Dell EMC UnityVSA A Detailed Review

White Paper
Dell EMC UnityVSA

A Detailed Review
Abstract
This white paper introduces the architecture, features, and functionality of Dell
EMC™ UnityVSA and Unity Cloud Edition.
August 2019
H15092
Revisions
Revisions
Date Description
May 2016 Initial release - OE 4.0
December 2016 OE 4.1 update
July 2017 OE 4.2 update
March 2018 OE 4.3 update
August 2018 OE 4.4 update
January 2019 OE 4.5 update
August 2019 Unity Cloud Edition HA update
The information in this publication is provided “as is.” Dell Inc. makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this
publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Use, copying, and distribution of any software described in this publication requires an applicable software license.
Copyright © 2019 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its
subsidiaries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners. [Aug-19] [White Paper] [H15092.10
2 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Revisions.............................................................................................................................................................................2
Table of Contents................................................................................................................................................................3
Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................................................5
Audience .............................................................................................................................................................................5
1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................................6
1.1 Terminology ........................................................................................................................................................6
2 Requirements (Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP) ...........................................................................................................8
3 Requirements (Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP) .............................................................................................................9
3.1 Heartbeat Mechanism (Dual-SP)........................................................................................................................9
3.2 Server Requirements (Dual-SP) .......................................................................................................................10
3.3 Tie Breaker Node (Dual-SP).............................................................................................................................10
3.4 Server Requirements (Tie Breaker Node) ........................................................................................................11
4 Product Offerings .......................................................................................................................................................12
4.1 Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Professional Edition ........................................................................................12
4.2 Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Community Edition..........................................................................................13
4.3 Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP Professional Edition...........................................................................................13
5 Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Deployment ..............................................................................................................15
5.1 Initial Boot .........................................................................................................................................................15
5.2 IP Assignment...................................................................................................................................................16
5.3 Initial Configuration Wizard...............................................................................................................................17
6 Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP Deployment .................................................................................................................20
6.1 Initial Boot .........................................................................................................................................................21
6.2 IP Assignment...................................................................................................................................................22
6.3 Initial Configuration Wizard...............................................................................................................................24
7 Pool Provisioning ........................................................................................................................................................25
8 Feature Set .................................................................................................................................................................28
8.1 Unisphere .........................................................................................................................................................28
8.2 System Health ..................................................................................................................................................28
8.3 FAST VP ...........................................................................................................................................................29
8.4 Unified Snapshots.............................................................................................................................................30
8.5 Thin Clones.......................................................................................................................................................30
8.6 Asynchronous Unified Replication ....................................................................................................................31
8.7 Snapshot Shipping ...........................................................................................................................................31
8.8 LUNs and Consistency Groups ........................................................................................................................32

Table of Contents
8.9 Host I/O Limits ..................................................................................................................................................32

8.10 Dell EMC Unity File System .............................................................................................................................33
8.11 NAS Servers .....................................................................................................................................................33
8.12 Common Event Enabler (CEE).........................................................................................................................34
8.13 Quotas ..............................................................................................................................................................34
8.14 Import ................................................................................................................................................................34
8.15 Cloud Tiering Appliance (CTA) .........................................................................................................................35
8.16 Virtualization Integration ...................................................................................................................................36
8.17 VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols) .......................................................................................................37
8.18 CloudIQ.............................................................................................................................................................38
8.19 Unisphere Central .............................................................................................................................................39
8.20 Secure Remote Services ..................................................................................................................................39
8.21 REST API .........................................................................................................................................................40
9 Comparison ................................................................................................................................................................41
9.1 Features............................................................................................................................................................41
9.2 Specifications....................................................................................................................................................43
10 Serviceability ..............................................................................................................................................................45
10.1 Returning to Normal Mode When in Service Mode ..........................................................................................45
10.2 Collect Service Information (Dell EMC UnityVSA) ...........................................................................................45
10.3 Collect Service Information (Tie Breaker Node) ...............................................................................................45
10.4 Service Host Check ..........................................................................................................................................46
10.5 VMware System Logs .......................................................................................................................................47
10.6 Storage Logs ....................................................................................................................................................47
10.7 Administrator Password Reset .........................................................................................................................47
11 Interoperability ............................................................................................................................................................51
11.1 VMware.............................................................................................................................................................51
11.2 Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition with VMware Cloud on AWS ............................................................................52
11.3 Dell EMC UnityVSA with vSAN ........................................................................................................................54
11.4 Dell EMC UnityVSA with VxRail .......................................................................................................................55
12 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................................56
A Technical support and resources ...............................................................................................................................57
A.1 Related resources ............................................................................................................................................57

Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Traditional storage systems consist of a software stack that runs on purpose-built hardware that are sold as a
single product. Dell EMC UnityVSA decouples the software stack from the physical hardware. This enables
the software stack to be deployed on commodity, off the shelf hardware. Dell EMC UnityVSA increases agility
and flexibility by enabling faster deployments while also reducing hardware dependencies, allowing for
hardware consolidation, and providing effective use of repurposed arrays.
Audience
This white paper is intended for storage or virtualization architects, administrators, partners, Dell EMC
employees and any others involved in evaluating, acquiring, managing, operating, or designing a virtualized
environment using Dell EMC UnityVSA.

