EMC Storage Product Knowledge Sharing

The Clariion Formats the disks in Blocks. Each Block written out to the disk is 520 bytes in size. Of the 520 bytes, 512 bytes is used to store the actual DATA written to the block. The remaining 8 bytes per block is used by the Clariion to store System Information, such as a Timestamp, Parity Information, Checksum Data. Element Size – The Element Size of a disk is determined when a LUN is bound to the RAID Group. In previous versions of...

In order to use the control functions of Solutions Enabler, you must create device groups and add/associate Symmetrix devices with the group. The following example shows how to create a device group, add a standard device to it and associate two BCV devices to the group.The following commands will create a device group using the default type (regular). Next we will add a device to the device group and assign it a logical name. Then we associate two BCV devices with the device group so we can switch back and forth with the BCV...

EMC has traditionally protected failing drives using Dynamic Spares. A Dynamic Spare will take a copy of the data from a failing drive and act as a temporary mirror of the data until the drive can be replaced. The data will then be copied back to the new drive at which point the Dynamic Spare will return the spare drive pool. Two copy processes are required one to copy data to the Dynamic Spare and one to copy data back to the new drive. The copy process may impact performance and, since the Dynamic Spare takes a mirror position,...

The following Ten Rules provided by Brocade for zoning:Rule 1: Type of Zoning (Hard, Soft, Hardware Enforced, Soft Porting) – If security is apriority, then a Hard Zone-based architecture coupled with Hardware Enforcement isrecommendedRule 2: Use of Aliases – Aliases are optional with zoning. Using aliases should force somestructure when defining your zones. Aliases will also aid future administrators of the zonedfabric. Structure is the word that comes to mind here.Rule 3: Does the site need an extra level of security that...

An LSAN is a Logical Storage Area Network that spans multiple Physical fabrics and allows specified devices from these autonomous fabrics to communicate with each other without merging the physical fabrics. In other word, A logical network that spans multiple physical fabrics. It allows specified devices from the autonomous fabric to communicate with each other using a FC router without merging the physical fabrics.- A LSAN zone is a traditional zone with a special naming convention.- Zone names must start...

PowerPath Migration Enabler is a host-based software product that enables other technologies, such as array-based replication and virtualization, to eliminate -application downtime during data migrations or virtualization implementations. PowerPath Migration Enabler allows EMC Open Replicator for Symmetrix and EMC Invista customers to eliminate downtime during data migrations from EMC storage to Symmetrix, and during virtualized deployments to Invista.. PowerPath Migration Enabler—which leverages the same underlying technology...

Conceptually, even operationally, SRDF is very similar to Timefinder. About the only difference is that SRDF works across Symms; while Timefinder works internally to one Symm.That difference, intersymm vs intrasym, means that SRDF operations can cover quite a bit of ground geographically. With the advent of geographically separated symms, the integrity of the data from one symm to the other becomes a concern. EMC has a number of operational modes in which the SRDF operates. The choice between these operational modes is a balancing...

EMC announce Flash Drive support in CX-4 (A new generation CLARiiON) and DMX-4. EMC started supporting TIER 0 with Flash Drive. Flash drives provide maximum performance for latency sensitive applications. Flash drives, also referred to as solid state drives (SSD), contain no moving parts and appear as standard Fibre Channel drives to existing Symmetrix management tools, allowing administrators to manage tier 0 without special processes or custom tools. Tier 0 Flash storage is ideally suited for applications with high transaction...

Everybody talks about Virtualization like Server Based virtualization, Host Based Virtualization and now EMC launch EMC Invista ( Probably First Network Virtualization product) Product in May, 2005. EMC Invista leverages intelligent SAN switches to deploy network-based, block-level storage virtualization. Invista takes advantage of specialized processing power in intelligent switches to perform I/O redirection at wire speed. Its revolutionary split-path architecture places the virtualization intelligence in the network, where...

Single-initiator zoning rule :--Each HBA port must be in a separate zone that contains it and the SP ports with which it communicates. EMC recommends single-initiator zoning as a best practice.Fibre Channel fan-in rule:--A server can be zoned to a maximum of 4 storage systems.Fibre Channel fan-out rule:-The Navisphere software license determines the number of servers you can connect to a CX3-10c, CX3-20c,CX3-20f, CX3-40c, CX3-40f, or CX3-80 storage systems. The maximum number of connections between servers and a storage system...

