Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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A: The Symmetrix V-Max can scale to support 2400 physical drives with 512 hypers
(slices) per drive.
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Q: how is the hardware within the engine upgraded? What happens if an engine fails?
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A: There is a bin file as before, but it is simpler. Also, only a small number of changes
require the bin file. Most configuration tasks can be done dynamically and concurrently.
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Q: What initiates and facilitates the data movement ? How do you encapsulate business rules
within the array ?
A: FAST data movement can be manual or automatic using policies to set the conditions
on when and how the changes may take place.
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Q: What about migrations between DMX legacy platforms and new V-MAX?
A: There are several options for migrations between DMX and V-Max - Open Replicator,
SRDF/DM among others.
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A: VLUN support for movement of data between thin pools is planned for a future version
of Enginuity.
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A: EMC plans to add support for 8 Gbps FC and FICON later in 2009. Today the V-Max
supports 4 Gbps FC and FICON.
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Q: Can virtual lun technology be used to migrate virtual provisioned luns between pools?
A: You cannot currently use the virtual LUN capability to migrate data between virtually
provisioned pools. This support is planned for the future.
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A: Yes, SRDF for replication and/or migration is supported between V-Max and DMX,
depending on the Enginuity version of the DMX
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A: Correct, FAST moves data across tiers by policy as defined by the storage
administrator.
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Q: How is auto-provisioning different from storage groups?
A: Autoprovisioning works on host initiator port, storage front end ports and storage
devices, enabling any host port to be connected through any front end port to any storage device
quickly and easily.
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Q: what is the min/max number of front end ports and their speeds?
A: Minimum number of front end ports is 16. Maximum is currently 128. FC and FICON
are 4 Gbps, with 8 Gbps planned for later this year. V-Max also supports 1 Gbps Ethernet for
iSCSI and SRDF connections.
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Q: Are you able to fully control the information that gets migrated between tiers?
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Q: Can the V-MAX attach to external storage subsystems ? from different manufacturers?
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Q: why is srdf data migration not supported when the source dmx is on 5771 or 5772
A: DMX to V-Max SRDF migration requires 5773 on the DMX. Open Replicator can be
used for other versions.
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A: up to 128 physical initiators are supported without RPQ. An RPQ is required for
greater than 128 initiators.
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Q: What are the criteria for FAST to move storage from a fast tier disk to a lower tier disk?
A: Policy criteria includes the status of the Storage Group data (heavily or seldom
accessed), Priority of the Storage Group, and the mix of devices contained with the storage group
e.g. EFD, FC or SATA
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Q: While doing migration between legacy DMX and V-Max is there any issues related to the track
size?
A: The track size in the V-Max remains the same as in DMX-3 and DMX-4.
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A: Yes. FAST operates across the entire array on all tiers of storage. The engines act
together as one system.
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A: You have choices of how you want to set up your tiers. Symmetrix supports flash
drives, FC and SATA drives in any RAID protection type, enabling flexible cost effective storage
tiering.
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Q: how does the fabric fit in between vmware hosts and the vmax?
A: The VMWare hosts see the V-Max array just as they see the DMX-4. There is no
awareness outside of the array that there is an internal fabric as part of the architecture
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Q: is SAN Copy the option to move all my clarion data to VMAX or are we looking at any better
replication product ???
A: Open Replicator with PowerPath Migration enabler may be a better solution depending
on your environment
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A: Yes, replication via SRDF/S is supported to the latest Enginuity version in each DMX
3/4 platform. See eLab for details.
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Q: Is the requirement for 5 drives per DAE for the Direct connect System bays and 4 for the daisy
chain bays the vault drives and sparing?
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Q: Will the size of symmetrix devices be calculated by cylinder (960KB) or block size now?
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Q: I'm not able to visualize this system in my mind...Please correct me if the following perception
is wrong: With V-Max, you've added a 'V-Max Engine' to the traditional Symm architecture
building blocks...with which you can scale up by essentially cascadin
A: Correct, a V-Max engine is a grouping of 2 front end boards, 2 disk adaptors, and two
mirrored memory units. The V-Max scales by adding engines.
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Q: In the original announcement, there were theoretical statements made about ajoining multiple
V-Max arrays / engines. Can you share "theoretically" how those arrays could be
interconnected?