Introduction
1 Introduction
Dell EMC UnityVSA (Dell EMC Unity Virtual Storage Appliance) is a unified Software Defined Storage (SDS)
solution that runs atop the VMware vSphere® platform. Dell EMC UnityVSA provides a flexible storage option
for environments that do not require dedicated storage systems such as test/development or remote
office/branch office (ROBO) environments. Users are able to quickly provision a Dell EMC UnityVSA on
general purpose server hardware, which can result in reduced infrastructure costs and a quicker rate of
deployment.
Both existing and new users can benefit from the Dell EMC UnityVSA. Existing users are able to utilize
existing third-party server hardware in their test/development or ROBO environments, while new and curious
users can use the Dell EMC UnityVSA to try out newer functionality as well as APIs before purchasing a
physical system.
Prior to OE 4.5, Dell EMC UnityVSA is available in Single-SP mode only. In the OE 4.5 release, HA (High
Availability) functionality was added, with the introduction of Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP (also known as Dell
EMC UnityVSA HA). Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP can continue system operations in the event of an SP
failure, which significantly increases the system’s applicable use case scenarios as well as enables non-
disruptive upgrades (NDU). Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP is only available with Professional Edition (PE)
licenses in capacity choices of 10TB, 25TB, or 50TB options.
For the remainder of this document, “Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP” will refer to the single node solution of
Dell EMC UnityVSA specifically, while “Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP” will refer to the HA (dual-node) solution.
The term “Dell EMC UnityVSA” will refer to both product types as they share the same feature set, and both
utilize Unisphere for GUI management.
1.1 Terminology
File System – A storage resource that can be accessed through file sharing protocols such as SMB or NFS.
Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST VP) – A feature that relocates data to the most appropriate disk
type depending on activity level to improve performance while reducing cost.
Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) – Provides a mechanism for accessing block-level data
storage over network connections.
Logical Unit Number (LUN) – A block-level storage device that can be accessed using a protocol such as
iSCSI.
Network File System (NFS) – A file access protocol that allows data access typically from Linux/UNIX hosts
located on a network.
Server Message Block (SMB) – A file access protocol that allows data access typically from Windows hosts
located on a network.
Snapshot – A point-in-time view of data stored on a storage resource. A user can recover files from a
snapshot, restore a storage resource from a snapshot, or provide access to a host.
Software Defined Storage – A storage architecture where the software storage stack is decoupled from the
physical storage hardware.

Introduction
Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) – Using storage policies to dictate where a VM will be stored,
as opposed to choosing a datastore manually.
Storage Pool – A repository of disks from which storage resources such as LUNs and file systems can be
created.
Storage Processor (SP) – A storage node that provides the processing resources for performing storage
operations as well as servicing I/O between storage and hosts.
Thin Provisioning – A storage feature used to allocate storage on an as-needed basis from a larger
reserved resource.
Unisphere – An HTML5 graphical user interface that’s used to manage Dell EMC Unity systems.
Unisphere Command Line Interface (UEMCLI) – An interface that allows a user to perform tasks on the
storage system by typing commands instead of using the graphical user interface.
Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) – A storage node that runs as a virtual machine instead of on purpose-built
hardware.
vSphere API for Array Integration (VAAI) – A VMware API that allows storage-related tasks to be offloaded
to the storage system.
vSphere API for Storage Awareness (VASA) – A VMware API that provides additional insight about the
storage capabilities in vSphere.
Virtual Volumes (vVols) – A VMware storage framework which allows VM data to be stored on individual
Virtual Volumes. This allows for data services to be applied at a VM-granularity and enables Storage Policy
Based Management (SPBM).

Requirements (Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP)
2 Requirements (Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP)

Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP can run on any server that supports VMware ESXi and meets the minimum
requirements. If local storage is used, a hardware RAID controller on the ESXi host must be used to configure
redundant storage for Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP. If storage is being provided from a redundant storage
system or server SAN, a RAID controller on the ESXi host is not required. A full description of the minimum
requirements for Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP is detailed in Table 1.
Note that the amount of memory required on the server varies depending on the version of ESXi. For
example, ESXi 6.0 consumes about 6GB of memory for the hypervisor so a server with 18GB of total memory
is enough. However, ESXi 6.5 and ESXi 6.7 requires slightly more memory for the hypervisor so a minimum
of 18GB of total memory is required.
Table 1. Server and VM Requirements (Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP)
HARDWARE CPU Xeon E5 Series Dual Core CPU 64-bit x86 Intel 2GHz+ (SSE4.2 or greater)
18GB (ESXi 6.0)

HARDWARE MEMORY 20GB (ESXi 6.5/6.7)
HARDWARE NETWORK 4x 1GbE or higher for I/O and management
DISK SPACE Minimum 100GB
HARDWARE RAID (SERVER DAS) RAID Controller: 512MB NV cache and battery backed (recommended)
VMWARE ESXI ESXi 6.0 – 6.7
STORAGE PROCESSORS (SPs) 1
VIRTUAL CPUS 2
VIRTUAL MEMORY 12GB
VIRTUAL NETWORK (MANAGEMENT) 1 x 1GbE or 10GbE
VIRTUAL NETWORK (DATA) 4 x 1GbE or 10GbE

Requirements (Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP)
3 Requirements (Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP)

Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP has similar requirements as Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP on a per SP basis.
In terms of VMware requirements, though, a vCenter is mandatory which manages both ESXi hosts that are
being deployed on. Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP also requires the configuration of an internal network
including main communication between SPs via a common messaging conduit network known as CMI as well
as a pair of heartbeat networks which allows for the monitoring of the peer SP health from each SP. The CMI
network and the heartbeat networks must be configured on three separate unused VLANs (1 for CMI, and 1
for each heartbeat network) to provide network isolation for each network. In terms of mapping, the CMI
network is able to access both configured vmnic ports on each ESXi host, given two vmnic ports are
available, while each heartbeat network maps to a separate vmnic port on each ESXi host. For example, if
“vmnic1” and “vmnic2” ports on an ESXi host are utilized for Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP, then the CMI
network would map to both “vmnic1” and “vmnic2” ports, the first heartbeat network would map to the
“vmnic1” port, and the second heartbeat network would map to the “vmnic2” port. There is also a pair of
storage heartbeat networks that need to be configured which is configured on top of shared datastores and
they act as a redundant heartbeat mechanism in case the primary heartbeat network mechanism fails. The
storage heartbeat networks utilize Blockping to verify peer SP connectivity.
The best practice for all of these networks is to have full redundant design such that there is no single point of
failure. For example, each heartbeat network should be mapped to separate physical ports on the ESXi hosts,
be mapped to separate VLANs from the CMI network VLAN, and be cabled to separate switches. Also, the
storage heartbeat networks should come from two separate shared datastores from two separate storage
systems. Ultimately, this ensures the failure of one switch failure, or one network VLAN failure, or one cable
failure does not affect the other networks availability.
3.1 Heartbeat Mechanism (Dual-SP)

