Dell EMC VNX Storage Family (Archived Report)


Dell EMC VNX Storage Family (Archived Report)










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Archived Report
Dell EMC
VNX Storage Family

by Karen
Spring

Copyright 2018, Faulkner Information Services. All Rights Reserved.

Docid: 00018836

Publication Date: 1809

Report Type: PRODUCT

Preview

Dell EMC’s VNX series was created out of the company’s former CLARiiON and Celerra
NAS lines. The VNX series – which includes hardware and software under the VNX,
VNXe, VNX-VSS, vVNX, and VNX Series Gateway – offers
high-performance, unified storage for virtual environments in a clear attempt
to better compete with NetApp’s All-Flash FAS Storage Systems.

Report Contents:

Description

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Dell EMC’s VNX series was formed out of the remnants of the CLARiiON and Celerra
NAS family of products and offers high-performance, unified storage for virtual
environments. In 2011, EMC introduced the VNX product series. 

The VNX series was created for a range of environments that include mid-tier
through enterprise. The VNX offerings include file only, block only, and block
and file implementations. Management is conducted through Unisphere, a user
interface. 


Related
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Dell EMC Company
Profile

The VNX family includes:

  • VNX Series – High-performance, unified storage with features for
    protection, compliance, and management.
  • VNXe Series – Unified storage platform with automated,
    application-ready storage, management, and provisioning features.
  • VNX Series Gateways – High-performance NAS with file-system
    performance. VNX Series Gateways add scalable file access to existing
    Symmetrix or VNX storage platforms.
  • VNX-VSS Series – Storage for video surveillance environments. 
  • vVNX – Software-defined storage platform for testing and
    development or other non-production environments. 


Vendor
Name: Dell EMC 
Headquarters
176 South Street
Hopkinton, MA 01748
(508) 435-1000
(Web: https://www.dellemc.com/
Type of Vendor: Computer Storage Devices
Founded:  1979
Service Areas: Worldwide
Stock Symbol: Dell EMC is privately held

History

VNX is based on the discontinued Celerra NAS device family of products, which
were available as an integrated unit – or NAS header – that could be added to an
independent Dell EMC storage array such as CLARiiON or Symmetrix. It supported CIFS,
NFS, FTP,
NDMP, TFTP
and MPFS
protocols, and used CLARiiON as its storage layer for iSCSI
and FC block-level storage.

In 2011, EMC introduced the new VNX series of unified storage disk arrays
to replace its CLARiiON and Celerra branded products. These brands were
eventually phased out in early 2012. After Dell merged with EMC, the VNX
product suite became known as the Dell EMC VNX series. 

VNX
Family

The members of Dell EMC’s VNX family are compared in Table 1.

Table 1. VNX Comparison
VNX Series VNXe Series VNX-VSS
Series		 vVNX
Software		 VNX Series Gateways
Min/Max Drives up to 1500 disk drives

up to 150 disk drives

 up to 200 drives (or 400TB) N/A

1.8PB usable

Automated Tiering with FAST

Yes

 Yes No Yes

Yes

Block Protocols

iSCSI, FC, FCoE

iSCSI, FC

 iSCI, FC iSCI

N/A

File Protocols

CIFS, NFS, pNFS

CIFS, NFS, SMB3 

 N/A NFS, CIFS CIFS,
NFS, pNFS, MPFS
Features
  • Unified – Uses a single platform for file and block data services, for centralized management.
  • Virtual Applications – Optimized with VMware and Hyper-V integration to triple the speed
    of virtualized SQL and Oracle workloads, and boot up to 1,000
    virtual desktops in less than eight minutes.
  • Security – Data-at-rest encryption.
  • Automation – Active data is stored on flash drives while less active
    data is tiered to high-capacity drives.
  • Intuitive – Enables network-attached storage (NAS) or storage area network (SAN) with an
    intuitive configuration wizard.
  • Optimization – Uses thin provisioning and file
    dedupe to decrease capacity requirements. 
  • Security – Unified Snapshots and Remote Protection offer
    array-based data protection and disaster recovery. 
  • Management – Stores digital video surveillance content. 
  • Ease of Use –
    Includes EMC Unisphere for application-aware management and Unisphere
    Central can be used for advanced management of multi-site
    deployments. 
  • Optimization – Can be integrated into virtualized
    environments with VMware and Microsoft points of integration.
  • Testing – Users can create test and development environments
    without the need for a dedicated system.
  • Capacity Reduction – Via thin provisioning and file
    deduplication. 
  • Optimization – Performance boosting and storage management
    simplification via FAST VP automated tiering. 
  • Scalable – Usable file system
    storage access across back-end arrays.
  • Virtual Applications – Provides
    visibility into EMC Unisphere and server virtualization.
  • Automated – Fully automated
    storage tiering with virtual pools and policies for optimizing data on
    ultra-performance Flash, high-performance, and high-capacity drives.
  • High Performance – Scales file
    systems and block storage independently to meet business requirements.

Applications

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Potential applications for VNX products are listed in Table 2.

Table 2. VNX Comparison
Product Applications

VNX Series

 Medium-sized
to enterprise businesses.

VNXe Series

 Small
and medium-sized business environments. 

VNX Series Gateways

 Medium-sized
to enterprise businesses with an existing SAN.
VNX-VSS
Series		 Distributed
sites and usage for city surveillance, government, and transportation
security. 
vVNX
Software 		 For
those looking to test and develop environments without having dedicated
storage platforms. 

Environment

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Dell EMC asks that potential customers contact its sales staff regarding OS,
application software, and management software support for VNX by calling (800)
782-4362.

Physical server requirements for vVNX Software are as follows: 

  • Quad/Dual Core CPU 64-bit x86 Intel 2GHz+
  • Required (RAID Card with 512 MB Cache recommended)
  • Agnostic drives
  • 2 x 1GbE/2 x 10GbE embedded I/O ports

Support

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Dell EMC VNX platforms come standard with a three-year Enhanced support warranty,
which provides next business day onsite coverage and 24×7 remote support. The
VNXe platform consists of a three-year Basic warranty with next business day
parts replacement and 9×5 remote support. 

Customers can upgrade to Premium support with 24×7 same-day onsite support. Dell
EMC
also provides an array of services for VNX including expert planning, design,
implementation, consulting, migration, and education. 

Pricing

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Dell EMC asks that interested, potential customers contact its sales staff
directly for pricing information by calling (866) 438-3622 or by filling out a sales
contact form.

Competitors

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VNX’s top competitors include:

  • NetApp’s All Flash FAS
  • HDS All-Flash Storage 
  • IBM Flash Storage Systems and Spectrum NAS

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About
the Author

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Karen M. Spring is a staff editor for Faulkner
Information Services, tracking high-tech industries including network security,
data breaches and cybercrime, CRM, public safety, business continuity and
resilience, and software tools. She writes regularly on high-tech topics for
publications in the k-12 and higher education industry. Previously, Ms. Spring
was a marketing specialist for two computer distributors, working closely with
such clients as 3Com, IBM, Okidata, Unisys, and Acer.

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