A: Engines are planned to be connected spanning longer distances (say 100 to 200
meters) within a data center using optical interconnects. This is a planned future option.
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Q: what's the major advantage of V-max vs. Clariion for medium usage ?
A: Symmetrix V-Max is a high end array, while CLARiiON is a mid-tier array. Symmetrix
leads the high end market with advanced business continuity solutions for consolidated
workloads. CLARiiON leads the mid-tier market and would be the right choice for a midtier
product. Symmetrix is a tiered storage system, so it can also economically be used for all tiers in
a tiered environment..
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Q: When talking about virutal data center, how about integration with other vendors?
A: We support integration with other storage vendors to migrate data to a V-Max via
Open Replicator
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Q: Can the V-Max microcode be upgraded without impacting attached clients from a variety of
accounts? I.e., upgrades to engines without impacting clients/performance?
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Q: What are the criteria in the software / policy that moving data from Tier1 to for example tier 2
storage is based on? Is it IOPS based?
A: FAST software policy will frequently be IOPS based, for example moving rarely
accessed data to inexpensive SATA drives, but it can also be other policies such as time based
or service level based. It is very flexible.
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Q: Will the Virtual LUN, Virtual Provisioning, Virtual Matrix Architecture be rolled out to the
Clariion line?
A: Clariion has Virtual LUN and Virtual Provisioning today. The VMax architecture is
unique to Symmetrix.
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Q: Do we have ISCSI ?
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A: FAST is completely automatic. However, it can also run in a special "advisor" mode if
an administrator wants to approve each move. In advisor mode the array will identify data to be
move and propose the movement through a GUI.
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Q: What are the primary differences between the V-Max and the DMX-4? They appear quite
similar in capacity/connectivity.
A: DMX is industry leading for today's physical data center environments, V-Max has
capabilities purpose built for highly virtual environments
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A: I believe that your question is about thick to thin data migrations. These can be
accomplished in a variety of ways. Release 5.3 of Powerpath Migration Enabler has thick to thin
migration capability. You can also use Symantec Smartmove if you use VxFS
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Q: Which soft V-Max will use - SMC or new ?
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Q: Are you planning to add tiered storage migration instrument that is used by V-max in DMX4?
A: Fully Automated Tiered Storage (FAST) features are planned for Symmetrix DMX-4
and Symmetrix V-Max.
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Q: What timeframe are we projecting to be able to use Virtual LUN to migrate Virtual Provisioning
devices?
A: VLUN will support movement of data between thin pools in a future version of
Enginuity.
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A: The intent of the architecture is to scale out, future versions will leverage this
capability.
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Q: is there a plan to support other levels of microcode for SRDF migrations to the V-Max in the
future? The 5773 restriction takes out srdf from all DMX1/2/3K machines
A: DMX 1 and 2 can be migrated to V-Max via SRDF using Enginuity 5671, and DMX-3
and 4 via 5773.
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Q: Is it possible to run half of the engines in V-Max with one enginuity version while the other half
of engines are upgraded to different enginuity version for testing purposes for example?
A: No. At this time a V-Max system must run on a single version of Enginuity.
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Q: will all symcli command work the same? I am thinking about scripts
A: Yes, symcli is available for V-Max. Existing scripting can be used on Symmetrix V-
Max.
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Q: are we still working with memory rings with the QoS product?
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Q: Wondering if I still need to deal with Bin Files, and spindle count for any type of applications
load? Trying to assess how much real work I need to do to provision storage.
A: While the bin file still exists, we have worked to make many configuration changes
NOT require bin file modifications, as well as allowing concurrent configuration changes.
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Q: recent flash drive limits throughput to 2G...are all VMax flash drive 4Gb
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Q: Does the new autoprovisioning feature of engenuity 5874 become available to DMX-3/4
customers by upgrade or will it remain unique for V-Max customers ?
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Q: What are the criteria in the software / policy that moving data from Tier1 to for example tier 2
storage is based on? Is it IOPS based?
A: Moving data from tier 1 to tier 2 can be done manually, or using FAST it can be done
according to different types of polices including time or IOPS.
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Q: when you say that a VMAX engine is a grouping of 2 FE and 2 BE cards & 2 memory, how
much cards can I scale up to?
