely allocated at device creation
– Physical storage is allocated from a pool of DATA devices
– Remains Not Ready until bound to a pool, though can be addressed and
configured by a host
• DATA Device
– An internal, non-addressable device
– Provides the physical storage that is used to supply disk space for a thin
device
– Placed in a thin storage pool to which the thin device has been associated
or “bound”
– Multiple RAID protection types
• RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6
• RAID 5 support in DMX is for 3+1 only
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Virtual Provisioning with VMAX
Virtual Provisioning
Application perceived Virtual Devices
Reported
Capacity
Allocated
Allocated
Allocated
Virtual Provisioning
enables a large volume to
be presented to a host
while consuming physical
storage from a shared
pool only as needed.
Data
Devices
TDAT 1
TDAT 2
TDAT 3
TDAT 4
TDAT 5
TDAT 6
TDAT 7
TDAT 8
TDAT 1
TDAT 2
TDAT 3
TDAT 4
TDAT 5
TDAT 6
TDAT 7
TDAT 8
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
…
TDAT 1
TDAT 2
TDAT 3
TDAT 4
TDAT 5
TDAT 6
TDAT 7
TDAT 8
TDAT 1
TDAT 2
TDAT 3
TDAT 4
TDAT 5
TDAT 6
TDAT 7
TDAT 8
35
Virtual Provisioning Steps
Step 1 create TDAT’s
Data Devices or
TDAT’s
Step 2 create Pool add TDAT”s
Same Drive Type
Same RAID Level
“TDAT”
Thin Devices
Step 3 create TDEV’s
Storage Pool
“TDAT”
TDEV
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Thin Pool Concepts
To Hosts / Storage Groups
Metahead
TDEV
TDEV
…..
TDEV
TDEV
TDEV
TDEV
TDEV
Thin
Devices
TDEV
TDEV size and number is
independent of TDAT and
drive partitions
Metavolume
Data Devices TDAT
1
Volumes
With Protection
7+1 or 6+2 in this example
2
3
4
7+1 Pool
1
2
3
4
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
Thin
Pools
5
3+1 Pool
1
2
3
5
1
2
3
5
1
2
3
5
1
2
3
5
Volumes
With Protection
3+1
Physical
Disks
37
Thin Pool Concepts with AutoProvisioning
HBA
AutoProvisioning
Groups
Masking
View
HBA
HBA
FA - XY
FA - XY
HBA
HBA
FA - XY
HBA
Initiator Group
Port Group
FA - XY
Storage Group
Metahead
TDEV
TDEV
TDEV
…..
Thin Devices
TDEV
TDEV
TDEV
TDEV
TDEV
Metavolume
TDEV size and number is independent
of TDAT and drive partitions.
TimeFinder , SRDF and Open
Replicator relationships are configured
at the TDEV level.
Data Devices TDAT
1
Volumes
With Protection
7+1 or 6+2 in this example
2
3
4
7+1 Pool
1
2
3
4
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
5
Thin Pools
3+1 Pool
1
2
3
5
1
2
3
5
1
2
3
5
1
2
3
5
Volumes
With Protection
3+1
Physical Disks
38
Virtual Provisioning Thin Pools
Pool type specific to Virtual Provisioning
• Thin pools can be created at
the same time as DATA
devices
• They can also be created with
no associated DATA devices
• There is no default thin pool
• The first DATA device added
to the thin pool defines its
protection type
• Thin pools can contain
devices of only a single
protection type
– If first device added is
RAID 1, all additional
devices must be RAID 1
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
Thin Pool With DATA Devices
39
Host Writes to Thin devices
• The initial bind of a thin device to
a pool causes 1 thin device
extent to be allocated per thin
device
• When a write is performed to a
logical block address that does
not exist on a previously
allocated extent, a new thin
device extent will be allocated
from the pool
• A round-robin mechanism is
used to balance the allocation of
DATA device extents across all
available DATA devices in the
pool
• A 4 member thin meta would
cause 4 extents to be allocated
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
Host Write I/Os to Thin Devices
Thin Pool
Thin Devices
40
Extent Allocation on Host Writes to Logical
Block Addresses
Logical Block Addresses on
a Thin Device
 The host sees the thin device
the same as a regular device
 The disk still contains a range
of logical block addresses
LBA 0
 The LBA range will be equal to
the number of 512 byte blocks
in the entire device
 The extent allocation
mechanism does not change
this
LBA N-1
N = Number of blocks in the thin device reported capacity
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Extent Allocation on Host Writes to Logical
Block Addresses (Continued)
 Thin device extents contain
768 KB or 12 Symmetrix
Tracks
Logical Block Addresses in a 12
Track Thin Device Extent
 Each extent contains 1536 x
512 byte blocks
 Extent allocation is only
triggered if the host writes to
an LBA that is not part of a
previously allocated extent