In the event that the CMI network fails for Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP, then a heartbeat mechanism is
required to resolve whether the issue is just network connectivity or if the peer SP is lost (i.e. ESXi host went
offline). For example, if it happens such that CMI fails, but at least one of the heartbeat networks, whether
network heartbeat or storage heartbeat, remains alive and can contact the peer SP, then the heartbeat
mechanism knows that the peer is still alive and forces SPA to boot into Service Mode so that all services are
then running on SPB. This is because without the CMI network, the SPs cannot send data to each other for
things like taking ownership of specific resources or updating read cache data. Therefore, one of the SPs
must be forced to go offline to ensure proper system management and storage resource management.
In the unlikely event that the CMI network, primary network heartbeats, and secondary storage heartbeats all
fail and cannot ping the peer SP, then one of two cases could have happened. Either one of the SPs actually
went offline (power outage, ESXi reboot, VM reboot) or both SPs are still online but all internal networks were
disconnected. In the former case, it would result in a graceful failover of resources to the surviving SP, but in
the latter case, both SPs would assume the peer is lost and try to take over as the primary SP resulting in a
“split-brain” scenario which could lead to data corruption (both SPs writing to the same resources). The latter
case is the worst case scenario which can be mitigated by following the best practice for networking,
mentioned above, or could also deploy a Tie Breaker Node to avoid “split-brain” scenarios. More information
about the Tie Breaker Node can be found in the Tie Breaker Node section.
UnityVSA HA uses Layer 2 Ethernet broadcasts to monitor the heartbeats of connected systems. Each
heartbeat network (HB0 and HB1) must reside on the same Layer 2 broadcast domain and VLAN and have
Layer 2 broadcast traffic enabled.

3.2 Server Requirements (Dual-SP)

A full description of server requirements for Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP is detailed in Table 2 below. Note
that the table requirements below are the highly recommended best practices values and not the minimum
values when deploying Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP to ensure full redundancy and to avoid single points of
failure. For example, it is possible to deploy Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP on a single ESXi host, but it is not
recommended as it exposes the inherent HA nature of the solution.
Table 2. Server Requirements (Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP)
HARDWARE CPU (PER SP) Xeon E5 Series Dual Core CPU 64-bit x86 Intel 2GHz+ (SSE4.2 or greater)
18GB (ESXi 6.0)

HARDWARE MEMORY (PER SP)
20GB (ESXi 6.5/6.7)
4x 1GbE or higher for I/O and management

HARDWARE NETWORK (PER SP)
2x 10GbE or higher unused vmnic ports for inter-SP networking
HARDWARE RAID (PER SP) RAID Controller: 512MB NV cache and battery backed (recommended)
HARDWARE SWITCH vLAN (or VXLAN) support is required (At least 3 VLANs must be available)
1 private or shared datastore for private system data per SP VM (60GB)

At least 4 separate shared datastores between the two ESXi hosts:
DISK SPACE 1 for shared system data (30GB)
2 for separate storage heartbeat disks (2MB)
1 for virtual disk capacity allocation
STORAGE PROCESSORS (SPs) 2
VIRTUAL CPUS (per SP) 2
VIRTUAL MEMORY (per SP) 12GB
VIRTUAL NETWORK
1 x 1GbE or higher
(MANAGEMENT)
VIRTUAL NETWORK (DATA) 4 x 1GbE or higher
VIRTUAL NETWORK
3x 1GbE or higher
(INTERNAL COMMUNICATION)
3.3 Tie Breaker Node (Dual-SP)

Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP has the capability of deploying a Tie Breaker Node (TBN) VM along with two
SPs for a more robust solution against possible failure scenarios. The deployment of a TBN is not required,
but highly recommended as it avoids “split-brain” scenarios where data corruption could occur if all internal
networks (CMI and heartbeats) in between the two SPs become isolated. This is done by changing the failure

behavior of the SPs in certain scenarios once TBN is configured. TBN communicates to each SP via the
same primary heartbeat network that the SPs utilize and using the same configured VLANs.
In the event where the CMI network fails, at least one heartbeat network remains available (whether primary
network heartbeat or storage heartbeat) and TBN communication is valid to both SPs, then the same
behavior occurs as without TBN whereby SPA boots into Service Mode so all services are running on SPB.
Although, in the same above scenario, if SPB happens to not be able to communicate with TBN, but TBN can
still communicate with SPA, then SPB is booted into Service Mode and SPA takes over all system services.
In the scenario where all internal networks (CMI and heartbeat networks) go down which would normally
result in “split-brain” without TBN, one of three things could occur: Either TBN is still accessible to both SPA
and SPB, TBN is only accessible by one SP, or TBN is not accessible by either SP. In the first case, SPA is
booted into Service Mode. In the second case, the peer SP that is not accessible by TBN is booted into
Service Mode. And in the last case, both SPs are booted into Service Mode. As can be seen, in all scenarios
“split-brain” is avoided and even in the worst case scenario where all communication becomes unavailable,
the system would rather enter a state of data unavailability than be in a state of potential data corruption.
The TBN also uses Layer 2 Ethernet broadcasts to monitor the heartbeats of connected systems. For the
TBN to function, each heartbeat network must reside on the same Layer 2 broadcast domain and VLAN and
have Layer 2 broadcast traffic enabled.
3.4 Server Requirements (Tie Breaker Node)