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Q: I'm seeing the V-Max engine as something very similar to a Clariion SP is this a wrong
correlation?
A: V-Max and CLARiiON share a basic Intel processing building block. V-Max uses
different configurations and adds custom ASIC functionality to implement the virtual matrix,
enabling many engines to act as one system through the Enginuity operating environment.
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A: V-Max machines today can be linked together via Open Replicator, SRDF and with
PowerPath Migration Enabler (PPME), data can be moved from one system to another with NO
application disruption.
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Q: Does it have the same 24 card slot? and applies the Rule of 17 or something?
A: No, the V-Max does not contain card slots, these are replaced by the V-Max Engines
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Q: can disk adaptors of one engine access all disks at the back
A: Yes, all disk adaptors have access to all disks, via the Virtual Matrix.
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A: EMC Invista can virtualize heterogeneous arrays. The primary use case for Invista in
conjunction with Symmetrix V-Max is enabling non-disruptive migration of data from
heterogeneous arrays to V-Max.
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Q: So, there is a great simplification in storage provision: a pool of VMs is mapped to a pool of
LUNs using all the available data paths. (if I remember correctly). How can I control the access to
LUNs from physical and virtual hosts?
A: Masking views are created by combining an initiator group (containing HBAs), a port
group (containing FE ports) and a storage group (containing volumes).
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Q: i missed half of the session , sry for this question ... how much cache can use a device up to ?
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A: Yes, the SYMCLI interface is the same, with the addition of new commands -
symaccess for Auto-provisioning and symmigrate for Virtual LUN.
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A: No, SYMCLI or SMC are both great tools. The user has choice. SYMCLI is often used
to manage many arrays at once.
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Q: Now SMC comes with service processor, what all applications we can load other than SMC in
service processor
A: No apps can be installed by the user. SMC is loaded on the SP at the factory.
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Q: These huge array's make future tech refresh projects using SRDF to migrate between entire
array's very complex. Is any of the new technology evolving to make migrations between V-MAX
and future array versions easier?
A: Actually, having a fewer number of arrays in the data center can help simplify
migration planning and execution. EMC recognizes the challenges of migrations and is working to
address them. Stay tuned for migration simplification updates at EMC World!.
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Q: Can we use ECC to manage V-Max too?
Q: how would provisionning be done at the user level? is it through LVM? or symcli?or?
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Q: is FAST going to move data up and down, from tiers as needed? let's say from Tier 1 to Tier 3
and then From tier 3 to Tier1 automatically?
A: Yes, FAST will automatically identify what data required to be moved either up or down in the
tier structure of the array.
There are considerable advantages in optimization and savings in efficiency-- for example.
Potentially the majority of data will be moved to inexpensive SATA drives and the minority of the
most critical data will be placed in a higher tier e.g. FC or EFD .
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A: SRDF is supported from the latest Enginuity per platform (for DMX 1/2 that is 5671 for
migration to V-Max and 5773 for replication with DMX3/4 to V-Max)
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Q: Is there a one to one relationship with the physcial disk and engine? or can two hypers on one
physical be part of two engines ?
A: Each engine can service request for disks connected to another engine through the
Virtual Matrix architecture
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Q: FAST it’s a new licence purchase or it a default functionality? Is this tool available at this
moment?
A: FAST is planned for availability later this year. License policies will be provided as
part of the GA announcement.
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Q: Can I migrate from IBM ESS or HPXP to V-Max without going through a host?
A: Yes - you can migrate from an IBM ESS or HP XP using Open Replicator to a V-Max.
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Q: Are some V-Max hardware customer serviceable like the CX4s?
A: No.
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Q: Does each VMAX engine have access to all of the physical disks or is it necessary to specify
which physical disks pair with VMAX engines?
A: Each V-Max engine has access to all the physical disks via the Virtual Matrix.
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Q: Is there any other tool, other than power path migration enabler to do thick to thin
conversions?
A: Yes, in addition to PPME, if you are a Symantec filesystem customer, you can use
Smartmove. At EMC World, we will have a presentation with PPME details for this capability, and
there will also be a Smartmove paper available.
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Q: Why would you use Dynamic Cache Partitioning with VMAX? It seems that you assign cache
to a VMAX Engine.