0 KB - 768 KB
LBA 0
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
LBA 1535
42
Extent Allocation on Host Writes to
Logical Block Addresses (Continued)
 Initial bind causes one thin
extent to be allocated
 Host sends an 8 KB write to
LBA 872 which is part of a
previously allocated extent
Example of Extent Allocation
LBA 0 - 1535
– The write is accepted and
acknowledgement is returned
with no allocation performed
 Host sends an 8 KB write to
LBA 72588
LBA 72192 - 73727
LBA 73728 - 75263
– Extent allocation is performed,
the write is accepted, and an ack
is returned
 Host sends an 8 KB write to
LBA 73724
– No extent allocation is performed
for the first 2 KB, extent
allocation is performed for the
second 6 KB, the write is
accepted, and an ack is returned
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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VMAX Management Overview
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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EMC Solutions Enabler Introduction
• Symmetrix Command Line Interface (SYMCLI)
– Nearly all host environments
– Also installed on Service Processor
• Provides a host with a
comprehensive command set
for managing a Symmetrix
storage environment
– Invoked from the host OS command line
– Scripts that may provide further
integration with OS and application
• Separate components licenses
• Security and access controls
– Monitor only
– Host-based and user-based controls
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
 Detailed
Configuration
Information
 Status
 On-line
Configuration
Changes
 Performance
 Control
45
EMC Symmetrix Management
Console
Simplifies storage management for
virtual data centers
• Quickly provision resources on demand
–
–
–
–
Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST)
Auto-provisioning Groups
Virtual Provisioning
Enhanced Virtual LUN technology
• Ease of use
–
–
–
Tasks view
Wizards
Templates
• Management integration
–
Symmetrix Management Console
“Ease-of-use” capabilities
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
Symmetrix Management Console and SMI-S on
Service Processor
• Complements EMC Symmetrix Manager
and SYMCLI
• Lightweight software requiring minimal
host resources
• Web-based GUI
• SMC/SPA also is available as a vApp
virtual appliance on PowerLink
46
EMC Symmetrix Performance
Analyzer
• Simplify storage management
–
–
Intuitive, automated trending of Key
Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Improve long-term planning for upgrades
and consolidation
• Monitor Symmetrix operations
–
–
Real-time data collection—five-second
intervals
Diagnostics
•
Easily drill down to device-level views of
performance
• Choose time period to track
–
24 hours, one week, one month, six months,
year to date, custom
• FAST monitoring
–
–
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
Monitor storage type usage and
performance
Monitor Storage Groups and volume level
metrics
47
VMAX Provisioning Overview
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Symmetrix VMAX: Easy, Quick, and
Automated Storage Provisioning
Auto-provisioning Groups simplifies initial configurations and all
future changes and additions
1
3
5
2
4
6
1
2
Create Initiator Group
Add/Remove Initiator
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
3
4
Create Port Group
Add/Remove Port
5
6
Create Storage Group
Add/Remove Device
49
Symmetrix VMAX: Easy, Quick,
and Automated Storage
Provisioning for Virtual Servers
with a Single Action
Traditional Mapping and Masking
Auto-provisioning Groups
HBA
HBA
HBA
HBA
HBA
Port A
HBA
HBA
HBA
HBA
DEV
DEV
DEV
Port B
Port C
HBA
DEV
DEV
DEV
DEV
DEV
DEV
HBA
HBA
HBA
HBA
Port A
HBA
HBA
DEV
DEV
DEV
DEV
DEV
DEV
DEV
DEV
DEV
Port B
Port C
HBA
Port D
40 Individual Masking
Operations
Five ESX servers x two HBAs x
four storage ports
HBA
Port D
HBA
HBA
Single Setup to Build
and Associate
Groups
~160 clicks to complete
15 clicks to complete
Includes initial configuration and
repeated for every change or add
Simplifies initial configurations and
all future changes and additions
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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EMC VMAX Storage
Scale-out architecture for unmatched performance
and hyper-consolidation
New “ease-of-use” capabilities to provision thousands
of virtual and/or physical servers in minutes
Support for Enterprise Flash, Fibre Channel, and
SATA