LUN to bind Restrictions and recommendations ----------- Any LUN You can bind only unbound disk modules. All disk modules in a must have the same capacity to fully use the modules' storage space. --- In AX-series storage systems, binding disks into LUNs is not supported. RAID 5 - You must bind a minimum of three and no more than sixteen disk modules. We recommend you bind five modules for more efficient use of disk space. In a storage system with SCSI disks, you should use modules...

The global reserved LUN pool works with replication software, such as SnapView, SAN Copy, and MirrorView/A to store data or information required to complete a replication task. The reserved LUN pool consists of one or more private LUNs. The LUN becomes private when you add it to the reserved LUN pool. Since the LUNs in the reserved LUN pool are private LUNs, they cannot belong to storage groups and a server cannot perform I/O to them.Before starting a replication task, the reserved LUN pool must contain at least one LUN for...

Lets talk about SRDF feature in DMX for disaster recovery/remote replication/data migration. In today’s business environment it is imperative to have the necessary equipment and processes in place to meet stringent service-level requirements. Downtime is no longer an option. This means you may need to remotely replicate your business data to ensure availability. Remote data replication is the most challenging of all disaster recovery activities. Without the right solution it can be complex, error prone, labor intensive, and...

TimeFinder/Clone creates full-volume copies of production data, allowing you to run simultaneous tasks in parallel on Symmetrix systems. In addition to real-time, nondisruptive backup and restore, TimeFinder/Clone is used to compress the cycle time for such processes as application testing, software development, and loading or updating a data warehouse. This significantly increases efficiency and productivity while maintaining continuous support for the production needs of the enterprise.¨ Ability to protect Clone...

AX150 :-Dual storage processor enclosure with Fibre-Channel interface to host and SATA-2 disks. AX150i :-Dual storage processor enclosure with iSCSI interface to host and SATA-2 disks. AX100 :- Dual storage processor enclosure with Fibre-Channel interface to host and SATA-1 disks.AX100SCSingle storage processor enclosure with Fibre-Channel interface to host and SATA-1 disks.AX100iDual storage processor enclosure with iSCSI interface to host and SATA-1 disks.AX100SCiSingle storage processor enclosure with iSCSI interface to...

RAID 6 Protection RAID 6 was implemented to provide superior data protection, tolerating up to two drive failures in the same RAID group. Other RAID protection schemes, such as mirroring (RAID 1), RAID S, and RAID 5, protect a system from a single drive failure in a RAID group.RAID 6 provides this extra level of protection while keeping the same dollar cost per megabyte of usable storage as RAID 5 configurations. Although two parity drives are required for RAID 6, the same ratio of data to parity drives is consistent. For example,...

We have storage array product from different vendor. Everyone talkes about active-active and active-passive device technology. With different types of storage arrays and host connection types, it is important to understand the difference between active-active and active-passive devices. Here is short explanation of the differences:Active-active (for example, Symmetrix arrays)In an active-active storage system, if there are multiple interfaces to a logical device, they all provide equal access to the logical device. Active-active...

We have discussed regarding Symmetric DMX-3. Lets talk about Symmetrix Device. DMX-3 system applies a high degree of virtualization between what host sees and the actual disk drives. This device has logical volume address that the host can address. Let me clear that “A symmetrix Device is not a physical disk.” Before actually hosts see the symmetrix device, you need to define path means mapping the devices to Front-end director and then you need to set FA-PORT attribute for specific Host. Let not discuss configuration details...

Most of user asked me what are basic differences between EMC Clone/Mirror/Snapshot? This is really confusing terminology because most of things will be same logically.Only thing change that is implementation and purpose of uses. I am trying to write basic and common differences:1) A clone is a full copy of data in a source LUN. A snapshot is a point-in time "virtual" copy that does not occupy any disk space.2) A snapshot can be created or destroyed in seconds, unlike a clone or mirror. A clone, for example, can take minutes...

