back to article EMC forges secret VMAXe arrray

EMC's VMAXe box – an affordable and self-tuning entry-level VMAX, providing tier one storage features – has been stealthily released inside EMC, with a public unveiling planned for mid-July. Today, we had a peek behind the curtain. EMC says the box it's optimised for virtual computing. VMAXe, fitting below VMAX but above the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    No RSA integration?

    Interstingly another big iron from EMC.

    Can we upgrade VNXe to VNX to VMAXe to VMAX?

    All are impossible upgrades as usual. No mention of ever touted RSA integration. Scared of V7000 and XIV this array is coming up looks like...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      You have reached failure at epic levels.

      Can XIV scale to even the size that the VMAXe goes to? From the XIV fact sheet downloaded from IBM today it would appear to support 6x more drives than the XIV does. In fact the smallest VMAXe unit supports 25% more drives than the largest XIV can (240 vs 180). How about cache then? XIV supports upto 120GB of cache, the VMAXe 384GB.

      OK, we know the XIV can't get there how about the V7000 then. Again from IBM's own spec sheet on their page today, the clustered system maxes at 480 drives, half what the VMAXe goes to (960). Maybe it's the one with lots of cache then... whoops again the clustered system goes only upto 32GB, the VMAXe can have 12x more cache than the V7000 (in fact the smallest VMAXe has 3x more than the largest V7000 cluster).

      Into nit picking levels... also the VMAXe supports more FC ports, more 1GB and more 10GB ports than either system.

      If you are going to complain about VMAXe scaling and suggest other types of arrays then maybe you should use examples that go bigger than the VMAXe. I don't think I've seen a better application of "Epic FAIL" icon that yours, but I don't think you meant it for your own post.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      RSA for VMAX

      While EMC are probably not going to announce anything related to RSA as a benefit at the moment, they've been selling PowerPath RSA for years for even the old CLARiiON arrays. They're not ending that product; it will still be available for VMAX and VMAXe.

      That said, you're actually considering RSA integration a deal breaker? Maybe you should read what's been going on with some large RSA customers lately.

      As the other guy said, your FAIL icon fits you.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    well tried - Shrunken VMAX

    Oh yes!

    It's known that EMC targets marketshare than solving customers issues. RSA public non-admittance tells it all.

    If not losing traction to XIV, why VMAXe now?

    Why not simple SAS drives supported on VMAXe?

    Why not provide simple upgrade from VMAXe to VMAX?

    Why is FAST-VP and Thin Provisioning default?

    Looks to me EMC VMAXe trying to be like a XIV/V7000 or even 3PAR to certain extent.

    You don't need Cache when you can deliver performance. Love to hear the benchmark results. Hopefully not again like 4VNX arrays for specsfs benchmarks and get blown away by Huawei.

    Some of the secret news like Isilon for Apple DC and VMAXe all looks an deliberate attempt to create news. Honestly with lots of respect, I would love to see EMC with same technical commitment 10 years ago.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Cache & performance.

      "You don't need Cache when you can deliver performance."

      Hmmmm, if there's no cache then all you've got is a bunch of disks. Lots of disks, even solid state devices masquerading as disks.

      Now, tomorrow, remind me to call Dell and ask how I can futureproof my PV-MD3220i purchase with upgrades thru an Equalogic PS box thru a Compellant box & then I'll check with HP about P4000 to P6000/EVA to 3PAR (or even a XP20000).

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Can we upgrade VNXe to VNX to VMAXe to VMAX?

    That's actually a fair question.

    How many different productlines do EMC have - and how many of them are compatible?

    I know of a local company having the Celerra "unified system" - don't recall the actual product/marketing-bundle name, but its the bundle with Clariion storage and Celerra gateways.

    Been buying loads of diskshelves up until a few months ago. Just now discovered that the new Celerra "unified system/marketing bundle" refresh called VNX requires a forklift upgrade, as their perfectly fine 3 month old Fibrechannel diskshelves (quite expensive) aren't supported anymore.

    I believe they will be pretty interested in upgrade and refresh-paths on any new expensive EMC gear before moving forward. Or might just buy something else.... After all, there really are vendors out there with a clear strategy on upgrades and unified storage solution.

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