MIDRANGE STORAGE

SOLUTIONS DESIGN-

PARTICIPANT GUIDE

PARTICIPANT GUIDE
 Midrange Storage Solutions Design-SSP

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Table of Contents

Midrange Storage Solution Sales Engagement 5

Midrange Storage Solution Sales Engagement Phases 6

Midrange Solution Design Phases 7
Project Team Members and Roles 13

Knowledge Check: Midrange Solution Sales Engagement 14

Knowledge Check 1 - Project Phases 15

Knowledge Check 2 - Project Roles 16

Site Evaluation and Remediation Phase 17

Site Evaluation and Remediation Task 18

Tools for Site Data Collection 20
Tools for Data Analysis 24
Site Remediation 26

Activity: Site Evaluation and Remediation Phase 27

Activity: Select Data Collection Tool 28

Design Phase 30

Sales Solution Design 31

Sizing Storage Solutions 33
Sizer Deliverables for Solution Architects 35
Unity Designer 37
Project Assets Management in Unity Designer 38
Unity Designer Configurations 39
Unity Designer Deliverables 40

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Activity: Design Phase 41

Activity: Sizing and Designing Storage Solution 42

Activity: Data Migration Scenario 43

Data Migration Phase 45

Overview of Migration 46
Migration Process 47
Migration Technologies 49
Migration Planning Tools 50
Tools for Block and File Data Migration 52

Data Protection Phase 55

Designing Data Protection Mechanisms 56

Activity: Remote Data Protection 59

Activity: Remote Data Protection 60

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Midrange Storage Solution Sales Engagement

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Midrange Storage Solution Sales Engagement Phases

This graphic shows the high-level phases in the project life cycle for a
midrange solution sales engagement. The project starts with the sales
cycle and ends with a new midrange storage system1 in production at a
customer site. System readiness is ensured through proper maintenance
and support.

The design of the solution is part of a larger sales cycle engagement.

Successful sales cycle engagement requires an integrated cross-
organizational team consisting of professionals involved in presales,
solution planning and design, implementation, and the delivery of other
professional services kits. The solution architect works closely with the
professionals to create the solution design as per customer specifications.

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Midrange Solution Design Phases

Customer Engagement

The origin of a solution design engagement relies on the identification of a

business opportunity. Engagements can come about in various ways.

Some are formal requests from clients, such as:

• Formal RFP
• Request for assistance
• Informal discussions

Other engagements develop through conversations initiated by sales

representatives and involve:
• Identification of implicit needs and potential improvements
• Problems that reveal opportunities and require a consultative approach

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Customer Environment and Data Assessment

During an initial engagement with the customer;

• A pre-site survey is done to create a description of the site

environment, which identifies the capabilities and dependencies of site
components.
• A list of the information to be captured is created, based on a common
understanding of the business objectives by all parties.

Three types of information are captured during the gather phase of the
customer engagement:
• Configurations: Physical systems, operating systems, applications,
network components, processors, etc.
• Workloads: Logs capturing the applications generating data, storage
access, and utilization of processors and memory
• Data: Amount of data stored, age of data, and the type and frequency
of access

To obtain more detailed information, a customer may download tools from

a site recommended by Dell Technologies and follow the relevant

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instructions. In some cases, Dell Technologies may provide appropriate
tools to capture logs, configuration files, and assessments for analysis.

Assessment Analysis and Site Remediation

Captured logs and configuration files are processed by tools and services
that translate cryptic files into easy-to-understand graphs and charts.

These reports guide the creation of an appropriate solution to address

customer requirements. The initial solution design must have a detailed
and accurate configuration. The main goal of this design is to provide
sufficient resources to address the requirements.

At this stage of the engagement, site remediation is initiated along with

site evaluation to:

• Ensure that the solution being sold is supported in the customer

environment.
• Identify opportunities to sell other service kits.

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Solution Sizing and Customer Proposal

Once the analysis is completed and a potential solution is

considered, information can be fed to a sizing tool, such as
Midrange Sizer, to size and quote the solution to be presented
to a customer for approval and a purchase commitment.
Proposal templates and quoting tools are extremely important
for ensuring:
• Proper connectivity
• The required numbers and types of ports, disks, disk
enclosures, cables, protocols, power distribution units, and
racks
• The required professional services and education for the
customer

The presales cycle ends when the customer purchases the

recommended solution.

