Increased response times on VNX when using Windows 2012

Posted by on July 1, 2014 1 comment

Windows 2012 can cause higher response times on VNX

When Windows 2012 issues Trim or Unmap commands to thin LUNs on a VNX, the Storage Processor response times can increase or may initiate a bugcheck.

As part of disk operations to reclaim free space from thin LUNs, Windows 2012 Server can issue large numbers of the SCSI command 0x9E/0x12 (Service Action/Get LBA Status). This SCSI command results in what is called a “DESCRIBE_EXTENTS” I/O on the VNX Storage Processor (SP.) These commands are used as part of the Trim/Unmap process to see if each logical block address (LBA) that has been freed up on the host’s file system is allocated on the VNX thin LUN. The host would then issue Unmap SCSI commands to shrink the allocated space in the thin LUN, thus freeing up blocks that were no longer in use in the file system. RecoverPoint also issues these same SCSI commands when the Thin LUN Extender mechanism is enabled, which can cause similar performance issues. See knowledge base article KB174052 for more information about the RecoverPoint variation of this issue and how to prevent it.

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Optimizing performance using VAAI and the ESX MaxHWTransferSize setting

Posted by on June 30, 2014 1 comment

xcopy transfer size

If you’re running an EMC VNX using a lower version than block OE version 05.32.000.5.209, you might want to upgrade to the latest and greatest version (patch 209 or newer). The 209 offers EMC’s latest fixes and enhancements for VAAI performance. Many of the found performance issues have been fixed in the 209 code. However, in some environments sub-optimal performance has been detected with xcopy operations, or in some cases with the performance of non-xcopy IO during xcopy operations to the same pool.

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EMC Elect 2014 summer event

Posted by on June 30, 2014 1 comment

EMC Elect 2014 summer event!

What if the Elect members from the Belgium/Netherlands/Germany(/UK)(/France) area would come together in a somewhat centralized place like, for example, in a fun park? It would have nothing to do with “Geek Talk” and everything with having a bit of fun. How would you respond to an initiative like that?

Please respond by replying to this post (or in the original post on ECN) and maybe we can actually do something together. With family, without, with some food-related event afterwards, without, please speak up and we will figure out something cool to do the summer!!!

My first thought was to visit the number 3 nicest fun park in Europe (in 2012 I think) called “the Efteling” (www.efteling.com. For those who don’t know the park, it’s all about fairy tales, or at least that’s how it all started in 1952. Nowadays there’s still the magic forest for those with small children, but also some thrill rides and even a few nice relaxing rides like the “Fata Morgana” or the “Droomvlucht” will take your breath away. And for those who think the Las Vegas Bellagio Fountains are sooooo beautiful, you haven’t seen anything yet! The recently built “Aquanura” uses music, fire and different colors or light compared to the monochrome water in Vegas.

Afterwards we could eat something on the park or somewhere offsite (any ideas?)

So make yourself heard and let us know what you think of this.

Who am I targeting for this event? Dutch, Belgian, German Elect members are obvious, but English, Irish or French are welcome too. But if somebody is on vacation here from any other country, they are welcome too, just make sure to make yourself heard.

On ECN I’ve created a little table in which you can fill out any details if you want to participate. Large comments or suggestions should be in a reply to that post, dates and small comments can be put in the table.

Converting SPcollect files into XLS

Posted by on June 4, 2014 8 comments
javascript on the CLI

Converting SPCollect files into XLS or “How to run javascript on the command line”

Converting EMC SPcollect files into a readable Excel spreadsheet can be done by a js script named “ArrayConfigToXLS.js”. When you install USM (Unisphere Service Manager) a folder called C:\EMC will be created (or on another location since you can specify where this will be created). In that folder a sub-folder called “repository” exists and one of the files you’ll find there is “ArrayConfigToXLS.js”.

Take one of the two SPcollect files (Clariion or VNX), open the zip file and look for the file CKM[serial]SP[A_or_B]_[date]_[time]_[some_number]_sus.zip and open that zip file. Look for the file called “SPA_arrayconfig.xml”; sort on extension and pick that xml, that’s easier, since it will be the only xml there.

Copy that xml to c:\EMC\repository, open a CLI (e.g. CMD.exe) and type:

cscript ArrayConfigToXLS.js SPA_arrayconfig.xml SPA_arrayconfig.xls

The “script” will allow you to run the “js” script and the outcome is that an XLS will be created. Now open the XLS in your favorite spreadsheet application and you’ll find the configuration of your EMC array!

How to change the VNX weekly heartbeat date and time

Posted by on May 23, 2014 No comments

Changing the time for the weekly heartbeat

People with Clariion or VNX systems installed on site know that these arrays will email “home” (that’s EMC/you) once a week on a seemingly random date/time. Ok, once the day of the week and the time are set, each week the “I’m still alive” email will go out at that time. But what if you don’t want to have that email sent out at Thursday at 2:47AM and you want all of your arrays to send out that email on Saturday at noon sharp? You will need to adjust the parameters. I didn’t find a way to change the weekday, so I’m changing the time less than a day before it needs to run. So if I want it to run on Saturday at noon, I could run this script on Friday after noon. It will pick the next available day automatically.

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