emc online import

I covered the new announcements in detail earlier in the week, today I wanted to add a bit more detail following things I have found out today, plus I wanted to compare how the hardware specs have changed. The 7200 and 7400 have become the 7200c and 7400c, the C standing for converged and indicates the ability to provide block, file and object based storage. To accommodate providing the converged storage the 7200 and 7400 have received a bit more power. Below I compare what was the existing 7200 and 7400 models to their new converged counterparts. The way I have done the tables is by only including rows for the items that have changed, for example by the fact you don’t see the number of ports or supported SSD’s listed you know this has not changed between the existing model and the new one.

Existing 7200 v New 7200c

	Existing Spec	New Spec	Change
Processors	2 four-core 1.8 GHz	2 six-core 1.8 GHz	+2 cores /processor
Total Cache	792 GB	808 GB	+16GB
Total On-Node Cache	24 GB	40GB	+16GB
Raw Capacity (approx.)	1.2 – 400 TB	1.2 – 500 TB	+100TB

The 7200c benefits from increased capacity and power, total cache is up by 16GB plus the processor gets upgraded to a six core 1.8 Ghz model as was found in the existing 7400.

Existing 7400 v New 7400c

	Existing Spec	New Spec	Change
Total Cache	800 GB – 1564 GB	816 – 1596 GB	+32GB
Total On-Node Cache	32-64 GB	48 – 96 GB	+32GB
Number of Disk Drives	8-480 drives	8 – 576 drives	+96 Drives
Raw Capacity (approx.)	1.2 – 1200 TB	1.2 – 1600 TB	+400TB
Number of Add-on Drive Enclosures	0 – 18 enclosures	0 – 22 enclosures	+4 Enclosures

The 7400 keeps the same processor setup as before but grows significantly in terms of capacity, now able to scale to 22 encloses v 18 previously, this allows an increase in raw capacity potential of 400TB. Cache is also given a modest enhancement.

Existing 7400 v New 7440

	Existing 7400 Spec	New 7440 Spec	Change
Processors	2-4 six-core 1.8 GHz	2-4 eight-core 2.3 GHz	+2 cores, +0.5 Ghz / processor
Total Cache	800 GB – 1564 GB	1596 – 3192 GB	+1628GB
Total Flash Cache	768 GB – 1500 GB	500 – 3000 GB	+1500 GB
Total On-Node Cache	32-64 GB	96 – 192 GB	+128GB
Number of Disk Drives	8-480 drives	8 – 960 drives	+480 disks
Raw Capacity (approx.)	1.2 – 1200 TB	1.2 – 2000 TB	+800 TB
Number of Add-on Drive Enclosures	0 – 18 enclosures	0 – 38 enclosures	+20

Now we get onto the new model the 7440c, I have compared it to the specs for the 7400 so you can get a feel for the additional power this system has. The 7440c more than doubles the number of enclosures you can add to 38, to drive this extra capacity faster 8 core 2.3GHz processors as found in the 7450 are utilised, plus cache gets a big 1628GB increase taking it to a max of 3192GB. I covered the new model in detail yesterday.

EMC Online Import

The EMC Online import utility for 3Par has been available for VNX for a little while. This tool enables the online or minimally disruptive migration of data from a source VNX system to 3Par. Minimally disruptive means there is a short interruption while the host is rebooted to recognise that it’s zoning has been changed from the VNX to the 3Par, this reboot is not necessary for Linux hosts and hence that is an online migration. HP are claiming it is quicker to migrate from a VNX to 3Par v migrating to another EMC system. The new announcement was that there will now also be support for migration from EMC VMAX as well. I asked if the architecture was in place to support the migration from other vendors such as HDS and Netapp. I was advised this could be available in the future should the demand be there. So watch this space.

SSMC

The new management console, the SSMC was announced in the key notes speech earlier in the week, the additional details I have found out are:

The SSMC is enabled through installing the SSMC backend application on a server. It is then this address you point your browser at when connecting via the new SSMC web interface
Not all functionality is in the new SSMC yet, for example setting up an AO config. So in the short term there will be the need to manage systems using the traditional 3Par Management Console and the SSMC
The SSMC can support up to 16 systems
The release date for SSMC is expected to be mid December
The new SSMC can be used to manage 7000, 10,000 and V series systems and they will need to be on 3Par OS 3.1.3 or above

Converged Storage

The new converged models 7200c, 7400c and 7440c will have file based storage natively available. I went to the 3Par booth yesterday to confirm what the process was for existing 7200 and 7400 customers to get file storage. The answer was a controller replacement, this is an offline process. The process would be to shutdown, replace the first controller and then copy the settings from the remaining original controller and then replace the second controller then power the system back on. As the controller is an FRU the controller can be replaced with the disks in the controller node chassis in place. The licencing for file component will differ from the previous 3Par licencing model and be capacity based.