Yes Virginia there IS FAST for the DMX! (Think FAST DMX3 and DMX4!)
Today I sat down with some of our favorite Presidents, and St Valentines since he was free after his holiday was over. And we decided to discuss what should be announced this week. With the importance of these holidays in order and the fact that the Olympics are on – the only Olympic and Presidential decision we could come to conclusion on was…
FAST for the DMX!
Whoa, hold on there wait just one minute. You said DMX4 AND the DMX3?!? Are you serious?!?!
Why yes sweetheart! (yea I know you san admins LOVE to be called sweetheart :)) This does infact support the DMX3 and the DMX4, but because I didn’t find it on my first google search after spending a few seconds (I know you’ll do the same ;)) so the caveat which all of you hardcore DMX3’ers know – the fact that the DMX3 supports only fibre-channel drives. But now that we have that put to the side, let’s discuss what this means for your environment today!
Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) for Symmetrix DMX enables your system to automate the movement of data across differing drive types based upon your performance characteristics. However, unlike the VMAX which allows you to move across both “Drive Types” AND “Protection Types” the DMX supports only moving across Drive Types. So if you have a short stroked configuration today running across a boatload of Fibre Channel disks (Oh you clearly know who you are :)) You can start to do what it takes to move that workload non-disruptively to a smaller sampling of Enterprise Flash Disks, and I’m sure your facilities people will instantly fall in love with you (Valentines day! :))
Okay nay sayers, it’s time for you to step up and say “DMX 3 FAST sounds stupid, WTF is that for? It’s FC Only! /end whine” :) Yea, I’m with you guy, I totally get that. I have an investment in DMX3’s on the floor today and I want to find SOME way to take advantage of this before I’m completely off of maint and I start swapping systems out for VMAX’s (You know you want to..:))
What value you’ll be able to get here, is since it is FC only, fortunately FC has been tiered within itself for such a long time – through different disk sizes, and different speed types (10k, 15k) So this can atleast allow you to take your applications which don’t require that 15k workload and move it off to your “less critical” 10k disk infrastructure and still allow you to leverage the investment you have on the floor until such a time that you’re ready to upgrade to a DMX4 or V-MAX. If you’re that guy who happens to have the fully loaded DMX3 15k infrastructure of all the same size disks – Hey, it’s a good problem to have, and in that case the FAST for DMX3 will NOT be the solution you’re looking for. I’m not sure what percentage of folks are in that particular bucket, but it’s nice to have options :)
Alright, now that I’ve spent nearly have the blog post discussing how to leverage this within the DMX3, I want you to make sure to realize that the DMX4 is still an excellent platform especially for it’s supportability for FLASH and SATA which will let you leverage this to great proportions! So get out there, contact your rep or TC and get rolling on upgrading to Enginuity 5773.155.107!
I want to make special mention of Barry Burke’s post on this subject 2.040: dmx gets some fast love! a definite must read as it covers a whole bunch of OTHER features now available in the DMX line which all of you VMAX’ers are loving today. So make sure you read his post as well!
And if you’re looking for information on FAST for the V-MAX, please refer to: One Stop Shop for Symmetrix V-Max Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) docs!