Unity VSA
low acquisition cost and ultimate flexibility

Overview:

EMC UnityVSA lets you deploy EMC Unity unified storage as a virtual storage appliance. UnityVSA is software-defined storage that runs on industry-standard hardware and VMware ESXi, which you supply. Deploy the EMC UnityVSA virtual storage appliance when you're looking for low acquisition cost and ultimate flexibility in unified storage.

UnityVSA is right for entry-level hardware consolidation, multi-tenant storage instances, remote offices, branch office (ROBO) environments, and IT staging and testing.

You'll have data services including a 64-bit file system, local and remote data protection, FAST VP auto-tiering, and more. UnityVSA shares the same operation environment and HTML5-enabled Unisphere management with Unity hardware. You can replicate data remotely to other instances of UnityVSA or Unity storage arrays. It's easy to manage your virtual storage and physical arrays together.

IT organizations are increasingly looking to software-defined storage solutions to provide agility and flexibility within operational and development environments.

EMC UnityVSA™ (Unity™ Virtual Storage Appliance) allows the advanced unified storage and data management features of the Unity family to be easily deployed on a VMware ESXi server, enabling customers to implement an affordable software-defined solution. Benefits of this approach is a low acquisition cost option for hardware consolidation, multi-tenant storage instances, remote/branch office storage environment, and easier to build/maintain/destroy environment for staging and testing.

With all-inclusive software, the UnityVSA allows you to:

• Set up for NAS or SAN in just a few minutes using the Unisphere wizards
• Allow VMware administrators to manage storage from within VMware vCenterTM
• Protect data locally with unified point-in-time snapshots
• Replicate data remotely to other instances of UnityVSA or to other Unity purpose-built storage arrays
• Optimize performance, efficiency, and simplify storage management with automated-tiering through EMC Fully-Automated Storage Tiering Virtual Pools (FAST VP)
• Administrate the storage array using the same HTML-5 based Unisphere as Unity purpose-built storage arrays.

With the flexibility of UnityVSA's software-defined storage approach, users can test features such as data protection and disaster recovery without the need for multiple Unity systems.

The UnityVSA software is available today and can be downloaded from www.emc.com. Users can download and utilize the UnityVSA Community Edition at not cost to evaluate and experience the ease-of-use and numerous advanced features of Unity.

Required Specifications

Virtual Requirements:

• Storage Processors (SPs): 1
• SP Memory (GB): 12
• Cores per SP: 2

Physical Server Requirements

• Processor: Quad/Dual Core CPU 64-bit x86 Intel 2GHz+
• RAID Controller: Required (RAID Card with 512MB Cache recommended)
• Drives Types: Agnostic
• Embedded I/O Ports: 2 x 1GbE / 2 x 10GbE

System Limits and Support

Supported Pool LUNs: 64
Maximum LUN Size: 16TB
Maximum File System Size: 50TB
Maximum File Systems: 32
Maximum Usable Capacity: 50TB

UnityVSA Software

UnityVSA Base Software Package is all-inclusive. The software package contains the standard integrated management and monitoring of all aspects of UnityVSA including the Operating Environment, NAS and SAN protocols (as listed below), Unisphere Management with integrated support, FAST VP Auto-Tiering, thin provisioning, Unified Snapshots for NAS and SAN, and Unified Replication for NAS and SAN. Also included is the 64-bit file system with file system shrink functionality for space reclamation, VMDK cloning, multi-protocol support, and quotas.

UnityVSA offers this software in two flavors:

• Community Edition - up to 4TBs, no cost software downloadable on http://www.emc.com
• Professional Edition - also downloadable on www.emc.com with yearly subscription for enhanced support via purchased licenses. The Professional Edition is available for purchase in 3 different supported options: 10TB, 25TB, and 50TB versions. It is a seamless upgrade from a low capacity point to a higher capacity point. The subscription includes:
  • Software and systems related support
  • Access to online support resources
  • EMC Secure Remote Support (ESRS)

Connectivity

UnityVSA provides flexible NAS or SAN connectivity options through Ethernet and supports a wide range of protocols including CIFS (SMB1, SMB2, and SMB3), NFSv3, NFSv4, NFSv4.1, and iSCSI.

Protocols Supported

CIFS (SMB1, SMB2, and SMB3), NFSv3, NFSv4, NFSv4.1, iSCSI
Network Lock Manager (NLM) v3, v4
Routing Information Protocol (RIP) v1-v2
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) v1-v4
Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)
Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP)
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)

Client Operating System Support

Apple MAC O/S 10.8 or greater
HP-UX
IBM AIX
IBM VIOS 2.2, 2.3
Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2+, Windows Server 2012,
Windows Server 2012 R2 (base interoperability only)
Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows 8, Vista
Novell Suse Enterprise Linux
Oracle Linux
RedHat Enterprise Linux
Solaris 10 x86, Solaris Sparc
Solaris 11 and 11.1 supported, SPARC & x86
VMware ESXi 5.x, 6.x

Client Connectivity Facilities

File access by NFS, CIFS protocols
Block access by iSCSI
Link Aggregation (IEEE 802.3ad) - File access only
Failsafe networking
Virtual LAN (IEEE 802.1q)
Network Status Monitor (NSM) v1
Portmapper v2
Network Information Service (NIS) client
Supports Microsoft DFS as Leaf node or Root Server
LDAP signing for Windows
Access Base Enumeration (ABE) for SMB protocol access

VMware Integration

VMware vStorage APIs for Storage Integration (VAAI) for File and Block: improves performance by leveraging more efficient, array-based operations

vStorage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA): provides storage awareness for VMware administrators