Dell EMC VPLEX VS6
Continuous data availability, transparent data mobility and non-disruptive data migration for missioncritical applications

Overview:

Dell EMC VPLEX maximizes the returns on investments in all-flash infrastructure or hybrid arrays by providing continuous availability to business-critical workloads. VPLEX also creates a flexible storage architecture that gives IT teams the agility they need to respond to rapid business and technology changes while maximizing asset utilization across active-active datacenters.

IT organizations worldwide are rapidly moving to all flash storage to take advantage of the performance, workload consolidation, and the rich data services that lower the total cost of ownership. Nevertheless, availability of business-critical workloads is still a huge challenge. Planned and unplanned downtime continues to cause undesirable disruption to operations with severe business impact.

Dell EMC VPLEX maximizes the returns on investments in all-flash infrastructure or hybrid arrays by providing continuous availability to the business-critical workloads. VPLEX also creates a flexible storage architecture that gives IT teams the agility they need to respond to rapid business and technology changes while maximizing asset utilization across active-active datacenters.

VPLEX enables IT organizations to build datacenter infrastructure that is always available and non-disruptive. VPLEX’s unique implementation of distributed cache coherency allows the exact same data to be read/write accessible across two storage systems at the same time. This in turn ensures uptime for business-critical application scenarios and enables seamless data mobility across host arrays without host disruption. The storage systems can be in a single datacenter (VPLEX Local), or separated by distance, (VPLEX Metro).

Here are some of the features that won the trust of IT organizations to deploy it successfully over thousands of datacenters.

• Flash-optimized: Performance optimization for all flash arrays, support for thin provisioning space reclamation using UNMAP XCOPY support on all flash
• Scale-out: VPLEX scales up to four VPLEX engines in a single cluster that can support multiple all flash storage systems
• Dedicated: VPLEX requires no compute resources from the application hosts or on the underlying array to maximize data availability
• No single point of failure: All connectivity between VPLEX cluster nodes and across VPLEX Metro configurations is fully redundant, ensuring protection against single points of failure
• Storage Monitoring and Reporting (M&R): Storage M&R™ for VPLEX is included with VPLEX systems, providing in depth views of all VPLEX components as well as trending data to visualize and analyze the utilization, capacity, health and performance of the VPLEX system

Essentials

• With 12,000+ clusters installed worldwide, VPLEX is a trusted and proven availability technology protecting more than 50% of the Global Fortune 500 companies.
• VPLEX delivers high performance for the latest flash storage technology in combination with reduced latency to ensure business critical applications are never down and VPLEX delivers greater than six 9’s availability.
• VPLEX enables data and workload mobility across arrays and datacenters without host disruption
• Ansible modules for VPLEX enable operational teams to rapidly provision storage infrastructure with accuracy to respond to the fast-paced needs of application developers

Features:

Deep Ecosystem Integration

Server Virtualization and Clustering
With VPLEX the benefits of server virtualization can be extended across datacenters. Virtual machine or application clusters can be stretched across data centers to ensure application uptime even in the event of a complete site failure. Surviving nodes at either of the active-active data centers can continue to run with virtual volume presented by VPLEX. VMware features like vMotion, DRS, High Availability (HA) work seamlessly across active-active data centers giving vAdmins unpreceded control and flexibility for workload deployment. VPLEX supports Microsoft Hyper-V server virtualization deployment as well as Oracle RAC cluster technologies.

Storage Monitoring and Reporting (M&R) for VPLEX
Storage M&R for VPLEX is included with all VPLEX systems for monitoring and reporting for just VPLEX. If you want to monitor your entire data center, Dell EMC Storage Resource Manager™ (SRM) manages storage environments in a hybrid cloud environment and generates insights for the IT staff to act on. SRM provides end-toend visualization, analysis and reporting for your data center.

Integrated Copy Data Management with Dell EMC AppSync
Dell EMC AppSync™ simplifies copy data management across multiple applications and storage systems. With AppSync support for VPLEX, application owners have the flexibility to create copies of production data for various consumption purposes in VPLEX Local and Metro data centers depending on the business requirements.

Storage Provisioning Workflows Made Simple
VPLEX Integrated Array Services (VIAS) drastically simplify workflows like storage provisioning for Dell EMC storage arrays. VPLEX also supports VAAI commands like UNMAP, ATS, XCOPY, and WRITESAME for Dell EMC storage to enable vAdmins to administer various storage level tasks.

Modernize now with VPLEX

The VPLEX platforms:

• Optimize all flash storage with improved IOPS and reduced latency
• Scale up to four engines with support for up to 12000 volumes on both Local and Metro
• Provide simultaneous read-write access across two arrays or locations locally or over sync distances

VPLEX All Flash
VPLEX for all flash is an all-inclusive solution for Dell EMC all flash storage products: PowerMax™, PowerStore™, VMAX AF™, XtremIO, Dell EMC Unity™ all flash, Unity XT all flash and the SC Series all flash systems. The price of this offering includes software license for unlimited capacity for any number of Dell EMC all-flash arrays.

