EMC Celerra VSA

Virtual Storage Appliances (VSA) are really picking-up these days. Even the legacy hardware vendors are getting into the fray. They're great in the lab and - assuming tailored performance - can fit some really interesting "embedded" applications.

If you haven't had a chance to look at the EMC Celerra VSA then click over to Chad Sakac's VirtualGeek Blog and have a look at his series on configuration and testing. If you have time, check out some of Chad's more visionary stuff while your there - he has some good information on what's to come in the next few months from EMC and VMware...

For the Celerra VSA, look at these two links

How-To 101 - Basic Setup and Configuration (and download)

How-To 201 - Adding More Physical Storage

If you're new to iSCSI and VMware, check-out Chad's post on iSCSI with VMware - it will get you on the right track.

Application Notes:

1. If you're using "homebrew" or "white box" equipment and do not have SCSI attached local storage, do not expect ANY level of performance - especially with Nvidia-based controllers. Try picking-up a cheap LSI or Adaptec storage controller for your lab tests.


2. The Celerra VSA is for non-production environments only (lab, testing, etc.)


3. The Celerra VSA does not support SMP - so faster cores are a benefit.


4. The Celerra VSA accomplishes in one node (and processor) what multiple nodes and processors do in a real (hardware) Celerra. That said, expect appropriate performance degredation.