Windows Server 2012 R2 active directory lab feat. powershell

This post is demonstrating the required powershell commands to install and configure Windows Server 2012 R2 (including “core”) with active directory domain services. It is more of a reference to quickly install a domain server in your lab and furthermore the first of a few loosely coupled posts to install […]

Isilon Rest API using Powershell Part 2: Authentication Options

This is Part 2 of a series dedicated to Isilon and Powershell. In Part 1 we looked at the basics of how to leverage Powershell for REST scripting and ended with a quick example with parts from Jeremy. In this part we will have a more detailed view on the […]

VPLEX GeoSynchrony 5.2 SP1 GUI improvements

VPLEX GeoSynchrony 5.2 SP1 introduces some great improvements to the GUI.
I think the most awaited feature is the ability to create a distributed device directly from a claimed storage volume (backend LUN)

These five new features are now available with GeoSynchrony 5.2 SP1:

  • Ability to view a map of distributed devices
  • Ability to create a distributed device from the storage volume view
  • A means to save distributed device mappings to a file
  • Ability to sort virtual volumes by consistency group
  • Ability to automatically add the ports of a selected initiator during storage view creation

The following video is demonstrating the GUI improvements:

EMC Efficiency Assessment

Are you an existing VNX or CLARiiON customer? Yes, then you can leverage the free service by EMC to get an overview of your storage system. Just go to EMC Efficiency Assessment and submit one SPCollect and up to seven days of NAR/NAZ files. Bundle the files into a single zip […]

Upgrading VPLEX GeoSynchrony

This video demonstrates an upgrade of a VPLEX Metro Installation from GeoSynchrony 5.2 to 5.2 SP1. The VPLEX installation consists of one engine (two directors) and three backend storages (VMAX, VNX, CLARiiON) in each site.
VPLEX is used by a VMware vSphere 5.5 Metro Storage Cluster demo installation. The ESXi hosts (one in each site) are using Powerpath/VE to keep the IO local and still do load balancing.

 

Isilon Rest API using Powershell Part 1: Basics

Looking at the Isilon Platform API introduced with OneFS 7.0.2, which is using REST with JSON for communication, I was struggling how to start. At first I tried to use Perl for scripting but as I’m not very experienced in Perl, I was quickly frustrated. Luckily I stumbled across Powershell for REST […]

Isilon SmartPools

Isilon OneFS 7.1: SmartPools Lab Setup

With the new OneFS 7.1 Virtual Appliance you can easily simulate a multi-tier cluster, using Isilon SmartPools. The Appliance is downloadable here: https://download.emc.com/downloads/DL50362_Isilon-OneFS-Virtual-Nodes-7.1.0.0.zip In my Lab I started with a OneFS 7.1 Cluster consisting of 6 nodes:   By default these nodes are forming a node pool called “iq_vmware”: In […]

Isilon OneFS 7.1: What’s new

On October 30th Isilon OneFS 7.1 (Waikiki) went General Available! This is a major release for EMC Isilon and brings a lot of new great stuff and further increases the capabilities of Isilon: What’s new in OneFS 7.1:   SmartDedupe: Isilon now offers a post-process deduplication engine, called SmartDedupe. The […]

Waikiki Beach, Honolulu - Hawaii

Isilon for SAS Grid Computing

In this post I want to share some information and experience regarding EMC Isilon for SAS Grid Computing. What is SAS Grid Computing? “SAS Grid Computing is an efficient way to analyze enormous amounts of data. SAS Grid Computing enables applications to deliver value in a highly effective manner for SAS […]