What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case for PowerMax is hosting our VMware environment with VMware SRM hosted on and connected to both. The PowerMax does the SRDF replication for VMware SRM, and some of the workload on it is for the physical environment that consists of Unix, AIX, and Sun Solaris. In addition to that, we have physical Windows and Linux servers as well. We have 1,200-plus virtual machines hosted on PowerMax.
We have two PowerMax 8000s, each deployed at a different site. The capacity of the PowerMax at the primary site is 500 terabytes, and approximately 200 terabytes at the DR site.
How has it helped my organization?
We are coming from the VMAX environment where the storage provisioning was a bit complex. We had to create volumes manually from the command line. But with the introduction of the PowerMax, it's a piece of cake for us. We can assign whatever volumes we want in two to three minutes. Storage provisioning has become very simple for us and is a real improvement.
What is most valuable?
The SRDF site-to-site replication for the volumes is the most important feature for us. That enables us to do site recovery and replication for our VMware infrastructure.
Along with that, the NVMe response time is very good. We used to have a VMAX 20K but we have just upgraded, and moved two or three generations ahead to PowerMax, and the response time is great. Because we are coming from a hybrid storage scenario, the performance of NVMe is a huge upgrade for us. The 0.4 millisecond response time means our application works great and we are seeing huge performance improvements in our VMware and physical environments.
Regarding data security, EMC has introduced CloudIQ solution with the PowerMax environment, and that enables live monitoring of the telemetry and security data array of the PowerMax. CloudIQ also has a feature called Cybersecurity. That monitors for security vulnerabilities or security events that are occurring on the array itself. That feature is very helpful. We have been able to do some vulnerability assessment tests on the array, which have helped us to resolve issues regarding data security and security vulnerabilities. We are not using the encryption feature of the PowerMax, because we didn't order the PowerMax configuration for it.
CloudIQ helps the environment and lets us manage the respective connected environments. A good feature in CloudIQ is the health score of each connected infrastructure. It gives you timely alerts and informs you when a health issue is occurring on the arrays and needs to be fixed. Those reports and health notices are also sent to Dell EMC support, which proactively monitors all the infrastructure and they will open service requests themselves.
In terms of efficiency, the compression we are currently receiving is 4.2x, which is very good efficiency. We are storing 435 terabytes of data in just 90 TB. In addition to what I mentioned about the NVMe performance, which is very good, we were achieving 150k IOPS on the VMAX, but on the PowerMax the same workload is hitting 300k-plus IOPS. That is sufficient for the workload and means the application is performing as required, according to the SLAs as defined on the PowerMax.
When it comes to workload congestion protection, we have not faced any congestion yet in our environment. We have some spikes on Friday evenings, but they are being handled by PowerMax dutifully. It can beautifully handle up to 400k IOPS, even though it is only designed for 300k IOPS. That is another illustration of its good performance.
What needs improvement?
The CloudIQ features still need to be improved because CloudIQdoes not support PowerProtect DD capacity, although it is working well overall.
Their mobile app also still needs improvement.
In addition, the web GUI is good and shows all the related reports, but I would like to see more granularity in the reports, and reporting on CloudIQ should be done in the web GUI interface.
There is also room for improvement in the PowerMax architecture and hardware itself. They should design the PowerMax on the basis of PCIe 4.0. I would like to see the possibility of an NVMe drive that operates on PCIe 4.0 and not PCIe 3.0. The design could be very much better if they did some R&D and introduced a version based on PCIe 4.0.
For how long have I used the solution?
I manage the IT infrastructure of a telco company in Pakistan. I look after the servers and storage infrastructure and I've been with the company for the last eight years. Recently, we have deployed PowerMax, PowerProtect DD and PowerScale Isilon, with the help of Dell EMC and their partners.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In terms of availability, Dell EMC claims PowerMax will give you six nines. We have not faced a single issue in the last six months with PowerMax. The storage has been very stable for us and it's performing well. It's giving us the right amount of uptime and availability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The NVMe scale-out capabilities were a factor we had in mind when we were evaluating the PowerMax against competitors, including IBM and Huawei. The scale-out capabilities are very important. We have 4 TB of cache with four directors right now, and we can add capacity in the future. If that capacity is met and we need to add more engines for our workload, we can do that very easily.
We are not currently using the NVMe SCM storage tier feature, but that is in the pipeline. If there is a high-demand workload in the future, we will consider the SCM storage.
How are customer service and support?
Dell EMC's support for PowerMax has worked great for us. If we have to open a severity-one, we call their support line. Other than that, the support portal works great. If we have to open a severity-two, or they open a service request with the proper severity, the infrastructure and storage support are very good. They will escalate an issue to the next level when required, as well.
There is some margin for improvement in that they should develop an application for support where you could see support tickets and escalate them if you want.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
I was involved from the initial design to the product evaluation from different vendors, and I was involved in the whole migration project through to its conclusion.
Dell EMC dedicated project managers and members of its professional services team to handle all of our migration from VMAX to the PowerMax without any hassle. And all of our data was successfully migrated within 1.5 months. It was a very good experience for us. There was no downtime and it was a totally non-disruptive migration for VMware, AIX, Windows, and Linux. Only some of the Solaris environment experienced a disruption because we had to reboot the servers. The rest of the migration was non-disruptive and the deployment was very good for us.
For maintenance and admin of the solution, two people report to me. They manage the PowerMax series along with me as the team lead. On the user side, there are different stakeholders. We provision storage to them and then they map the storage to various OSs for VMware, Linux, Solaris, AIX, and Windows. That team is a bit larger and has separate departments, with approximately 25 to 30 people.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated PowerMax against IBM FlashSystem 9200R and against the Huawei Dorado V6. At that time, Huawei did not have the VMware certification due to US policies and enforcement, but Dorado now has VMware certification. That's why we rated the PowerMax highest.
What other advice do I have?
The solution is very stable and performs well. If you are doing research, look at the architecture of all the available vendors. Evaluate every storage solution with respect to architecture, the NVMe version they are using, and the hardware which they are using.
Out of 10, I would give PowerMax a nine. It has worked very well for us.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
