Month: September 2014

EMC XtremIO – Dedupe: Replace a VMAX?

XTremIO I am currently testing my EMC XtremIO PoC system with EMC.  One of the great benefits of XtremIO is the Deduplication feature, which at a minimum will be 10:1, so the experts tell me and will be even better in version 3.0.  My current Symmetrix VMAX configurations are 250TB and 350TB of tiered SSD, 15KFC and SATA storage for 2 sites.  So assuming a 10:1 dedupe ratio, could I replace my two Symmetrix VMAX solutions with two XtremIO systems of 2 X-bricks (with 20TB model)?  It almost seems too good to be true!  From a price perspective, the XtremIO cost would be slightly cheaper than the VMAX (after the highly combative process of vendor bashing, sorry – negotiation, in my region) and from a space perspective 1/3rd the size (with SAN Fabric).  No need to state the obvious about performance.

Continue reading EMC XtremIO – Dedupe: Replace a VMAX?

EMC XtremIO – Performance Testing

XTremIO Today I completed the initial performance testing of my EMC XtremIO PoC system.  I wanted to take a shot at it myself before the EMC SMEs come in to tune and optimise the configuration.  In a single word, “Wow!”  This is the first time I have witnessed 400,000 IOPS in any kind of enterprise lab.  I look forward to seeing what additional tricks the experts can make my “X-bricks” perform. Continue reading EMC XtremIO – Performance Testing

EMC Symmetrix VMAX – Provisioning a LUN

This post covers how to provision a LUN (less than 239GB) for vSphere on an EMC Symmetrix VMAX using the Unisphere for VMAX GUI.  The basic architecture of the VMAX is covered here.  If you want to build LUNs greater than 238GB, you follow the same procedure, but with the additional step of creating a “Meta Volume” (multiple TDEVs bound to a single logical volume). Continue reading EMC Symmetrix VMAX – Provisioning a LUN