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Architect Detailed Design

In the design phase, an architect uses the information gathered by the

presales team to produce detailed configuration guidelines. The architect
also verifies the compatibility of solution components with the existing
customer environment.

This compatibility has to be validated using the My work and E-Lab

Navigator applications.

The architect develops a variety of project deliverables during this phase:

• Site/environment analysis and remediation

• Detailed design
• Implementation assistance
• Data migration planning
• Data protection planning

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Professional Services

The final phase of the sales engagement will ensure that the solution is
implemented according to the architect's detailed design.

Some sales engagements could also include data migration, which

requires detailed guidelines designed by an experienced architect.

The project life cycle for a midrange system ends with the system in
production on the customer site covered by maintenance, support, and
other professional service engagements with Dell Technologies.

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Project Team Members and Roles

The cross-functional team that works together to deliver the plan and start
the project is formed from professionals in Sales and Professional
Services. Multiple parties manage the communication with a customer but
at least two people are involved when working with a new opportunity—
the Account Executive (AE) and the Presale Solutions Architect (PSA).

Team Member Role

AE Orchestrate project events and required resources,

such as product specialists and/or the financing team.

Project Manage the project life-cycle by ensuring the

Manager (PM) achievement of milestone dates and allocate the
necessary resources. The PM contacts Resource
Management to define the necessary technical SA/IS
skill set.

PSA Work with a product specialist to provide technical

knowledge, gather customer information, validate
technical requirements, and size a solution to address
business needs.

Solutions Perform a consultative role during the presales phase,

Architect (SA) create the solution design, and plan a detailed
configuration of the solution by using the resource
pools created by the SE.

Implementation Configure the storage system in production and

Specialist (IS) migrate the existing customer data to the system.
Configuration and migration are based on the detailed
design and data migration plan from the SA.

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Knowledge Check: Midrange Solution Sales
Engagement

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Knowledge Check 1 - Project Phases

1. Based on an RFP from a customer and subsequent data collection

about the customer site, a storage solution was designed and
implemented. But its components had some compatibility issues at the
site. What could have been done to avoid this problem?
Select the correct option and then select Submit.
a. Use the project LiveOptics ID to retrieve the customer’s
configuration before design.
b. Check if the solution is appropriate for the customer environment
in E-Lab Navigator.
c. Revisit the information captured during the gather phase of the
sales engagement.

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Knowledge Check 2 - Project Roles

2. Select the correct options to fill in the blanks and then select Submit.

The IS needs to configure a storage system into production for a

customer. For this purpose, they should take the _________ from
the ________ and wait for the CE to ___________

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Site Evaluation and Remediation Phase

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Site Evaluation and Remediation Task

Site evaluation is initiated in the presales stage when the sales team
determines whether a newly designed storage system is supported in the
production environment. Based on the evaluation, additional sales
opportunities may result. For example, the site may have an old SAN
environment and there could be an opportunity to sell a SAN upgrade
service kit. This kit may be added to the Statement Of Work (SOW) for the
project.

The data that is gathered and analyzed for site evaluation is also used for
migration planning if a project SOW includes a data migration service.

Site Data Collection

The first step in the evaluation is to gather data from a site by using the
appropriate discovery. The discovery tools are used to install and gather
data from VMware ESXi and other hosts. Data is also gathered from
Brocade, Cisco, and McData SAN switches by using their native switch
utilities.

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Data Analysis

Once the data is gathered from the hosts and SAN switches, then it is
uploaded into a data analysis tool. Reports are generated to show the
interoperability of the site's hosts and switches with a storage system.

Remediation

If the data analysis reports or E-Lab Navigator support matrices indicate

any interoperability issues, remediation is needed for those issues.
Remediation prevents problems after the new storage system is put into
production at a site.

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Tools for Site Data Collection

Different tools are used to gather and analyze data from a customer
environment, depending on the types of hosts installed in the environment.
These tools can be accessed and downloaded from the Solutions page of
the Dell Technologies Central Platform. This platform is available to Dell
Technologies personnel, authorized customers, and partners.

