VMworld Europe: A Look Ahead to Simpler, Automated Disaster Recovery with Dell EMC PowerMax and VMware

This week at VMworld Europe in Barcelona, Dell Technologies is pleased to preview our latest PowerMax technology integration with VMware, which brings together PowerMax SRDF, the gold standard for storage replication, with VMware vVols 2.0 and VMware SRM to simplify and automate Disaster Recovery for our customers.

The integration of PowerMax SRDF with VMware SRM and vVols enhances the world’s most trusted high-performance storage replication solution to achieve unparalleled availability across virtualized environments. It helps customers transform their datacenter availability operations while protecting their current storage investments. This is the latest example of our close collaboration with VMware to accelerate our joint customers’ IT transformation journey.

This technology preview combines the following three technologies:

VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) – Automated orchestration software that integrates with underlying array replication technology to provide policy-based management and automated orchestration of recovery plans to minimize downtime in case of disasters.

VMware vVols – An abstraction of physical disks through a virtual disk container (Virtual Volume) that is independent of the underlying physical storage. vVols removes the need to manage VMFS datastores, enabling easier storage access and delivery of appropriate storage service levels for individual VMs. vVols offloads storage data services onto storage arrays like PowerMax allowing VM applications to directly leverage data services such as PowerMax SnapVX, SRDF, and QoS.

Dell EMC PowerMax – The undisputed leader in high-end storage with over 40% market shareŧ, nearly triple that of the next highest competitor. Dell EMC PowerMax delivers industry leading performance and uncompromising data services with simple operations and enables massive workload consolidation. Recently, PowerMax became the first storage system to ship with dual port Storage Class Memory (SCM) as persistent storage for extremely low latency I/O needs. PowerMax scales up to 64,000 volumes, ideal for supporting high growth applications, virtual volumes, and snapshots. Enterprise customers depend on PowerMax to run their business while reducing cost and complexity.

Attendees at VMworld US received a technical preview of VMware SRM with vVols. At VMworld Europe, VMware and Dell Technologies will jointly showcase the integration of VMware SRM and vVols 2.0 with Dell EMC PowerMax in a breakout session. The preview is also available at our booth in the Solutions Expo at VMworld Europe.

For folks who like to know the technical details, this demonstration used the following hardware and software:

  • 2 Dell EMC PowerMax 8000s
  • PowerMaxOS and Unisphere for PowerMax
  • Pre-GA builds of VMware vSphere ESXi, vCenter and SRM pre-GA builds

I can also give you a quick glance of the integration here itself. Figure 1 below is a vSphere screenshot of the Async policy for vVols replication with SRDF. This shows a replication policy with an RPO of 30 seconds.

Figure 1 – SRM replication policy

“We are thrilled to share that the Dell EMC PowerMax platform will fully support VMware Virtual Volumes (vVols),” said Lee Caswell, Vice President HCI BU, VMware. “We are seeing great interest for this deep level of integration from VMware customers who value the combination of VMware technology with Dell EMC Infrastructure. This is a remarkable example of how Dell Technologies leverages VMware vVols and the VMware Cloud Foundation to help customers meet the intense availability and capacity demands of today’s digital business.”

Come see us at booth #D401 in the VMworld Solutions Exchange to see how these two leading companies are developing this solution to automate and simplify Disaster Recovery for our joint customers.

For more information, visit and watch this space: dellemc.com/powermax.

ŧSource: IDC Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, 2019Q2, September 5, 2019.

Travis Vigil

About the Author: Travis Vigil

Travis Vigil is Senior Vice President leading Portfolio and Product Management for Dell’s Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG). He and his team are responsible for Dell’s Server, Storage, Data Protection, CI/HCI, Networking and Solutions businesses. He has over 20 years of Product Management, Marketing and Business Operations experience with technology companies including Intel and Dell. In previous roles at Dell, he served as Senior Vice President for Storage and Data Protection Product Management, and Senior Vice President for Business Operations focused on Dell’s Server, Storage and Networking Businesses. He has a B.S. from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.