EMC VNX – Auto Array Configuration Backups using NavisecCLI and Powershell

Following on from yesterday’s EOY backup topic for ESXi, today I’ll document how to automate the backup of your  VNX & VNX2 Array configurations. As usual, I want this to be automated, set-and-forget and reliable. A combination of NavisecCLI and Powershell works beautifully for this. Without any doubt, the best documentation Continue Reading

EMC VNX – Installing software enablers – Naviseccli and USM.

“Enablers” in EMC parlance, are small installable files that unlock licensed features on your array. These include FAST, FAST cache, Mirrorview etc. To see which enablers are installed on your Array, you can use naviseccli : naviseccli -h arraysp ndu -list  otherwise you can check from Unisphere on the Software Continue Reading

MiTrend- Self Service Performance Analysis for EMC VNX/VMAX/Clariion

The ability to do Performance analysis is an essential requirement for an Admin. Being able to detect bottlenecks that are contributing to degraded performance can have an immediate impact in saving business $$ and remaining agile. Of equal importance is capacity planning and trending. For EMC kit, the old failthful Continue Reading

VAAI- Hear me now, believe me later

VAAI (vStorage API for Array Integration) was first introduced into vSphere in v4.1 with promises of deeper integration and control over supported storage Arrays.  Each feature (or Primitve) was designed to help us gain benefits from our Arrays. Vendors who didn’t support VAAI were frowned upon and those delivering on Continue Reading

EMC VNX – Combine NAR files. The EASY way

Anyone who has worked at length with EMC Clariion or VNX would be familiar with the good old NAR files. These are the important little files where statistics about array performance are saved/archived, so you can them open them in Analyzer and review the massive amount of performance metrics and Continue Reading

EMC Recoverpoint+VMware SRM – ‘discover Arrays’ failed.

I noticed this little gem today whilst in the process of adjusting some SRM documentation and grabbing some screenshots;                 I hadn’t received any alerts so didn’t think it was a major issue, but sounded like it’s the sort of error that may be annoying during execution Continue Reading