Grab

Grab automates the collection of host configuration data. This data can be
uploaded to Dell Support, Central Discovery and Remediation (ELA), or
My work for:

• Problem diagnosis and resolution

• migration planning
• Interoperability assessment
• Reporting

The following downloads of the Grab tool are available on the Central
Platform for different types of hosts:

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• Grab for Windows
• Grab for Unix/Linux
• Grab for ESXi

Sample Grab for a Windows Sample Grab for a Linux host

host

Environment Collection Tool

Environment Collection Tool (ECT) automates the following tasks:

• Execution of Grab on Windows, Unix/Linux, ESX and ESXi hosts

• Upload of the Grab results to a new or existing Workspace in Central
• Generation of reports that show support matrix compliance and
interoperability
• Download of the results to the Windows system where ECT is run

ECT runs on Windows servers and PCs.

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My work

My work is an entity-centric view of the customer environment. All entities,

such as Dell and non-Dell hosts, switches, and storage, are visible in a
single view within a workspace. My work allows you to:

• Share the workspace with others.

• Search and filter data without having to open and close workspaces.
All entities are always available in a workspace.
• Generate environmental and entity-specific reports manually or
automatically upon importing the entity data.

− Environmental reports: Interoperability, Migrations readiness, and

Environment
− Entity-specific reports: Switch configuration, switch migration,
Symmetrix configuration, VPLEX configuration, Host configuration,
Unity configuration, and PowerStore configuration
− Non-Dell product reports: NetApp and HDS configuration

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CLI for SAN Switches

Data is gathered from SAN switches by using native CLI commands from
the switches, as shown in the table below. The log files generated by the
commands are used for site analysis.

Switch Vendor Native CLI Command

Brocade supportshow

Cisco show tech-support details

McData show all

Important: Currently, My work is integrated with Unity and

PowerStore Designers although they are planned to EOL
on Jan 1, 2023.

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Tools for Data Analysis

Aggregating and analyzing data from storage, data protection, servers,

and file systems at a site to make purchasing decisions can lead to
overspending. To optimize your infrastructure for cloud readiness, you
need to understand how workloads impact each other in a shared
environment over time.

Live Optics is free, online software used to:

• Collect, visualize, and share data about an IT environment and its

workloads, such as machine and installation details, supported SQL-
specific features, a list of databases, database size, etc.
• Analyze workload performance and opportunities for virtualization or
data center expansion.
• View insights or scenarios of combined workloads and share them with
others to aid decision-making. For example, it can provide insights into
unstructured data through rapid characterization of storage growth, file
types, and predictive potential for data archive, compression, or
deduplication.
• Save ready-to-present PowerPoint decks with site data, or export the
data into vendor decision software for rapid solutioning.

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 Deep Dive: See Dell Live Optics and Live Optics for more
details. To view other tools for site assessment, check the
Assessment tools available at Dell Central.

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Site Remediation

A common tool used for site remediation is CloudIQ. CloudIQ is a cloud-

based AIOps application used for centralized monitoring, analyzing, and
troubleshooting IT infrastructure and systems at a site, including
integration with VMware. It delivers frequent, dynamic, nondisruptive
content updates for a user. CloudIQ is built in a secure multitenant
platform to ensure that each tenant (customer) is isolated and secure from
other tenants.

Deep Dive: For a detailed description of the features and

functionality of CloudIQ.

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Activity: Site Evaluation and Remediation Phase

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Activity: Select Data Collection Tool

Scavenger Hunt Activity

Environment

A solutions architect is designing a PowerStore 3200 T solution for a

customer data center in New York. The site is configured with a 25GbE
network with jumbo frames end-to-end, and network traffic rules. The
architect needs to provide the appropriate recommendations for network
readiness in terms of inbound/outbound connectivity.

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 Diagram of PowerStore T Traffic.

Instructions

1. Go to the Support Central portal.

2. Browse through the catalog of tools.
3. Filter by product and activity.
4. Locate the resource used to define the specific customer configuration
requirements.

Activity

Based on the results from the catalog, answer the question.

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Design Phase

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Sales Solution Design

The design of a midrange storage solution is based on information

gathered about the environment and business needs of a customer, as
indicated in the following figure. This information includes the workloads,
network infrastructure, and overall storage requirements of the customer.

Customer Workload

• The customer production workload and performance requirements are

important inputs for the selection of the right storage system model
with the correct front-end and drive types.
• Knowing the IOPs of an application is critical to size a proper solution.
Since applications use most resources to write, transfer, and read
data, the application response is impacted from overburdened and
overused resources in the customer environment.