As we know that we have different type of RAID but all the raid type are not suitable for the all application. We select raid type depending on the application and IO load/Usages. Actually there are so many factor involved before you select suitable raid type for any application. I am trying to give brief idea in order to select best raid type for any application. You can select raid type depending on your environment.When to Use RAID 5RAID 5 is favored for messaging, data mining, medium-performance media serving, and RDBMS...

Registering Fibre Channel HBAs or iSCSI NICs with the storage system enables the storage system to see the HBAs or NICs. To register HBAs or NICs with the storage system, you will start or restart the Navisphere Agent on the host.Microsoft WindowsTo register the host’s HBAs with the storage system, start the Navisphere Agent as follows:1. On the Windows host, right click My Computer and select Manage.2. Click Services and Applications and then click Services.3. Find EMC Navisphere Agent service.4. If already...

I have been posting article related to CLARiiON recently. Lets talk about DMX Series. It is the most popular storage array from EMC. To manage DMX we have tool called ECC ( EMC Control Center, SMC and SYMCLI). Let me first explain what is gatekeeper and what is use?To perform software operations on the Symmetrix, we use the low level SCSI command. To send SCSI commands to the Symmetrix, we need to open a device. We refer to the device we open as a gatekeeper. Symmetrix gatekeepers provide communication paths into the Symmetrix...

If you have a multihomed host and are running like :· IBM AIX,· HP-UX,· Linux,· Solaris,· VMware ESX Server (2.5.0 or later), or· Microsoft Windowsyou must create a parameter file for Navisphere Agent, named agentID.txtAbout the agentID.txt file:This file, agentID.txt (case sensitive), ensures that the Navisphere Agent binds to the correct HBA/NIC for registration and therefore registers the host with the correct storage system. The agentID.txt file must contain the following two lines:Line1: Fully-qualified hostname of the...

We have discussed about CLARiiON. How to create LUN,RAID Group etc. before I shold discuss about adding storage to host. I must discuss about Navisphere Host agent. This is most important service/daemon which runs on host and communicate with CLARiiON. Without Host agent you can not resgister host with storage group automatically. Then if you want register host with Navishere Host agent then you need to register manually.The Host Agent registers the server’s HBA (host bus adapter) with the attached storage system when the Agent...

You can change the storage system password in Navisphere Manager as follows:1. Open Navisphere Manager2. Click Tools > Security > Change Password.3. In the Change Password window, enter the old (current) password in the Old Password text box.4. Enter the new password in the New Password text box and then enter it again in the Confirm New Password text box.5. Click OK to apply the new password or Cancel to keep the current password.6. In the confirmation popup, click either Yes to change the password or No to cancel the...

I have discussed about lab exercise for Storage Administration purpose, Now, Lets talk about something technical. You understand that we can create Raid 5 protected LUN means we will use striping. So, How will you calculate stripe size of LUN.Before calculating the stripe size of data in Clariion , we have discussed about how many disks make up the Raid Group, as well as the Raid Type.I have two examples of Stripe Size of a LUN. The above...

CLARiiON Lab Exercise-IIOnce again welcome to CLARiiON Lab Exercise II. Today I will be demonstrating about RAID Group creation and LUN binding on CX Frame. we have understand the storage allocation using Allocation Wizard। But some times host is not registered on HBA is not logged in। Then you can not run the storage allocation wizard. It will fail to allocate storage. Then you need to do step by step. So, First step is create RAID Group...

EMC Brings Flash Drives in DMX-4 Frame I have attended EMC Live classroom for new series of symmetrix DMX-4. I thought to share depth new architectural knowledge to you all.EMC made a important announcement with respect to its 73 GB and 146 GB flash drives or solid state drives (SSD). Flash Drives and SSD represent a new solid-state storage tier, “tier 0”, for symmetrix DMX-4. In addition to that EMC will offer Virtual Provisioning for Symmetrix 3 and 4 as well 1 TB SATA II drives.With this announcement EMC became first storage...

I am going to demonstrate full LAB exercise of CLARiiON. If anybody interested to any specific LAB exercise please send me mail I will try to help and give LAB exercise. There are many exercise like:1) Create RAID Group2) Bind the LUN 3) Create Storage Group4) Register the Host5) Present LUN to Host6) Create Meta LUN etc.I will try to cover all the exercise including if you need anything extra exercise. Very Easy way to allocate the storage...