The Symmetrix system was an EMC's enterprise storage

array An array is a systematic arrangement of similar objects, usually in rows and columns. Things called an array include: {{TOC right Music * In twelve-tone and serial composition, the presentation of simultaneous twelve-tone sets such that the ...

. It combined dozens of

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with mag ...

s into a single virtual device that was then shared on a

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a large ...

. It was the

flagship product A core product or flagship product is a company's primary promotion, service or product that can be purchased by a consumer. Core products may be integrated into end products, either by the company producing the core product or by other companies ...

of EMC in the 1990s and 2000s.

History

Symmetrix arrays, EMC's flagship product at that time, began shipping in 1990 as a storage array connected to an

IBM mainframe IBM mainframes are large computer systems produced by IBM since 1952. During the 1960s and 1970s, IBM dominated the large computer market. Current mainframe computers in IBM's line of business computers are developments of the basic design of th ...

via the block multiplexer channel. Newer generations of Symmetrix brought additional host connection protocols which include ESCON,

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...

Fibre Channel Fibre Channel (FC) is a high-speed data transfer protocol providing in-order, lossless delivery of raw block data. Fibre Channel is primarily used to connect computer data storage to servers in storage area networks (SAN) in commercial data cen ...

-based

storage area network A storage area network (SAN) or storage network is a computer network which provides access to consolidated, block-level data storage. SANs are primarily used to access data storage devices, such as disk arrays and tape libraries from ser ...

s (SANs), FICON and

iSCSI Internet Small Computer Systems Interface or iSCSI ( ) is an Internet Protocol-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. iSCSI provides block-level access to storage devices by carrying SCSI commands over a TCP/IP ...

. The Symmetrix product was initially popular within the airline industry and with companies that were willing to deviate from the safety of IBM's 3390 disk subsystem and take a risk with the unproven Symmetrix array. This product is the main reason for the rapid growth of EMC in the 1990s, both in size and value, from a company valued hundreds of millions of dollars to a multi-billion company. Moshe Yanai managed the Symmetrix development from the product's inception in 1987 until shortly before leaving EMC in 2001, and his Symmetrix development team grew from several people to thousands.

Symmetrix VMAX

EMC Symmetrix VMAX systems are storage platforms intended for open systems and mainframe computing. Symmetrix VMAX systems run the Enginuity operating environment.

Models

Backup administrative systems (14052939256)

The Direct Matrix Architecture (DMX) product line with models DMX800, DMX1000 and DMX2000 were announced in February 2003.

Specifications

The system scales from a single Symmetrix VMAX Engine system with one storage bay to a large eight-engine system with a maximum of ten storage bays. The Symmetrix VMAX system bay can hold one to eight engines. These engines house the hardware for all the data processing capabilities. Each engine contains two director boards, memory chips, and front-end (FE) and back-end (BE) ports for connectivity to hosts and storage bays, respectively. Each director board contains two Intel quad core processors for data processing, 16, 32 or 64 GB of physical memory, one System Interface Board (SIB) that connects the director to the Matrix Interface Board Enclosure (MIBE), front-end and back-end ports. The VMAX has one to ten storage bays for hard drives. Each storage bay contains 16 Disk Array Enclosures (DAE). Each DAE contains 15-25 hard drives. VMAX supports SATA, Fiber Channel, SAS and Solid State drives.

Features

Symmetrix Remote Data Facility

The ''Symmetrix Remote Data Facility'' (''SRDF'') is a family of software products that facilitates the

data replication Replication in computing involves sharing information so as to ensure consistency between redundant resources, such as software or hardware components, to improve reliability, fault-tolerance, or accessibility. Terminology Replication in comp ...

from one Symmetrix storage array to another through a

Internet Protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. ...

(IP) network. SRDF logically pairs a device or a group of devices from each array and replicates data from one to the other synchronously or asynchronously. An established pair of devices can be split, so that separate hosts can access the same data independently (maybe for backup), and then be resynchronised. In synchronous mode (SRDF/S), the primary array waits until the secondary array has acknowledged each write before the next write is accepted, ensuring that the replicated copy of the data is always as current as the primary. However, the latency due to propagation increases significantly with distance. Asynchronous SRDF (SRDF/A) transfers changes made to the secondary array in units called delta sets, which are transferred at defined intervals. Although the remote copy of the data will never be as current as the primary copy, this method can replicate data over considerable distances and with reduced bandwidth requirements and minimal impact on host performance. Other forms of SRDF integrate with clustered environments and to manage multiple SRDF pairs where replication of multiple devices must be consistent (such as with the data files and log files of a database application).

Other features

* TimeFinder, TimeFinder/Clone — Local Replication * Symmetrix Optimizer—Dynamical swap disks based on workload * Symmetrix command line interface (SymmCli) * SymmWin, Enginuity—Symmetrix GUI console (since Symm3, Symm4 models) * AnatMain — Symmetrix Pseudo-GUI console (before Symm 3, Symm4 models) * Symmetrix remote console (SymmRemote) * FAST—Fully automated storage tiering * FTS—Federated tiered storage * ECC—EMC Control Center

References

External links

EMC.comEMC Symmetrix VMAX Using EMC SRDF/TimeFinderSymmetrix 3000 and 5000 Enterprise Storage Systems Product Description GuideEMC Symmetrix 8000 Series data sheetEMC Symmetrix DMX Series data sheetEMC Symmetrix DMX-4 specification sheetEMC Symmetrix Optimizer. White Paper. A Detailed Review
* ttps://archive.today/20130629234144/http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/041409-emc-symmetrix-virtual-data-centers.html?page=1 NetworkWorld "EMC's new Symmetrix array targets virtual data centers"br>PC-World magazine, "EMC Revenue Grows on Strength of Big Data, VMware""VMAX 3 specifications"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Emc Symmetrix EMC storage servers Computer-related introductions in 1992