VNX Architecture | EMC Clariion Architecture | VNX 1 and VNX 2

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sanadmin.net/2015/11/VNX-architecture.html

VNX/Clariion Block Architecture

VNX/Clariion Architecture

Note:
EMC introduced the VNX Series, designed to
replace both the Clariion and Celerra products.

Architecture

Clariion & VNX Block Level Storage share the same architecture
and VNX Unified Storage architecture includes both the SAN & NAS
part.

And the main

differences will be in the specifications like Capacity, Ports, drives &
connectivity.

Clariion/VNX is a mid-range storage array. It is an active

passive architecture.

It has different modules,

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SPE – Storage Processor Enclosure

DPE – Disk Processor Enclosure

DAE – Disk Array Enclosure

SPS – Stand-by Power Supply

Each SPE has two storage

processor named as SP A & SP B, they are connected with Clariion Messaging Interface (CMI).

And each SP has front end ports and back end ports and cache memory.

Front end ports helps to serve host I/O requests; back end ports
helps to communicate with the disks.
Cache is of two types, Write Cache which is mirrored & Read
Cache which is not mirrored.

The first DAE which is

connected is known as DAE OS.

In this first five drives are

known as Vault drives or Code drives. These
are used to save the critical data in case of power failure and also save the
data like SP A & SP B boot
information which is mirrored.

All the drives are connected through the Link

Control Cards (LCC).

FLARE which is triple mirrored and Persistent storage manager (PSM) is also triple mirrored.

Each DAE has Primary and Expansion ports which is used to connect other DAE’s.

Basically VNX has 3 main models

of Storage's

Block Level Storage

File Level Storage and

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Unified Storage Array

For more details about the VNX series & models, please refer
the below link.

https://www.emc.com/en-us/storage/vnx.htm

VNX 1 Series

The VNX 1 series includes six models that are available in block,
file, and unified configurations:

VNX 5100, VNX 5300, VNX 5500 , VNX 5700 and VNX
7500.

The Block configuration for VNX 5500 & VNX 5700 shows below:

Block configuration for VNX 5500 & VNX 7500

The File configuration for VNX 5300 & VNX

5700 shows below:

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 File configuration for VNX 5300 & VNX 5700

The Unified configuration for VNX 5300 & VNX

5700 shows below:

Unified configuration for VNX 5300 & VNX 5700

The VNX series used updated components that make it significantly

denser than earlier drives.

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A 25 drive 2.5” SAS-drive DAE

Example of a Block dense configuration

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 Example of a Unified dense configuration

Front view of 25 SAS-drive DAE

Back view of 25 SAS-drive DAE

A close up of the Back view with the ports naming

A close up of the back view

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A 15 drives DAE

Front view of a 15 drives DAE

Back view of 15 drives DAE

A close up of the Back view with the ports naming

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 Close up view of a 15 drives DAE

A picture of Link Control Cards LCC cards connectivity

Link Control Cards

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A picture of a cooling module

VNX 2 Series

The VNX 2 series includes six models that are

available in block,
file, and unified configurations:

VNX 5200, VNX 5400, VNX 5600 , VNX 5800, VNX

7600 and VNX 8000.

There are two existing Gateway models:

VNX VG2 and VNX VG8

There are two VMAX® Gateway models:

VNX VG10 and VNX VG50

A model comparison chart for VNX 2 series.

Cooling module

A model comparison chart

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The Block configuration for VNX 5600 & VNX
8000 shows below:

Block configuration for VNX 5600 & VNX 8000

The File configuration for VNX 5600 & VNX

8000 shows below:

File configuration VNX 5600 & VNX 8000

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The Unified configuration for VNX 5600 & VNX
8000 shows below:

Unified configuration VNX 5600 & VNX 8000

As informed earlier, the VNX 2 series used updated components that

make it significantly denser than earlier drives.

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 Example of Block dense configuration

The below picture shows the back view of the

DPE with SP A (on the
right) and SP B (on the left).

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 Example of Unified dense configuration

Back view of DPE

Picture shows a close-up of the back of the DPE-based storage

processor.

Close up view of the back view of the DPE based Storage Processor

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 Power, fault, activity, link and status LED

A pic of Storage processor management and base module ports

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 Storage processor management and base module ports

Need more details about the hardware& connectivity issues,

please refer this link below.

https://santrain.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/vnx-architectural-overview_final_produced.pdf

https://education.emc.com/academicalliance/documents/EAA_Content/Exercises/EMC%20VNX.pd
f

Author : Unknown

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