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 or config backup tool is […]
Unisphere can sometimes be a fickle beast, particularly with java versions and compatibility. I had a very strange issue with Unisphere a couple of weeks ago where it would not allow any logins. Regardless of trying to login to the Control Station or either of the SPs directly, using LDAP, local or global users, the […]
“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 tab under “System Properties”. Many […]
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 ‘Analyzer’ application is the bread […]
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 it heralded. These Primitives can be […]
This weeks HEADS UP ! and this time for us VNX2 users, courtesy of EMC TA email Seeing “Potential….Data Loss” in any ETA for equipment I admin raises my “Be Alert but not alarmed” counter. Full Release here This only affects upgrades to 05.33.000.5.074 which is the latest (Oct) Block OE and only if the “NDU […]
This weeks HEADS UP ! and this time for us VNX2 users, courtesy of EMC TA email Seeing “Potential….Data Loss” in any ETA for equipment I admin raises my “Be Alert but not alarmed” counter. Full Release here This only affects upgrades to 05.33.000.5.074 which is the latest (Oct) Block OE and only if the “NDU […]
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 data stats from your array. […]
[crayon-6a543ff59e8f1827225723/] 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 of a Recovery plan. In […]
My ever reliable EMC TAM emailed me recently to give me a heads up regarding a potential issue with one of our VNX arrays. This particular array was overdue for an upgrade anyway, but has special change control requirements. It affects VNX1 series arrays that have particular 300GB & 600GB 15K SAS drives with the […]