A full description for minimum server requirements for the TBN VM is detailed in Table 3 below. Note that the
TBN should be deployed on a separate host than the Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP VMs to keep the VM on a
separate fault domain.
Table 3. VM Requirements (Tie Breaker Node)
VIRTUAL CPU 2x vCPUs
VIRTUAL MEMORY 2GB RAM
HARDWARE NETWORK 2x 1GbE+ unused vmnic ports for networking to Dell EMC UnityVSA HA SPs
HARDWARE RAID RAID Controller: 512MB NV cache and battery backed (recommended)
HARDWARE SWITCH vLAN (or VXLAN) support is required (At least 3 VLANs must be available)
DISK SPACE At least 12GB of disk space

Product Offerings
4 Product Offerings
Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP is available in the Professional or Community Edition as shown in Figure 1.
Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP is only available in the Professional Edition.
Figure 1. Dell EMC UnityVSA Product Offerings
4.1 Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Professional Edition

Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Professional Edition is a subscription-based product, which is available at
10TB, 25TB, or 50TB system capacity limits. Users can start with the Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP
Community Edition and then convert to the Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Professional Edition at a later time.
Installing the Professional Edition license does not disrupt the existing Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP system.
Users must purchase a Professional Edition subscription prior to using Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP for
production use cases. Professional Edition licenses can be purchased for one year at a time. While the
subscription is active, users have the ability to contact support if any issues arise. Licenses are tied to the Dell
EMC UnityVSA Single-SP System ID and also have a minimum code requirement.
As a reminder, Dell EMC UnityVSA (both Single-SP and Dual-SP) displays alerts at certain times in
Unisphere prior to the license expiration date. Table 4 shows when alerts are generated leading up to the
expiration date.

Product Offerings
Table 4. Expiration Alerts
WEEKS DAYS
4 weeks 6 days
3 weeks 5 days
2 weeks 4 days
1 week 3 days
2 days
1 day
Prior to the license expiration date, you should contact Dell EMC to renew the subscription and install a new
license. If a license expires, Dell EMC UnityVSA continues to operate and any existing resources are still
accessible. However, users are prevented from provisioning any new resources and do not have a valid
support contract.
For users who initially purchase a 10TB or 25TB subscription and require additional capacity, the following
capacity upgrades are supported:
• 10TB to 25TB upgrade

Capacity upgrades and license renewals can be installed non-disruptively. When a capacity upgrade is
installed, the limits on the system also scale accordingly. For example, when upgrading from 10TB to 25TB,
the maximum file system and LUN sizes become 25TB. Upgrade licenses only increase the capacity limits of
the system and do not extend the subscription expiration date. However, the upgrade licenses are prorated
according to the expiration date of the current license. Note that licenses that are expired or are for a smaller
capacity than the current license cannot be installed.
4.2 Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Community Edition

Dell EMC UnityVSA Community Edition is a free product that includes all features without any expiration. The
Dell EMC UnityVSA software package, videos, and guides can be downloaded through the Dell EMC Unity
Community forum. Support is also provided through the Dell EMC Unity Community forum, where inquiries
and discussions with other Dell EMC UnityVSA users are encouraged. There is a 4TB system capacity limit
on the Community Edition and it can only be used for non-production use cases.
4.3 Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP Professional Edition

Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP Professional Edition is an annual subscription-based product, which is available
at 10TB, 25TB, or 50TB system capacity limits. Users cannot convert from a Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP to
a Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP. Users must purchase a Professional Edition subscription prior to using Dell
EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP. Professional Edition licenses can be purchased for one year at a time. While the

Product Offerings
subscription is active, users have the ability to contact support if any issues arise. Licenses are tied to the Dell
EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP System UUID and also have a minimum code requirement of OE 4.5.
Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP provides the same Unisphere alerts as Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP for
license expiration date and also can convert from a lower capacity to higher capacity license as needed.
Same considerations apply.

Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Deployment
5 Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Deployment

Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP is delivered in the form of an Open Virtualization Appliance (OVA) template
and can be deployed on VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0 or later. Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP is deployed using
the OVF Deployment Wizard in the vSphere client as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Dell EMC UnityVSA Deployment
The wizard walks through all of the necessary steps to deploy Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP including
reviewing the license agreement, selecting a host, selecting a datastore, and configuring the network
mappings for the data and management ports. If you need to change the network mapping after deployment,
the virtual Ethernet adapter to Ethernet port mappings are:
• Network adapter 2 → Management Port

• Network adapter 3 → Ethernet Port 0
Please refer to the Dell EMC UnityVSA Installation Guide for more information about deploying Dell EMC
UnityVSA Single-SP.
5.1 Initial Boot

After provisioning is complete, the Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP VM can be powered on for the first time. Do
not make any changes to the VM, such as changing the virtual hardware configuration (CPU, memory, NICs,
and so on), as this causes Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP to boot into service mode to prevent invalid
configurations. The time it takes for the initial boot will vary depending on the infrastructure, especially the
datastore performance capabilities. This process can take between 20 to 60 minutes. You can monitor the

boot status in the Summary tab for the VM. The DNS Name shows “Booting…” while the VM is starting up as
shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Dell EMC UnityVSA Booting
Once the boot process is complete, the DNS Name is updated to display the system name. If no system
name is defined, this defaults to the serial number. If an IP address was already configured during
deployment, Unisphere on Dell EMC UnityVSA is now accessible.
5.2 IP Assignment
Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP can be deployed using the ESXi host itself, or via a vCenter Server managing
the ESXi host. Using vCenter enables the ability to customize the template by configuring the system name,
IPv4 management settings, and/or IPv6 management settings as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Dell EMC UnityVSA Settings
If Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP is deployed without a vCenter server, an IP address cannot be assigned
during deployment. In this case, once the system has fully booted, it can be configured using the VMware
Console or Windows tools such as Dell EMC Unity Connection Utility or InitCLI:
• VMware Console - Open the console for Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP and login with the default
credentials: service/service. Once logged in, run:
- IPv4: svc_initial_config -f <Hostname> -4 “<IPv4_Address> <IPv4_Netmask> <IPv4_Gateway>”

