So Chris Mellor has used his journalistic nose to ferret out the VMAXe; so we have yet more overlap in EMC-land or do we? There has been a baby Symmetrix available from EMC for some time (DMX3-950 and DMX4-950 for example) and this is probably just a development of this policy.
I wouldn’t read too much into this move, I’m sure lots of EMC’s competitors will be jumping up and down claiming that this is a response to their product ‘x’ making inroads into the EMC’s core big-iron market.
I do find it interesting that according to Chris (and his sources in EMC are pretty good) that remote replication is Recoverpoint and not SRDF; this does however give EMC flexibility as to the replication targets and would allow you to replicate to a VNX for example.
For sometime customers have been looking for a standard remote replication technology within the EMC range but I suspect that EMC will support SRDF on the VMAXe as for many customers it would make sense as a development array or a recovery array.
I also like that it is factory pre-configured to be entirely VP; customers need pushing down this route, so far after some pushing, EMC included VP as a no cost option and now, they are factory pre-configuring. Does this mean that the VMAXe will not support the traditional Symm disk layout, I suspect not; in the same way that the VNXe tries to hide complexity but it is still there if you want it, the VMAXe will also try to hide complexity but if you insist, you can still make your life hard and complex.
I still believe quite strongly though if you are interested in the VMAXe; you really ought to be looking extremely hard at the VNX (and its competitors) and if you currently have no Symmetrix on the floor at all, this is doubly so. But if you have mixed workloads and a requirement for mainframe connectivity (EMC aren’t supporting FiCON on the baby); you won’t go far wrong with a VMAXe.
if Chris’s sources are correct, there is no mainframe connectivity on VMAXe:
“lacks SRDF and IBM Mainframe and i Series support”
It does seem that way; that does somewhat question the value of the VMAXe. I can see SRDF going in at some point; it would be somewhat crazy to force an existing VMAX customer to put in a RecoverPoint environment just to use a VMAXe in their replication environment. Although arguably, no more crazy than IBM at one point who forced Open Systems customers to put in an ESCON environment to support PPRC.
The lack of iSeries support is somewhat boggling, the VMAXe looks almost ideal for connection to an iSeries.
Still the wonders of marketing decisions never cease to amaze me. Cripple a product for little reason!!
I guess the “e” stands for “easy” – it was an easy option for them to cut down the box a bit and sell it for silly money compared to the competition. Its another Intel box, like all of us, and without all the bells and whistles, for sure a V7000 or at a push a VNX would out-perform it….