A: Cache is still global within V-Max and shared and mirrored across engines. Therefore,
cache partitioning has all the advantages on V-Max too
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Q: "There are up to 8 front end ports per Engine" - Is it physical or virtual? Does this mean that
we 1 engine per FA card?
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Q: thanks. So, how much impact this constant data mobility means to my machine performance?
A: The V-Max system is specifically designed to minimize any adverse performance
impact from data movement. VLUN-2 capability significantly increases the concurrent move
operations which means that moving data to a lower or higher tier can be scheduled and
completed within a specific time window avoiding peak period demand.
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Q: What host interfaces are available? Fibre Channel 4Gbps, of cause. Fibre Channel 8 Gbps in
near future. How about InfiniBand or similar high-speed protocols?
A: V-Max also has 4 Gbps FICON and 1 Gpbs Ethernet & iSCSI. New options are
continuously considered for release based upon market demand.
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Q: When FAST moves the stale data to tier3 will it automatically defragment the tier1 in order to
minimize head seeks?
A: We believe when FAST is used with thin devices, this will deliver no advantage. We
do not plan to defrag 'thick' devices.
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Q: Will there be any configurations specifically for SRDF/EDP? I.e., lots of cache, few disks?
A: The rules for minimum drive counts in the Symmetrix system using Enginuity 5874
must be followed, as well as the best practice configuration rules for SRDF/S and SRDF/A apply
for SRDF/EDP including those that apply to configuring cache.
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A: Yes
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Q: Can I force FAST to move data via symcli? If I will be issuing data commands that need SSD
for example and I want to pre-emptively move the data?
A: In user approved mode, FAST will recommended candidate Storage Devices for
relocation. The actual movement may be completed manually via CLI utilizing VLUN2
mechanism.
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Q: Does the virtual matrix comprise multiple arrays? If so, can FAST move date between them? If
so, what is the connection?
A: The virtual matrix acts as a single array. FAST works between all engines in the array.
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Q: so, thinking on the DMX4 and prior architectures... How does an engine ensures best
performance for a subset of spindles? Before it was done on DA pairs, how about now?
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Q: So, thinking on the DMX4 and prior architectures... How does an engine ensures best
performance for a subset of spindles? Before it was done on DA pairs, how about now?
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Q: It seems the virtual Matrix becomes the central point of the V-Max. what about consistency
technology? Is it supported across all?
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Q: Will I be able to leverage lower cost arrays (clariion for example) for the SATA storage and
leave the high end storage in the symm?
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A: Just as before!
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A: Maximum of 8 engines
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Q: Will the Virtual LUN, Virtual Provisioning, Virtual Matrix Architecture be rolled out to the
Clariion line?
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Q: Are you going to run SPC tests on V-MAX to see real performance of the system. Your
competitors do it.
A: We have real-world performance information available. See your local SPEED guru for
information. SPC measures disk performance in a non-real environment. It is not a measure of
how an array performs in a real high end environment. There are no plans to run SPC
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A: Not sure of what you are asking but a single engine V-Max can be an EDP source,
bunker or target
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Q: with a maximum of eight engines am I still restricted to 2400 physical drives? If I need more
drives than that will I need a 9th engine by itself?
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Q: so, what's the maximum # of spindles I can handle before I need another "Engine"?
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Q: Does the Virtual LUN move up and down in tier hierarchy as a whole?
A: Virtual LUN allows you to move to a different RAID or disk type - up or down is your
choice
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Q: just to confirm, for 8 engines with 512GB cache...is 512 the number after mirror or before
mirror?
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A: Yes, SRDF will use port 0 on the SRDF director, and port 1 may not be used.
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Q: Is there 8 physical FE ports per engine or is this per director that would egual 16 per engine.
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A: We have reference architectures and proven solutions for different applications. There
are performance guidelines to scale V-Max Engines to meet performance requirements of
different applications.
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Q: My question was about FAST - can the different data of one VLUN be placed on different
media depending of usage patterns. Sorry for my English wording...
A: Yes that is the goal of FAST. Automated movement (or recommendations) of data
based on usage
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A: The minimum configuration of the V-Max is 48 disks, and one engine. A V-Max engine
is fully fault tolerant.