EMC announced Symmetrix V-Max recently which is based on virtual matrix. Symmetrix V-Max runs on latest Enginuity 5874. The 5874 plateform support Symmetricx V-Max Emulation level 121 and service processor level 102. The modular design of V-Max series Enginuity 5874 ensure flow and integrity between hardware component. Symmetrix Management Console 7.0 (SMC) integrated in service processor. SMC allows you to provision in 5 steps. Enginuity 5874 provides following enhanced feature:

RAID Virtual Architecture :-Enginuity 5874 introduces a new RAID implementation infrastructure. This enhancement increases configuration options in SRDF environments by reducing the number of mirror positions for RAID 1 and RAID 5 devices. This enhancement also provides additional configuration options, for example, allowing LUN migrations in a Concurrent or Cascaded SRDF environment. You can migrate device between raid level/tier level.

Large Volume :-Support Enginuity 5874 increases the maximum volume size to approximately 240 GB for open systems environments and 223 GB for mainframe environments. DMX-4 allows max only 65 GB hyper.

512 Hyper Volumes per Physical Drive :- Enginuity 5874 supports up to 512 hyper volumes on a single drive, twice as much as Enginuity 5773(DMX-3/4). You can improve flexibility and capacity utilization by configuring more granular volumes that more closely meet their space requirements and leave less space unused.

Autoprovisioning Groups :- Auto provisioning Groups reduce the complexity of Symmetrix device masking by allowing the creation of groups of host initiators, front-end ports and storage volumes. This provides the ability to mask storage to multiple paths instead of one path at a time, reducing the time required and potential for error for consolidated and virtualized server environments. You can script and schedule batch operation using SMC 7.0.

Concurrent Provisioning and Scripts :- Concurrent configuration changes provide the ability to run scripts concurrently instead of serially, improving system management efficiency. Uses for concurrent configuration changes include parallel device mapping, unmapping, metavolume form and dissolve from different hosts.

Dynamic Provisioning Enhancements :- Dynamic configuration changes allow the dynamic setting of the BCV and dynamic SRDF device attributes and decrease the impact to hosts I/O during the corresponding configuration manager operations.

New Management Integration :- With Enginuity 5874, the Symmetrix Management Console (SMC) and SMI-S provider are available on the Symmetrix system's Service Processor. This frees host resources and simplifies Symmetrix system management; by attaching the Service Processor to your network, you can open SMC and manage the Symmetrix system from anywhere in their enterprise.

Enhanced Virtual LUN :- With Enginuity 5874, Virtual LUN technology provides the ability to non disruptively change the physical location on disk, and/or the protection type of Symmetrix logical volumes and allows the migration of open systems, Mainframe and System i volumes to unallocated storage or to existing volumes. Organizations can respond more easily to changing business requirements when using tiered storage in the array.
Enhanced Virtual Provisioning Draining:- With Enginuity 5874, Virtual Provisioning support for draining of data devices allows the nondisruptive removal of one or more data devices from a thin device pool, without losing the data that belongs to the thin devices. This feature allows for improved capacity utilization.
Enhanced Virtual Provisioning:- Support for all RAID Types With Enginuity 5874, Virtual Provisioning no longer restricts RAID 5 data devices. Virtual Provisioning now supports all data device RAID types.

To setup Replication Manager you must perform the following tasks:

1) Verify that your environment has the minimum required storage hardware and that the hardware has a standard CLARiiON configuration.
2) Confirm that your Replication Manager hosts (server and clients) are connected to the CLARiiON environment through a LAN connection.
3) Zone the fibre switch appropriately (if applicable). The clients must be able to access all storage arrays they are using and the mount hosts must be able to access all storage in the EMC Replication Storage group.
4) Install all necessary software on each Replication Manager client , server, and mount host. Also install the appropriate firmware and software on the CLARiiON array itself.
5) Modify the clarcnfg file to represent all CLARiiON Arrays.
6) On Solaris hosts, verify that there are enough entries in the sd.conf file to support all dynamic mounts of replica LUNs.
7) Install Replication Manager Client software on each client that has an application with data from which you plan to create replicas.
8) Create a new user account on the CLARiiON and give this new account privileges as an administrator. Replication Manager can use this account to access and manipulate the CLARiiON as necessary.
9) Grant storage processor privileges through the agent tab of storage processor properties to allow aviCLI.jar commands from Replication Manager Client Control Daemon (irccd) process to reach the CLARiiON storage array.
10) Update the agent.config file on each client where Replication Manager is installed to include a link to: user system@ where is the IP address of a storage processor. You should add a link to both storage processors in each StorageWorks array that you are using.
11) Verify that you have Clone Private LUNs set up on your CLARiiON storage array. --Create a mount storage group for each mount host and make sure that storage group contains at least one LUN, and that the LUN is visible to the mount host. This LUN does not have to be dedicated or remain empty; you can use it for any purpose. However if no LUNs are visible to the Replication Manager mount host, Replication Manager will not operate.
12) Create a storage group named EMC Replication Storage and populate it with free LUNs that you created in advance for Replication Manager to use for storing replicas.
13) Start the Replication Manager Console and connect to your Replication Manager server. You must perform the following steps:
a) Register all Replication Manager clients
b) Run Discover Arrays
c) Run Configure Array for each array discovered
d) Run Discover Storage for each array discovered

The following rules and recommendations CX systems:
1)
You cannot use any of the disks 000 through 004 (enclosure 0, loop 0, disks 0-4) as a hot spare in a CX-Series system.
2) The hardware reserves several gigabytes on each of disks 000 through 004 for the cache vault and internal tables. To conserve disk space, you should avoid binding any other disk into a RAID Group that includes any of these disks. Any disk you include in a RAID Group with a cache disk 000-004 is bound to match the lower unreserved capacity, resulting in lost storage of several gigabytes per disk.
3) Each disk in the RAID Group should have the same capacity. All disks in a Group are bound to match the smallest capacity disk, and you could waste disk space. The first five drives (000-004) should always be the same size.
4) You cannot mix ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) and Fibre Channel disk drives within a RAID Group.
5) Hot spares for Fibre Channel drives must be Fibre Channel drives; ATA drives require ATA hot spares.
6) If a storage system will use disks of different speeds (for example, 10K and 15K rpm), then EMC recommends that you use disks of the same speed throughout each 15-disk enclosure. For any enclosure, the hardware allows one speed change within an enclosure, so if need be, you may use disks of differing speeds. Place the higher speed drives in the first (leftmost) drive slot(s).
7) You should always use disks of the same speed and capacity in any RAID Group.
8) Do not use ATA drives to store boot images of an operating system. You must boot host operating systems from a Fibre Channel drive.

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Sr. Solutions Architect; Expertise: - Cloud Design & Architect - Data Center Consolidation - DC/Storage Virtualization - Technology Refresh - Data Migration - SAN Refresh - Data Center Architecture More info:- diwakar@emcstorageinfo.com
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