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Network Infrastructure

• The number of clients sending information at a given time over the

Ethernet protocol impacts data transfers. Some workloads require high
bandwidth for sequentially streaming data.
• Data migration and data protection are considered for future designs.
• If replication is used, the current bandwidth, latency, and the protocols
that are used are also key considerations for solution design.

Storage Requirements

• For the storage configuration, the number and types of drives are
chosen to fulfill both immediate and long-term customer requirements.
The requirements must address the existing data storage needs and
enable the solution to be scaled over the years.
• To meet the requirements, the SE must find out how resources are
used across the servers, storage subsystems, SAN, and WAN at the
customer site.

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Sizing Storage Solutions

Designing storage solutions involves sizing them to arrive at a

configuration that supports the desired workloads at the required
performance level. Dell provides two tools to size solutions, PowerSizer
and Midrange Sizer.

PowerSizer

PowerSizer (also called Sizer) helps to work out the right PowerStore,
PowerMax, PowerScale, PowerVault, and APEX configurations for optimal
performance.

PowerSizer

Midrange Sizer

Midrange Sizer provides multiple options to ease the process of sizing

Unity and SC Series solutions. Specify the I/O workload and storage
requirements in Midrange Sizer. Sizer predicts system performance and
calculates the storage capacity output.

Midrange Sizer

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Sizer Deliverables for Solution Architects

PowerSizer and Midrange Sizer outputs can be exported to different file

formats for customer reviews and sales order processing.

PowerSizer Output

The PowerSizer output can be exported to a .json file or a PowerPoint

presentation. A .json file can be used in the OSC purchasing system. A
presentation is useful for customer review of the recommended solution
configuration.

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Midrange Sizer Output

Midrange Sizer exports the details to:

• A PDF file eases the processing by customers. Exporting a
Example of a PDF File. configuration
to PDF or
• An OSC JSON file facilitates the purchase and
JSON files
ordering decisions. Example of a JSON File.

Tip: PDF files can also be imported into

Sizer for viewing and editing.

Important: Powerstore and Unity outputs can be exported

for use with DSC, but not Powervault (ME5).

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Unity Designer

To create a detailed design of a Dell Unity solution, the SA uses the Unity
Designer tool.

Unity Designer is a native application that is included as a part of Dell

Central Dell Central provides links to launch and obtain information about
using the solution.

An SA can add projects to:

• Update existing Unity configurations.
• Create Unity array configurations from scratch.

The SA inputs to Unity Designer include the system configuration of the

sized system and the Data Collection configuration worksheet.

Important: Unity Designer is in maintenance mode and has

reached end-of-security-support. Please see Dell Central
for Unity for Designer for more details.

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Project Assets Management in Unity Designer

Using information from the Sizing XML file or the System configuration
PDF file, the Solutions Architect (SA) can associate an asset with the
project in Unity Designer. A Dell EMC Unity telemetry.tar.gz file can be
imported in the Assets management page of the tool. The file should look
like the file shown in the image—
20180507_165206_APM00180905235_EMC-UEM-Telemetry.tar.gz.

For the post-sales design of a recently purchased system, the SA can

import the manufacturing telemetry file into a project. The SA can
download the files from Dell manufacturing by providing the Sales Order
number and the storage system serial number. This option is available
only to Dell Technologies employees. Partners can request these files by
contacting Dell Support.

For existing Unity system configurations, the telemetry files can be

collected using the UEMCLI commands. In the Unisphere GUI, the
unity_service_data collects can be downloaded, and the telemetry.tar.gz
file can be manually extracted from the unity_service tar file.

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Unity Designer Configurations

The design of a solution is configured according to the system sized

during the sales phase and the requirements that are identified during the
assessment phase. The solution is integrated within the validated
customer environment.

Unity Designer enables the addition of drive modules, enclosures, and

new I/O modules to design the solution as per the project specifications.
The SA uses the Data Collection spreadsheet to define various aspects of
the detailed system design. The spreadsheet defines the:

• Pools and block storage resources to be created and their sizes

• System front-end interface configurations
• Number and types of NAS servers to create and configure along with
their ports and IP interface configurations
• File systems to be created and their sizes
• File system shares to be created along with their client access level
configurations
• VMware storage resources (block and file)
• ESXi host access

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Unity Designer Deliverables

The configuration in Unity Designer is submitted for Technical Quality

Assurance (TQA) revision once it is complete. After a peer SME revises
the configuration, the SA presents the Configuration Guide report to the
customer for review and sign-off. If anything is missed in the report, the
detailed solution design is updated interactively.