FAST for tiering storage in VMware environments
Enhanced Virtual LUN Technology for nondisruptive
mobility
Robust enterprise class BC and DR solutions with
TimeFinder and SRDF
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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What’s new with Enginuity 5875 (Danube)
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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VMware vStorage APIs for Array
Integration
Support for VAAI
• Block Zero
10-times less I/O for VMware vStorage Virtual
Machine File System (VMFS)
formatting/reallocation
• Hardware-Assisted Locking
Block-level locking allows up to 10-times more
virtual machines per data store
• Full Copy
Offload replication to array for 10-times faster
virtual machine deployments, clones, snapshots,
and VMware Storage vMotion
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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EMC Virtual Storage Integrator
MORE
EFFICIENCY
MORE
SCALE
VIRTUAL
STORAGE
INTEGRATOR
MORE
SECURITY
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
Microsoft
Hyper-V
VMware
Virtual Storage Integrator simplifies virtual server
management while preserving architectural control
of the storage infrastructure
56
FAST VP: Sub-LUN Optimization
~5% is active
~95% is inactive
Flash drives: optimize performance
SATA: optimize cost and capacity
Device Pool
Storage Pool
Allows most inactive data to move to SATA
drives with no performance impact
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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FAST with Virtual Pools (FAST VP)
• A new level of Fully Automated Storage Tiering
– Automated tiered storage for virtual pools
– Sub-LUN data movement for virtual pools
• Automatically responds to changes in the
production workload
• More efficient use of capacity
– Place very busy data on enterprise Flash drives
– Place mostly idle data on Fibre Channel and SATA
drives
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Virtual Provisioning Levels of Granularity
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
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Elements of FAST
• Storage Type – a shared storage resource with common technologies
• FAST Policy – manages data placement and movement across Storage Types
to achieve service levels for one or more Storage Groups
• Storage Group – logical grouping of devices for common management
• Storage Class – combination of Storage Types and FAST Policies to meet
service level objectives for Storage Groups
Storage Class
Storage Types
R53_200_EFD
200 GB EFD
RAID 5 (3+1)
R57_146_FC
146 GB 15K FC
RAID 5 (7+1)
R614_1000_SATA
1 TB SATA
RAID 6 (14+2)
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
FAST Policies
Storage Groups
Production
25%
50%
25%
Development
ProductionApp1_SG
ProductionApp2_SG
25%
100%
Dev_SG
60
FAST VP Implementations
• FAST VP tasks split between
microcode and FAST controller
• Performance data collected by
microcode
– Data collected at LUN and subLUN level
• Performance data analyzed by
FAST controller
• Controller generates a
“Performance Movement
Policy”
• Microcode applies policy
– Executes sub-LUN data
movements between tiers using
Virtual LUN VP Mobility
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
Microcode
FAST Controller
Collect
Performance
Data
Analyze
Performance
Data
FAST VP
Execute Data
Movement
Generate
Performance
Movement
Policy
61
Federated Live Migration
Complete technology refreshes in days versus months
• Fully nondisruptive data migration for
faster deployment of new
technologies
• Leverages intelligence of storage
array and host multi-pathing
• Supports Zero Space Reclaim for
savings and efficiencies
Federated
Live
Migration
• No remediation when migrating
pre-qualified configurations
• Manage both array and host
redirection from EMC Symmetrix
Management Console or CLI
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
62
Zero Space Reclaim
Reclaim allocated, but unused capacity when migrating to a
new Symmetrix VMAX
• Runs “in-line” as data is
migrated from old
Symmetrix DMX to VMAX
0101 0000 0101 0000 0101
0000 0101 0000 0101 0000
0000 0000 0000 0101 0000
0101 0101 0101
Migration
0101 0101 0101
0101 0101 0101
0101 0000 0101 0000 0101
• Supports Federated Live
Migration and EMC Open
Replicator for Symmetrix
migration solutions
All allocated, but unwritten space is
reclaimed after zero detection check