- IPv6: svc_initial_config -f <Hostname> -6 “<IPv6_Address> <IPv6_Prefix_Length>
<IPv6_Gateway>”
• Connection Utility - Use the Auto Discover option to discover the system on the same subnet and
configure the system name, IPv4 management settings, and/or IPv6 management settings.
• InitCLI - Run the following commands in a Command Prompt window to discover the system and
configure the system name and IPv4 management settings.
- Discover: initcli discover

- IPv4: initcli configure -id <ID> -ipv4 static -addr <IPv4_Address> -mask <IPv4_Netmask> -
gateway <IPv4_Gateway> -name <Hostname>
5.3 Initial Configuration Wizard

After an IP is assigned, Unisphere can be launched by pointing a browser to the management IP address.
You can login to Unisphere using the default credentials: admin/Password123#. When logging in for the first
time, the Initial Configuration Wizard appears and guide you to:
• Accept the End User License Agreement (EULA)

• Change the passwords
• Install a license

• Configure DNS and NTP Servers

• Configure Storage Pools
• Configure SMTP Settings
• Enter Dell EMC Support Credentials
• Create NAS Servers and iSCSI Interfaces
During the Unisphere Licenses step of the Initial Configuration Wizard, note the System UUID, as shown in
Figure 5.
Figure 5. System UUID
The System UUID is required in order to generate a license for Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP. If you would
like to use Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Community Edition, click the link to the Dell EMC Software License
Request Form from the Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP download page. On this form, enter the System UUID
and click Submit, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. License Request Form
This generates a license and sends it to the email address that’s associated with your Dell EMC Online
Support account. Once the license is received, it can be installed on the same step in the Initial Configuration
Wizard. If you need a Professional Edition license, the System UUID is required to order a subscription.

Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP Deployment
6 Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP Deployment

Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP is delivered in the form of an Open Virtualization Appliance (OVA) template and
can be deployed on VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0 or later. Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP is deployed a
Deployment Utility tool, as seen in Figure 7, which can be downloaded from Support Zone. The tool utilizes
the same OVA file that is used to deploy the single-SP solution of Dell EMC UnityVSA, but automates the
internal networking configuration that is required to successfully connect both SP VMs that are deployed.
Figure 7. Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP Deployment
The three options for deploying Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP include new Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP with
TBN, new Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP without TBN, or just TBN. Note that the Tie Breaker Node is not
configured automatically even if deployed with the Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP solution. The TBN must be
configured for usage by a system even if deployed with the SPs. TBN configuration can be done via the Initial
Configuration Wizard in Unisphere.
The wizard walks through all of the necessary steps to deploy Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP including logging
into associated vCenter, selecting hosts for SPA and SPB, selecting system and heartbeat datastores, and
configuring the network mappings for the internal networks, and data and management ports. If you need to
change the network mapping after deployment, the virtual Ethernet adapter to Ethernet port mappings are:

• Network adapter 2 → Management Port

• Network adapter 3 → Internal Heartbeat Network Port 0
• Network adapter 4 → Internal Heartbeat Network Port 1
• Network adapter 5 → Internal CMI Network
Please refer to the Dell EMC UnityVSA Installation Guide for more information about deploying Dell EMC
UnityVSA Dual-SP.
6.1 Initial Boot

After provisioning is complete, the Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP VMs can be powered on for the first time if
not automatically selected to be powered on in the Deployment Utility tool. Do not make any changes to the
VMs, such as changing the virtual hardware configuration (CPU, memory, NICs, and so on), as this causes
Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP to boot into service mode to prevent invalid configurations. The time it takes for
the initial boot will vary depending on the infrastructure, especially the datastore performance capabilities.
This process can take between 20 to 60 minutes. You can monitor the boot status in the Summary tab for
each VM. The DNS Name shows “Booting…” while each VM is starting up as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8. Dell EMC UnityVSA Booting
Once the boot process is complete, the DNS Name is updated to display the system name. If no system
name is defined, this defaults to the serial number. If an IP address was already configured during
deployment, Unisphere on Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP is now accessible.
Another way to determine if an SP VM is ready is by logging into the Remote Console for the VM and
checking whether all services have started successfully as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Remote Console for SP VM (Services Started Successfully)
6.2 IP Assignment
Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP can only be deployed using the Deployment Utility tool which asks the user for
management IP (IPv4 and/or IPv6) configuration in the wizard itself as seen in Figure 10.