The SA then creates an Excel Configuration Guide report, which is

generated using either the Tasks menu in Unity Designer or the Assets
page in Dell Central. Then, the detailed design is handed off to the IS. The
SA can help the IS with CLI scripts, where required.

After the implementation of the configuration, the SA reviews post-

configuration information from the IS and sends the output logs again to
the TQA process. The same or different peer SME, depending on their
availability, reviews the POST-TQA inputs.

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Activity: Design Phase

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Activity: Sizing and Designing Storage Solution

Scavenger Hunt Activity

Environment

A solutions architect must size a Dell Unity XT AFA solution to provision

storage for a three tier Microsoft Exchange on-premises deployment. Mail
server logs and databases share the same volumes protected by one
instance of Database Availability Groups (DAGs) for a resilient database
infrastructure. Use the sizing tool to define the appropriate solution which
can accommodate the following configuration:

User Mailbox Tier-1 Tier-2 Tier-3 Tier-4

Configuration

Number of User 500 3410 33000 16700

Mailboxes

User Mailbox 2281 350 300 111

Size within
Databse (MB)

Instructions

1. Go to Midrange Sizer.
2. Select the appropriate sizing method.
3. Enter the parameters for each defined workload.
4. Verify the recommended solution for the configuration.

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Activity

Based on the results from the sizing tool, answer the questions.

Activity: Data Migration Scenario

Scavenger Hunt Activity

Scenario

A Dell Unity XT 880 solution was designed for a customer to fulfill its
performance requirements. The storage system replaces a legacy VNX
5800 used in production and as part of the Consultative sales
engagement, the Solutions Architect is asked to review and determine the
required migration service kits to be added to the project Statement Of
Work (SOW).

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 Migration of file and block data from a VNX2 to a Unity XT system.

Instructions

1. Go to the Dell Unity Info Hub.

2. Review the Dell Unity™ Family VNX® Series Data Import to Unity All
Flash or Hybrid, or UnityVSA™ System User Guide.
3. Verify the available resources for block and file migration.

Activity

Based on the scenario and import options described in the document,

answer the questions.

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Data Migration Phase

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Overview of Migration

Some midrange solution projects may require migration of the existing

data at a customer site to a new storage system. The SA has a key role
in the migration stage.
Steps in data migration:
• Consultative sales engagement to determine the required migration
service kits to be added to the project Statement Of Work (SOW)
• Migration planning
• Peer SA SME review and approval of the plan for total quality
assurance (TQA)
• Handover of the plan to an Implementation Specialist (IS) to perform
the migration

The SA continues to collaborate with the IS until all data is migrated and
the new storage system is operating in production without issues.

Tip: Data migration can be challenging, complex, and time

consuming. It requires extensive planning and a wide range
of tools. Therefore, inexperienced architects may need to
be mentored by experienced architects for some time to
enable them to plan and perform migration.

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Migration Process

Migration can be done for block-based and file-based storage.

Block migration

To understand the steps in block migration, take the example of non-

disruptive migration of block-based external storage to PowerStore. This
migration involves four steps:

1. Preconfigure: Set up the network connectivity.

2. Set up import:
a. Install or upgrade the required host plugin on each host that
accesses the storage to be imported.
b. Add the source system to the PowerStore cluster, if it is not already
listed.
c. Select one or more volumes or consistency groups, or both to be
imported.
d. Select to add the hosts that access the storage to be imported, the
hosts build inactive I/O paths to the destination volumes.
e. Set the import schedule and assign protection policies.
3. Start import: A destination volume is created for each selected source
volume. A volume group is automatically created for each consistency
group that is selected for import. The active I/O and inactive I/O paths
from the host are switched to redirect the I/O to the PowerStore
cluster.
4. Cutover import: Cutover can be performed only when the import
processing state is Ready For Cutover. Cutover can be automatic
without user intervention. After cutover, I/O cannot be done through the
source system volume.