is performed on incoming data
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
63
10 Gigabit Ethernet Support
Storage infrastructure to enable and accelerate data center
network convergence
• Hot pluggable I/O modules to
easily intermix and upgrade
connectivity
• Supports 10 Gigabit Ethernet
for iSCSI and EMC SRDF
replication
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
64
Enginuity Performance Enhancements
Software optimization improves performance for large-block sequential
I/O
• Accelerates data warehousing/
business intelligence analytics
• Faster EMC TimeFinder/Clone
and VLUN with less application
impact
2X
Gb/s
• Enabler for FAST VP sub-LUN
relocations
Enginuity
5874
Enginuity
5875
• New and existing Symmetrix
VMAX systems with Enginuity
Up
5875to two-times more
I/O bandwidth
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
65
VMAX and vSphere Recommended
Practices
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
66
VMAX FA Flag Settings for vSphere
• SPC-2
• SCSI 3 (Optional) No effect on ESX anymore.
• Unique WWN (UWN)
• Common Serial Number (C)
• OS2007 (Optional)
Screenshot from within VirtualCenter using the VSI4
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
67
Connectivity Considerations with VMAX
• VMware ESX Servers should have multiple physical
HBA
• VMware Servers should be connected to multiple
directors
– Directors 7 and 8 in single engine configurations
– Connections to different directors in different engines in
multiple engine configuration
• Connect each HBA to a minimum of two ports on
different directors
– Not a requirement but strongly recommended
– I/O intensive workload will benefit
– Servicing of the array is less impacting
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68
Connectivity Considerations with VMAX−
Cont.
Ideal
Minimum
Configuration
HBA1 HBA2
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
HBA1 HBA2
VMware
vSphere
Servers
69
Connectivity Considerations with VMAX−
Cont.
HBA1 HBA2
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
HBA1 HBA2
VMware
vSphere
Servers
70
Path Management with VMAX
• PowerPath/VE is strongly recommended for
vSphere environment
– Avoid POC that do not represent real environments
• NMP policy is available with vSphere
– Use Round Robin policy for Symmetrix arrays
• esxcli nmp satp setdefaultpsp -P VMW_PSP_RR -s
VMW_SATP_SYMM
– May need additional tuning. Depends on workload
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
71
Using the VSI to configure Multipathing
policy
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
72
VMAX FA Configuration for SPC-2
• Turned on per Fibre Channel port or per initiator
• Do not activate in a live system if not previously
set
• Default from 5773 (DMX-4)
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
73
Performance and Storage Layout –
vSphere with VMAX
• Physical Disk Size and Protection
– Depends on the IO characteristics of the workload
• Do not present SAN storage to ESX server farm as
one large SCSI disk
• LUN Layout
– Avoid using same set of disks for applications with different
I/O characteristics
• Use Virtual Provisioning
– Always provides optimal balance in VMware environments
• Configuration for I/O intensive application data
– Follow best practices recommendations for a physical
server
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
74
Partition Alignment (VMFS and Guest OS)
• Intel-based systems are misaligned due to metadata written by the BIOS
to handle LBA to CHS translation
– Partition Misalignment affects VMFS and Guest OS partitions
• Host-based Partition Utilities can be used to Align Partitions:
– For Linux and VMFS Alignment use fdisk
• Offset partition to 64 KB boundary
• Aligned VMFS partitions are now automatically created by vSphere Client
– For Windows Operating Systems (2003 in particular) use the diskpart
utility
• Create partition aligned on 64 KB boundary
• Use diskpar for versions of pre-Windows 2003 System at SP1
– Earlier versions of diskpart will show partitions as aligned, even if they are not
• For Metavolumes (MetaLUNs) only the base device needs to be aligned
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75
Effects of Partition Misalignment
• Symmetrix uses either 32 or 64K track size
• In an Aligned System, the 64 KB write would be serviced by a single
drive
• File-system misalignment affects performance in two ways:
– Misalignment causes disk crossings: I/O broken across two drives