Figure 10. Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP Settings
If Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP was configured with the wrong IP address during deployment and the license
agreement was not accepted yet, it can be reconfigured using the VMware Console or Windows tools such as
Dell EMC Unity Connection Utility or InitCLI:
• VMware Console - Open the console for Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP and login with the default
credentials: service/service. Once logged in, run:
- IPv4: svc_initial_config -f <Hostname> -4 “<IPv4_Address> <IPv4_Netmask> <IPv4_Gateway>”

- IPv6: svc_initial_config -f <Hostname> -6 “<IPv6_Address> <IPv6_Prefix_Length>
<IPv6_Gateway>”
• Connection Utility - Use the Auto Discover option to discover the system on the same subnet and
configure the system name, IPv4 management settings, and/or IPv6 management settings.
• InitCLI - Run the following commands in a Command Prompt window to discover the system and
configure the system name and IPv4 management settings.
- Discover: initcli discover

- IPv4: initcli configure -id <ID> -ipv4 static -addr <IPv4_Address> -mask <IPv4_Netmask> -
gateway <IPv4_Gateway> -name <Hostname>

6.3 Initial Configuration Wizard

After an IP is assigned, Unisphere can be launched by pointing a browser to the management IP address.
You can login to Unisphere using the default credentials: admin/Password123#. When logging in for the first
time, the Initial Configuration Wizard appears and guide you to:
• Accept the End User License Agreement (EULA)

• Change the passwords
• Install a license
• Configure DNS and NTP Servers
• Configure Storage Pools
• Configure Tie Breaker Node
• Configure SMTP Settings
• Enter Dell EMC Support Credentials
• Create NAS Servers and iSCSI Interfaces
During the Tie Breaker Node step of the Initial Configuration Wizard, the tie breaker node VM can be
selected, as shown in Figure 5. Note that the TBN must be configured manually even if the TBN was
deployed with the SP VMs via the Deploy Utility. The TBN can also be configured in the Settings menu under
the Management section.
Figure 11. Tie Breaker Node Step (Initial Configuration Wizard)

Pool Provisioning
7 Pool Provisioning
In order to provision storage on Dell EMC UnityVSA, virtual disks must first be added to the appliance. These
virtual disks can be provided from RAID-protected server-based storage, storage from a Dell EMC or third
party storage system, or server SAN storage such as ScaleIO. The configuration and speed of the virtual
disks can impact the speed of configuration changes and overall performance on Dell EMC UnityVSA.
Workloads should be benchmarked accordingly for proper use.
For single-SP deployments, a new virtual disk needs to be added to the single VM, but for dual-SP
deployments, the same virtual disk must be added to both SPA and SPB VMs to be successfully utilized by
the Dell EMC UnityVSA system. More information about the process of adding virtual disks can be found in
the Dell EMC UnityVSA Installation Guide which can be found on Dell EMC Online Support.
Note that Dell EMC UnityVSA does not support RDM (Raw Device Mappings). It only supports VMDKs that
are presented from a datastore. The minimum size of the new virtual disk is 10GB and the maximum size is
equal to the maximum size that Dell EMC UnityVSA is licensed for. As shown in Figure 12, all virtual disks
must following the following settings:
• Disk Provisioning: Thick Provision Eager Zeroed.

• Location: Any separate datastore than the SP VM(s). If Dual-SP deployment, the datastore must be
accessible by both SPA and SPB VMs.
• Size: Greater than 10GB.

Pool Provisioning
Figure 12. New Virtual Disk
When adding new virtual disks, also take note of the Virtual Device Node ID. This SCSI ID is displayed on the
Virtual Disks page in Unisphere. This makes it easier to correlate the virtual disks in Unisphere to the ones in
vSphere, especially if there are multiple virtual disks that are the same size.
It’s crucial to not remove any virtual disks from the VM that are currently in use. Prior to removing a virtual
disk, ensure it’s not in use by any pools on Dell EMC UnityVSA. When removing the unused disk, confirm the
Virtual Device Node ID matches the SCSI ID displayed in Unisphere to ensure the correct virtual disk is being
removed. If a virtual disk is accidentally removed but not deleted, it can be added back to Dell EMC UnityVSA
and it will be discovered automatically. However, if a used virtual disk is permanently deleted, the pool will go
offline and cause data unavailability.
Resizing a virtual disk that is in use through VMware is also not supported. However, if the virtual disk is not
part of a storage pool, you can remove it from Dell EMC UnityVSA and add a new one of the preferred size.
Virtual disks that are already part of a storage pool should never be resized because this can result in a failed
and unrecoverable storage pool. If you accidentally resize a virtual disk that is not part of a storage pool, you
can recover the virtual disk by removing it from Dell EMC UnityVSA and then adding it back to Dell EMC
UnityVSA.
You can add up to 16 additional virtual disks for data use on each Dell EMC UnityVSA. Note that when adding
the 13th virtual disk, a second SCSI controller is also automatically added to the VM. Ensure the SCSI
controller type is Paravirtual because otherwise, the additional virtual disks cannot be detected and Dell EMC
UnityVSA will not boot properly.

Pool Provisioning
If there is a possibility of upgrading the Dell EMC UnityVSA capacity at a later time, it is important to avoid
using all 16 virtual disks used for data. This leaves room to add additional virtual disks with more capacity
after the upgraded license is installed. Otherwise, storage resources may need to be deleted in order to free
up a virtual disk for expansion. Expanding virtual disks that are already configured in a storage pool is not
supported and could result in data unavailable conditions.
Once one or more virtual disks have been added, a storage pool can be created. In Unisphere, navigate to
the Pools page and click + to create a new pool. In the Create Pool wizard, tier assignments need to be made
for each virtual disk that is used for this pool as shown in Figure 13.
Figure 13. Tier Assignment
This information must be entered manually since the virtualization layer abstracts the virtual disk information
from Dell EMC UnityVSA. Typical Dell EMC tier classification denotes Flash drives to be “Extreme
Performance”, SAS drives to be “Performance”, and NL-SAS drives to be “Capacity”. Dell EMC recommends
adhering to this schema to ensure FAST VP relocates data to the appropriate virtual disks.
Virtual disks do not utilize redundancy technologies seen in physical storage systems, such as hot spares and
drive rebuild. Instead, the RAID controller, storage system, or server SAN handles any drive failures that may
occur. This enables you to create a storage pool from a single virtual disk.