File migration

To understand the steps in file migration, take the example of migration of

file-based external storage to PowerStore, where a Virtual Data Mover

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(VDM) (file data) is imported from a VNX2 Series platform to a PowerStore
cluster. This migration involves six steps:

1. Prepare the source VDM for an import: Create a source import

network interface.
2. Add the remote system to establish the import connection:
Establish a file import interface connection to the source VNX2
(Control Station management interface) from PowerStore over Secure
Socket Shell (SSH).
3. Create a file import session: Specify all required options for the
import.
4. Start the file import session: During the session, the destination NAS
server, destination file mobility network, and destination file systems
are created. The configuration from the source VDM is imported into
the destination NAS server.
5. Cut over the import session: Production interfaces are disabled on
the source side and enabled on the destination side. An incremental
data copy occurs from the source to the destination.
6. Commit the import session: Protocol data connections to the source
terminate and synchronizing modifications stop. The destination import
interface is deleted, and the source system is cleaned up.

Deep Dive: Refer to Importing External Storage into

PowerStore Guide for more details.

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Migration Technologies

The technologies used for data migration planning and execution vary
depending on the migration environment. Using the appropriate tools for a
specific environment is key to successful data migration. For example, file
data migration is more complex than block data migration, especially if it
has data with multiprotocol access. Both types of migrations require
different tools.

Deep dive: Other useful migration-related information, such

as best practices and posts of data migration experts, is
available from the Intelligent Data Mobility community from
Inside Dell.

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Migration Planning Tools

The following tools are used to plan data migration.

Tool Description

Grab • Is available on Dell Central

• Automates the collection of host configuration
data, which can be uploaded to Dell Support,
Central Discovery and Remediation (ELA), or
My work for migration planning
• Comes in three variants: Grab for Windows,
Grab for ESXi, Grab for Unix/Linux

My work • Is available on Dell Central

• Generates environmental and entity-specific
reports manually or automatically upon
importing the entity data. These reports are
used to check for migration readiness in a
customer environment.

File System Scans file system attributes and creates file data
Migration migration assessment reports
Assistant (FSMA)

LiveOptics Collects file system configuration, security

Dossier information, file size, and last access information to
identify archival candidates to plan file data
migrations

SANCopy Creates a runbook from VNX ArrayConfig.xml and

Migration Planner Unity telemetry files for migrating VNX LUNs/blocks
(SCMP) to Unity with SANCopy

Atlas Plans block data migrations from VNX to Unity on

the cloud by using SANCopy

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 Data Migration Consist of runbooks and checklists on Dell Central
documents to aid block and file data migration

DTM Assist • Is available on Dell Central as part of a Dell

Services engagement
• Is built for the ITX Consulting practice and
accessible to Dell employees
• Helps to deliver data center transformation
projects including data center migration,
infrastructure modernization, and cloud
transformation

Migration Advisor Provides a survey on Dell Central that presents

questions about the envisioned migration platforms
and the current and future environment. The tool
recommends migration technologies, based on the
responses to the questions

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Tools for Block and File Data Migration

Block data migration

Tool Location Description

SANCopy (Push) CLARiiON/VNX array- Used to migrate block

based tool resources from
CLARiiON/VNX
platforms to Unity
systems over the Fibre
Channel or iSCSI
protocol

Unity SANCopy Part of the code in Used to migrate data

(Pull) Unity OE version 4.4 from block storage
resources, either
standalone
LUNs/volumes or
VMFS datastores,
found on supported
systems to any Unity
model

Unity Native Block Part of Unity OE Used to import block

Import version 4.1 LUNs and consistency
groups from VNX
systems to Unity
systems through the
Unisphere GUI,
UEMCLI, or REST API

Unity Asynchronous Unity data replication Used to perform block

Block Replication feature replication to and from
Unity and VNX
systems

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 PowerPath Migration Available with Used to perform non-
Enabler PowerPath disruptive or minimally
disruptive data
migration between
storage systems or
between logical units
within a single storage
system

RecoverPoint Available from the Dell Used to migrate block

RecoverPoint product data from VNX,
page VNXe3200, VMAX,
XtremIO, and
CLARiiON systems to
Unity systems. May
also be maintained
after cutover to provide
availability and data
protection for the block
resource by using the
source system.

