EMC Storage Product Knowledge Sharing

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...

A RAID is a redundant array of independent disks (originally redundant array of inexpensive disks). RAID is a way of storing the same data in different places (thus, redundantly) on multiple hard disks. By placing data on multiple disks, I/O (input/output) operations can overlap in a balanced way, which improves performance. Since multiple disks increases the mean time between failures (MTBF), storing data redundantly also increases fault tolerance.A RAID appears to the operating system as a single logical hard disk. RAID employs...

This is new series of Symmetrix family with many new features a high performance, DMX (Direct Matrix Architecture). I will discuss what DMX Architecture is later.There are two models in DMX-4 series the DMX-4 and the DMX-4 950. DMX-4 supports full connectivity to open system and mainframe hosts like ESCON and FICON.The DMX-4 950 represents a lower entry point for DMX technology providing open system connectivity with FICON connection for mainframe hosts.The DMX-4 is the world’s largest high end storage array, allowing configure...

In normal customer environment, You do day to day activity like allocation storage to different Operating System. If you do not follow best practice then you will see the host facing performance issue. Because in SAN environment, there are so many things to be consider before we present any SAN storage to any HOST. Now, I am discussing what is the best practice for DMX/SYMM? First understand Customer requirement like what application they are running, what is protection level like DMX support RAID 1/0.RAID 5(3+1) , RAID 5(7+1)...

Most of time you end up thinking that we had 500 GB disk but it finish without utlizing full capacity. Answer for this that whatever size you buy you do not get full amount of size becuase DMX size calculation on cylinder basis. Lets understand how DMX calculation size of disk:1) How DMX 2 and Symmetrix Covert cylinder to GB?GB = Cylinders * 15 * 64 * 512 divided by 1024 * 1024 * 1024for example 18570 cylinders is 8.5 GB2) How DMX 2 and Symmetrix Covert GB to cylinder?Cylinders = GB / 15 / 64 / 512 then multiply result by 1024*1024*10243)...

EMC on Root Cause Analysis Moves into the Storage Domain...