Feature Set
8 Feature Set
Dell EMC UnityVSA retains the ease-of-use and ease-of-management found in the Dell EMC Unity™ family.
It’s designed to have a consistent look and feel across the Dell EMC Unity family using HTML5-based
Unisphere. Its feature set and data services are designed to be on par with the Dell EMC Unity family. Note
that there are some key differences between Dell EMC UnityVSA and physical Dell EMC Unity systems,
which are highlighted in this white paper. For a quick reference to the differences in feature sets between Dell
EMC UnityVSA and physical Dell EMC Unity systems, see Table 6.
8.1 Unisphere
Unisphere is an HTML5-based graphical web-based management interface that is the primary monitoring and
management tool for Dell EMC UnityVSA. It provides tools for creating, configuring, and managing storage
resources. Unisphere enables users to monitor storage operations and system status through a detailed
graphical reporting service, which can pinpoint issues to specific components of the storage system.
Unisphere also enables monitoring of storage system performance through graphs allowing technical users to
see a deeper view of system utilization.
The Unisphere management interface for Dell EMC UnityVSA matches much of the same functionality as
seen on physical Dell EMC Unity systems, but includes virtualization-specific changes to certain pages such
as Pools and System Health.
For more information on Unisphere, please see the paper Dell EMC Unity: Unisphere Overview white paper
on Dell EMC Online Support.
8.2 System Health

Status and health information about the virtual components of Dell EMC UnityVSA can be found on the
System View page. The Summary page behaves the same as a physical Dell EMC Unity system where
information including Name, Serial Number, System UUID, Software Version, and System Time are
displayed.
On the Enclosures page, a graphical representation of the virtual components is presented instead since
there are no hardware components. The virtualized management port and four data ports are displayed here,
as shown in Figure 14. Note that the figure is of a Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP system. A Dell EMC
UnityVSA Dual-SP system would display two SPs on this page.
Figure 14. Enclosures Page
On Dell EMC UnityVSA, there is also the addition of a Virtual page. This page provides details about the
Virtual Disks that have been added, such as name, size, WWN, Storage Pool, SCSI ID, and tier, as shown in
Figure 15.

Feature Set
Figure 15. Virtual Disks
8.3 FAST VP
Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP) is available for both file and block data. It allows
Dell EMC UnityVSA to optimize storage utilization by automatically moving data to appropriate locations
within a storage pool according to activity level, as shown in Figure 16.
Figure 16. FAST VP
Data is moved in 256MB slices to the appropriate virtual drives, depending on the access patterns of the I/O
and the configured tiering policy. The slices with the most activity are moved to the highest tier, while the
slices with the least activity is moved to the bottom tier. By ensuring data is being served out of the
appropriate disk, efficiency and performance can be significantly increased. For FAST VP to work properly on
Dell EMC UnityVSA, it is crucial to accurately define the disk type for each virtual disk during pool creation.
For more information on FAST VP, please see the Dell EMC Unity: FAST Technology Overview white paper
on Dell EMC Online Support.

Feature Set
8.4 Unified Snapshots

Dell EMC UnityVSA features Unified Snapshots, which leverage pointer-based technology to create point-in-
time views of data for both file and block storage resources. This feature leverages Redirect on Write (ROW)
technology to redirect new writes to new locations in the storage pool, as shown in Figure 17.
Figure 17. Unified Snapshots
Unified Snapshots are used with file systems, LUNs, and NFS or VMFS datastores. Dell EMC UnityVSA also
includes an integrated snapshot scheduler which provides the ability to schedule snapshot creation and
deletion.
For more information on Unified Snapshots, please see the Dell EMC Unity: Snapshots and Thin Clones
white paper on Dell EMC Online Support.
8.5 Thin Clones

Starting with Dell EMC Unity OE version 4.2, Thin Clones are supported. A Thin Clone is a read-write copy of
a Block level storage resource (LUN, LUN within Consistency Group or VMware VMFS Datastores) and are
provisioned from read-only unattached snapshots. However, they are treated as primary resources so data
services can be applied to Thin Clones in the same manner as LUNs. Thin Clones share the same blocks as
their parent block level storage resources. Any changed data on the Thin Clone does not affect the base
resource and vice versa. Also, any changes to the Thin Clone do not affect the snapshot source it was
provisioned from. Users are able to create, view, modify, refresh and delete Thin Clones from the Unisphere
GUI, UEMCLI and REST API.
For more information about Thin Clones on the Dell EMC Unity platform, please refer to the white paper titled
Dell EMC Unity: Snapshots and Thin Clones available on Dell EMC Online Support.

Feature Set
8.6 Asynchronous Unified Replication

Asynchronous Unified Replication is available natively on Dell EMC UnityVSA. This allows file and block
resources to be replicated between Dell EMC UnityVSA systems, between Dell EMC UnityVSA and physical
Dell EMC Unity systems, and also locally back to the same Dell EMC UnityVSA system. The synchronization
of data is automatically performed according to user-configured intervals, which can be between 5 minutes to
24 hours, or can be initiated manually. Different resources can also be replicated to different destinations, as
shown in Figure 18.
Figure 18. Unified Asynchronous Replication
Asynchronous unified replication can be used for file systems, LUNs, and NFS or VMFS datastores.
Dell EMC Unity provides the ability to perform operations such as failover, failback, pause, and resume on
individual NAS Servers and file systems. For example, in order to initiate a failover, you must first failover the
NAS Server and then failover the individual file systems afterwards to enable access on the destination
system. Dell EMC Unity OE version 4.2 introduces an enhancement that enables group operations. The
group operation automatically fails over all of the associated file systems if a failover is initiated on the NAS
Server. Group operations can be used for failover, failover with sync, failback, pause, and resume. These
operations remain available at the individual file system level, but any operation applied at the NAS Server
level is a group operation. All other replication related operations such as create, sync, delete, and modify
remain available only as individual operations.
For more information on Asynchronous Unified Replication, please see the Dell EMC Unity: Replication
Technologies white paper on Dell EMC Online Support.
8.7 Snapshot Shipping