VPLEX SAN virtualization Used to distribute

product available at the block data between
Dell website VNX, CLARiiON,
VNXe, and Unity
arrays. The data is
migrated non-
disruptively by copying
from legacy arrays to
Unity.

Logical Volume Host based feature Used to transfer data

Manager (LVM) from supported
competitive and legacy
array block devices to
Unity block devices

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File data migration

Tool Location Description

DataDobi DobiMiner DataDobi Used for migrating SMB,

NFS, and multi-protocol
accessed file data from
native, competitive, or
legacy systems

Unity File Import Unity native Used to migrate SMB or

migration feature NFS accessed data from
VNX systems

EMCopy Dell Support Used to migrate data to

PowerStore from any
supported Dell storage
system or third-party
storage system on the
Windows command line

Robocopy Native to Windows Used to migrate SMB file

systems systems in Dell storage
systems or third-party
storage systems

Rsync Native to Linux Used to transfer data to

systems PowerStore from NFS file
systems that exist on either
Dell storage systems or
third-party storage systems

Cloud Tiering Dell Cloud Tiering Enables administrators to

Appliance (CTA) Appliance guide automatically move data
from Unity to and from the
cloud, based on user-
configured policies

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Data Protection Phase

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Designing Data Protection Mechanisms

A midrange storage solution may require data protection in some

situations, such as a technology refresh where a Unity solution is
replacing a VNX solution with a data protection feature. In this
case, the solution design may use Unity Remote Replication for
data protection. Remote replication can be synchronous and/or
asynchronous for block or file storage resources.
Designing data protection involves a:
• Consultative sales engagement to determine the system
design capacity and performance needs for the data
protection solution
• Specification of the data protection mechanism
• Handoff of the design plan to an IS for execution

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Phases in Data Protection

Data protection is designed in three phases: Size, plan, and implement.

Size

When this phase occurs: Presales stage of a midrange solution

Roles involved in this phase: SA, SE

Responsibilities:

• The SA consults with the pre-sales SE and discovers any existing

remote replication environment at a customer site during site
evaluation.
• They identify application groups requiring protection and gather
performance data for these groups.
• They size the storage system for the data protection solution proposal
by using the appropriate tools.

Speed information and support matrices for object counts are used to add
a ballpark overhead % to the system saturation levels, where applicable.
See eLab Navigator to view the support matrix that has information on
supported limits for PowerStore.

Plan

When this phase occurs: Post-sales planning and design stage of a

midrange solution

Roles involved in this phase: SA, customer

Responsibilities:

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• The SA consults the customer to determine the data protection goals
for the application groups to be protected.
• The SA then creates a remote replication plan for data protection, as
applicable, and integrates it into the overall system design.

The goal of this plan is to develop a remote replication configuration for

the customer's systems. The plan identifies the:

• Replication connections and mobility interfaces used for the replication

systems
• Types of replication sessions for the application groups that are
configured with the needed RPO values
• Tests for replication

The replication plan is added to the overall system design.

Implement

When this phase occurs: Services phase of a midrange solution

Roles involved in this phase: SA, IS

Responsibilities:

• The SA hands over the overall design to the IS.

• The IS implements and tests the design in collaboration with the SA.
• The IS closely monitors the implemented data-protection solution with
the customer to ensure trouble-free operations.

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Activity: Remote Data Protection

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Activity: Remote Data Protection

Scavenger Hunt Activity

Environment

After proposing a Dell Unity XT 880 solution for the customer environment,
the SA consults with the pre-sales SE to discovers any existing remote
replication configuration at the customer production environment during
site evaluation. The evaluation reports showed an existent file data
replication to a customer site 40 miles from the data center. The SA also
consults with the customer to determine the data protection goals. The
customer also expresses the intention to replicate some of the same data
to a UnityVSA at a remote office 80 miles from Site B. The SA must then
create a data protection plan that is applicable to the existent customer
environment and that also incorporate the new requirement.

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 Replication of Dell Unity File Data between three sites

A major power upgrade is scheduled for Site 1. File data production from
Site 1 will be unavailable for an extended time. What action plan provides
production data access and maintains the greatest protection for file data
within the replication topology?

Instructions

1. Go to the Dell Unity Info Hub.

2. Review the Dell Unity™ Family Configuring Replication.
3. Identify the necessary remote system connections and replication
deployment methods.

Activity

Based on the scenario and recommendations from the document, answer

the question.

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