– Misalignment causes stripe crossings: I/O broken across stripe
elements
• Even if disk operations are buffered by cache, there is performance
impact
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
76
VMAX Virtual Provisioning in VMware
vSphere Environments
• vSphere provides native thin provisioning
– Either one can be used
– Both features can be used but increases risk
• VMAX Virtual Provisioning simplifies drive and DA
workload distribution
– Provides additional benefits besides optimizing storage
use
– Ensure enough paths and TDEVs to support the workload
• VMAX Virtual Provisioning provides additional
benefits
– Zero Reclaim and Rebalancing
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
77
VMAX Virtual Provisioning for vSphere–
Performance Considerations
• RAID protection of data devices
– Balance between performance versus resiliency
• Fully allocate Virtually Provisioned devices if
– Applications sensitive to latency
– The risk of oversubscription is too high
• Optimum performance when IOs are track
aligned
– VMware File System is aligned on 64 KB boundary
– Virtual disks should be aligned
• Including boot volumes
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
78
VMAX Virtual Provisioning for vSphere–
Performance Considerations – Cont.
• Striped versus Concatenated thin metavolumes
– Depends on type of workload
• Small block versus large block
• Random versus sequential
• Reads versus writes
– Influenced by presence or absence of SRDF
– Concatenated thin metavolumes can be grown
• Frequently exploited feature in VMware environments
• Striped metas can be grown as of 5875 and SE 7.2
• Most VMware environments have small block
random read workload
– Beware of customer tests that do not represent reality
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
79
VMAX Zero Space Reclamation
• Reclaims thin pool storage by deallocating unnecessary track
groups
– Scans each track group and discards those containing all zeros
– Deallocated tracks are presented as all zeros by Symmetrix to host
Thin Pool
0000000000000000
100110010001111
• Primary use is post migration from “thick” to “thin”
– Migration performed using TimeFinder/Clone or Open Replicator for
Symmetrix
• Reclamation should be run prior to configuring any replication
relationships
– Thin devices in active TimeFinder or SRDF relationships will be
skipped
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
80
VMAX Zero Space Reclamation – Cont.
• Very useful tool in VMware environments
– Relevant if customer upgraded to vSphere
VMware Thin
Zeroedthick
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
Eagerzeroedthick
81
VMAX Virtual Provisioning
Automated Pool Rebalancing
• Rebalances allocated tracks across data devices
contained within thin pool
• Levels out imbalances caused by thin pool expansion
– Or unbinding thin devices from the thin pool
• Scheduled process that runs at given intervals
Thin Pool
– User defines imbalance as a percentage utilization difference
within the pool (user configurable 1% to 50%)
• In VMware environments, storage requirements can
increase rapidly
– Mass VM deployment (VDI, testing environments, etc…)
• Virtual environments are very dynamic
– Adding datastores, removing datastores
• Automated Pool Rebalancing maintains performance and
gives best TCO
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
82
VMware vSphere and FAST
• FAST currently operates at the sub-LUN level
– Great value in vSphere environments
– RDMs, dedicated datastores
• Considerations are the same as that for physical servers
• Configure a single standard size of device on all tiers
– Increases probability of like-sized devices being available to
perform swap
• Meta devices are moved/swapped as a complete entity
• For optimal system performance use Optimizer in concert
with FAST
– Optimizer will balance load within a tier
• Utilize EMC Virtual Storage Integrator to identify the
Storage Type
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
83
Summary
• EMC VMAX is an ideal platform for the private
cloud
• EMC VMAX provides highly available and
scalable platform for virtualized datacenters
• Future evolution of the platforms will support the
virtualized data centers of the future
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
84
Q&A
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
85
THANK YOU
EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY.
86