Author Archives: Brian Calfo
How-To Generate SP Collect Data from Unisphere
Many times you may be asked to provide “SP Collects” for your EMC Array. This may be for EMC Support or for your VAR, who may need to see how your existing array is configured. Either way SP Collect data is very useful and relatively easy to generate. With the release of Unisphere for EMC [...]
Microsoft VDA Licensing Made Simple-ish
Let’s face it VDI is hot nowadays, and for many customers it can make managing their desktop infrastructure much easier. Regardless of which solution you decide on, whether it’s VMware View or Citrix XenDestop there is still one piece of the puzzle that everyone will have to deal with – Microsoft Licensing. Specifically Microsoft VDA [...]
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VNXe Deduplication and Compression
I had to do some digging recently to get some technical details on the deduplication technology imbedded in the EMC VNXe arrays so I thought I’d share it. Summary The file-level dedup on the new VNX arrays is only for Shared Folders and NFS datastores. This deduplication is policy driven and utilizes both file deduplication (single instancing) [...]
Posted in EMC, VNX, VNX Deduplication Comments closed
vSphere 5 vRAM Entitlements Get Larger
To say the least it’s been an interesting couple of weeks in the world of VMware. First – the big vSphere 5 announcement – Yay! Then the realization that VMware screwed around with the licensing scheme again and added vRAM entitlements – not so Yay! In fact, at least from the clients we’ve spoke with, [...]
Posted in VMware Comments closed
RecoverPoint Array Based Licensing and Multi-Site Replication
I’ve written in the past about the new licensing model for EMC RecoverPoint. Overall the change is a welcome one in my book – simplifying licensing, any kind of licensing, is a good thing – I’m sure Microsoft would disagree but oh well. Something I recently ran into was with a client that needed to [...]
Posted in EMC, RecoverPoint Multi-site replication Comments closed
Minor Changes to Avamar Licensing
With the recent release of the latest Avamar version 6 software and then new Gen4 storage nodes also came some changes to the way the licensing is handled. In my opinion these changes are good – especially for your budget. This changes should affect both new adopters of Avamar and existing customers, at least when [...]
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EMC for Your iPad
EMC Folio App for iPad For those of you out there with iPad there is a new app from EMC you might want to check out. It’s called EMC Folio and can be downloaded for free at the Apple AppStore. So what is it? Basically a new tool to help you keep up with what [...]
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Avamar 6.0 – Integration with DataDomain
One of the greatest features of Avamar 6.0 in my opinion has to be the integration with DataDomain. Now Avamar owners can gain the performance and scale of DataDomain for things like large databases but still keep the simple Avamar frontend they are used to. For smaller shops with relatively small amounts of data this [...]
Posted in Avamar 6.0, Backup, datadomain, DD Boost, EMC Comments closed
NEWSFLASH: Calfo Survives EMC World in Vegas!
Well, EMC World 2011 has come and gone and contrary to several of my co-workers expectations – I survived! Why the doubts you may ask? To start, I had never been to Las Vegas, and those who know me personally thought I probably wouldn’t come back – in all honesty I had doubts myself. There [...]
Posted in EMC, EMC World 2011 Comments closed
Avamar Gen 4 Hardware Now Available
A new generation of Avamar hardware had recently been released. Generation 4 of Avamar is now available. There have been some significant changes with this latest generation. Perhaps the most obvious change is the new node sizes that are available. Avamar is now available in 1.3TB, 2.6TB, 3.9TB and 7.8TB nodes. Nice round numbers right? [...]
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iPad TV and iPhone Tethering
Ok, so it’s been a slow week as far as technology to write about so I guess I’ll fall back to old reliable – the iPad. This week I discovered a few new (at least for me) apps/features that are worth mentioning. The first little app I found is from my cable provider, Time Warner [...]
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Choose Your Technology Partners WYSE-ly
We recently sponsored a day long technology event based around “the cloud” and virtualization. For our company it was a 1st annual event so to say we had a lot riding on the outcome is an understatement. We had sponsorship from the primary manufactures that we are VAR’s for, EMC – Cisco and VMware as [...]
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Isilon – Scale-Out NAS
EMC recently aquired Isilon. This is a technology geared toward storing LOTS of data on an single huge filesystem. Prior to the EMC acquisition and some recent product training I had no exposure to Isilon or even knew what they did. When I sat through the first product training for Isilon my first impression was [...]
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Finally – RecoverPoint Replication Licensing Made Simple
Replicated SAN/NAS arrays is certainly nothing new. In fact it is pretty much the standard nowadays for most IT departments. Replicating EMC arrays has never really been complicated but there were several options for doing it. If you had a Symmetrix then it was SRDF, if you had a Clariion it was MirrorView and if [...]
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How-To Generate and Collect NAR Data from VNX Arrays