Use Cases:

Technical Specifications:

	VPLEX VS2			VPLEX VS6
Specifications Management	HTML5-based graphical user interface (GUI) ; REST API v2 Command line interface (CLI) 10/100/1,000 Ethernet port/LAN connectivity In rack 1RU server external to VPLEX engine All VPLEX systems ship with Storage M&R for VPLEX			HTML5-based graphical user interface (GUI) ; REST API v2 Command line interface (CLI) 10/100/1,000 Ethernet port/LAN connectivity Embedded two Management Module & Control Station (MMCS) in VS6 base engine with internal storage All VPLEX systems ship with Storage M&R for VPLEX
Systems Capacities
Max. Virtual Volumes	Local: 8,000 Metro: 16,000			Local: 12,000 Metro: 24,000
Max. Storage Elements	Local: 8,000 Metro: 16,000			Local: 12,000 Metro: 24,000
Number of Initiators	Local: 1,600 Metro: 3,200			Local: 1,600 Metro: 3,200
VPLEX Engine Cluster Configuration	Single	Dual	Quad	Single	Dual	Quad
Number of engines per cluster	1	2	4	1	2	4
Front end 8Gb/s Fibre Channel ports	8	16	32	8	16	32
Back end 8Gb/s Fibre Channel ports	8	16	32	8	16	32
WAN communication	MetroIP 10GigE or MetroFC 8Gb FC			MetroIP 10GigE or MetroFC 16Gb FC
Intra-engine communication	8Gb/s FC			Infiniband, 40Gb/s
Intra-engine communication switch	8-port 8Gb/s FC switch			8-port 8Gb/s FC switch
Interoperability
Interoperability	Please see the Dell EMC E-Lab Simplified Support Matrix for details or download the E-Lab Navigator App for iPhone or Android.
Environmental Specifications
VPLEX Cabinet Dimensions	Height: 75 in (190cm) Width: 24in (60cm) Depth: 39.37in (100 cm) overall; 41.5in (105.4 cm) including front door			Height: 75in (190cm) Width: 24in (60cm) Depth: 39.37in (100 cm) overall; 41.5in (105.4 cm) including front door
VPLEX Engine Dimensions				Height: 6.97in (17.7cm) Width: 18.87in (47.92cm) Depth: 30.62in (77.77cm)
Weight	Single Engine Cluster: 754 lb (342 kg) Dual Engine Cluster: 1,017 lb (462 kg) Quad Engine Cluster: 1,418 lb (644 kg)			Single Engine Cluster: 667 lb (302.5 kg) Dual Engine Cluster: 852 lb (386.5 kg) Quad Engine Cluster: 1,086 lb (492.6 kg)
Operating Specifications
Total Power Consumption	Single Engine: 0.6 kVA Dual Engine: 1.29 kVA Quad Engine: 2.32 kVA			Single Engine: 1.83 kVA Dual Engine: 4.03 kVA Quad Engine: 7.63 kVA
Heat Dissipation	Single Engine: 1,900 Btu/Hr Dual Engine: 4,000 Btu/Hr Quad Engine: 7,200 Btu/Hr			Single Engine: 6,244 Btu/Hr Dual Engine: 13,750 Btu/Hr Quad Engine: 26,034 Btu/Hr
Operating Temperature	50 – 90°F (10 – 32°C)			50 – 90°F (10 – 32°C)
Operating Humidity	20 – 80%, Non-condensing			20 – 80%, Non-condensing
Operating Altitude	10,000 ft (3 km) max.			10,000 ft (3 km) max.
Non-Operating Temperature	-40 – 149°F (-40 – 65°C)			-40 – 149°F (-40 – 65°C)
Non-Operating Humidity	10 – 90% Non-condensing			10 – 90% Non-condensing
Non-Operating Altitude	25,000 ft (7.62 km) max.			25,000 ft (7.62 km) max.

The power consumption and heat dissipation totals are steady-state maximum operation at 25°C for VS2 and at 35°C for VS6

Interoperability

Please see the Dell EMC E-Lab Simplified Support Matrix for details or download the E-Lab Navigator App for iPhone or Android.

Compare:

	VPLEX VS2	VPLEX VS6
Description	Flexible platform that lowers the starting cost of a cluster Clusters can be single, dual or a quad engine size	Provides high performance and scalability Clusters can be single, dual or a quad engine size.
Use Cases	Local or Metro Deployment All flash option	Local or Metro Deployment All flash option
Architecture	8Gb/s Fibre Channel front and back end as well as for internal communication External management server 22U solution	16Gb/s Fibre Channel front and back end 40Gb/s Infiniband for internal communication Embedded management servers 25U solution

Solutions & Services:

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Documentation:

Dell EMC VPLEX Datasheet (.PDF)

Dell EMC VPLEX Spec Sheet (.PDF)