Dell EMC Unity OE version 4.2 introduces the ability to replicate file and block snapshots along with the
primary storage resource. Some benefits include the ability to configure a different retention policy on the

Feature Set
destination for compliance purposes, improving cost efficiency by freeing up capacity from snapshots on the
source system, and improvising resiliency by storing snapshots in a different fault domain.
This feature requires both the source and destination system to be running Dell EMC Unity OE version 4.2 or
later. Also, an asynchronous replication session must be created on the primary storage resource. This
feature can be enabled during creation of the replication session or at any time afterwards.
This feature works with both manually initiated and snapshots taken by the integrated snapshot scheduler. A
replicated snapshot retains the same properties and attributes as the source snapshot. This includes the
name, description, creation time, taken by, and so on. For file snapshots, only read-only snapshots are
eligible for replication. Read/write snapshots that are used for shares and exports cannot be replicated.
For more information on Snapshot Shipping, reference the Dell EMC Unity: Replication Technologies and Dell
EMC Unity: Snapshots and Thin Clones white papers on Dell EMC Online Support.
8.8 LUNs and Consistency Groups

Dell EMC UnityVSA provides hosts with access to LUNs through the iSCSI protocol. After a host connects to
a provisioned LUN, it can use the LUN as if it were a local storage device. In terms of management,
Unisphere allows users to create, view, manage, and delete LUNs. Finally, a LUN’s capacity can be
increased, but not decreased.
Consistency Groups are logical containers which allow users to organize LUNs into crash consistent groups.
For example, assume a database application requires one LUN for the database and a separate LUN for log
files. The disks can be managed as a single entity in Unisphere by adding the LUNs to a Consistency Group.
This allows for operations, such as replication or snapshots, to be performed on all the LUNs in the
Consistency Group at the same time.
8.9 Host I/O Limits

Host I/O limits is a feature which allows the user to control the amount of throughput and bandwidth
consumed by block resources. This feature can be applied to LUNs, VMFS datastores, or attached
snapshots. Users can configure the maximum IOPS, maximum bandwidth, or both depending on which limit is
reached first. The user can also choose if a limit applies to each resource individually, or if a group of
resources must share the configured limit.
In Dell EMC UnityOE version 4.1, density based Host I/O Limits can be created which limits host activity
based on the size of the block resource. For example, a density based I/O limit of 100 IOPS/GB for a 200GB
LUN would result in an overall limit of 20,000 IOPS for the entire LUN. If sometime later the 200GB LUN was
expanded to be a 250GB LUN, the I/O limit would automatically update to 25,000 IOPS for the LUN, saving
the administrator managerial tasks and time. Like absolute I/O limits, density based I/O limits can also be
shared among multiple resources.
Another feature in Dell EMC UnityOE version 4.1 is burst policies for Host I/O Limits. This option is available
for any Host I/O Limit policy and allows host activity/traffic to exceed the base policy limit by a user-specified
percentage. The user specifies parameters of amount (percentage), duration, and frequency of the I/O limit
burst allowance

Feature Set
8.10 Dell EMC Unity File System

Dell EMC UnityVSA includes a 64-bit file system architecture that delivers great scalability, availability,
performance, and space efficiency. Dell EMC Unity allows a user to shrink and extend file systems. During
these operations, Dell EMC UnityVSA continues to service IO since they are performed transparently to the
client. Shrink operations automatically reclaim freed space back to the pool. Also, the maximum capacity for
the file system on Dell EMC UnityVSA is 50TB and scales according to the licensed capacity. The file system
is leveraged for SMB, NFS, and multiprotocol file systems as well as NFS datastores.
Starting with Dell EMC UnityOE version 4.1, file systems can be configured with a minimum allocation size.
This enables the storage administrator to control the guaranteed space allocation for a file system. When the
minimum allocation size is configured during the creation of a new file system, the size specified is allocated
immediately at creation. Note that starting with Dell EMC Unity OE version 4.2, newly created file systems no
longer have the option to configure the minimum allocation size. However, Unisphere provides the ability to
create thick file systems if space reservation is required. Note that there is no way to convert from thin to thick
or thick to thin after a file system is created.
For more information on the file system, please see the Dell EMC Unity: NAS Capabilities white paper on Dell
EMC Online Support.
8.11 NAS Servers

NAS Servers host file systems on the Dell EMC UnityVSA storage system. NAS Servers utilize virtual
interfaces to enable host connectivity to SMB, NFS, and Multiprotocol file systems, as well as VMware NFS
Datastores and VMware Virtual Volumes. Depending on what is enabled on the NAS Server, SMB file
systems and NFS file systems can be created either separately or in a multiprotocol configuration.
On a NAS server, interfaces can be configured to enable communication between the NAS Server, client, and
external services. In addition, starting with Dell EMC UnityOE version 4.1, static routes can also be configured
to determine where to forward a packet so that it can reach its destination. Static routes can either be a host
or network route. A host route is the most specific type of route, which is only used when traffic is sent to a
specific IP address. A network route is less specific, and is used when sending traffic to a specific subnet. The
system uses the most specific route available. If no host or network routes are defined, the default route is
used (if configured).
Packet Reflect, also available starting in Dell EMC UnityOE version 4.1, is a feature that ensures outbound
(reply) packets are sent back to the same host or router as the inbound (request) packet. This enables the
NAS Server to bypass routing and ARP table lookups when replying to a packet, so no routing configuration is
required.
In Dell EMC UnityOE version 4.1, for multi-protocol NAS Servers, users are able to use local files to resolve
UNIX user identities for their Unix Directory Service (UDS) configuration. This is useful in cases where an
external NIS or LDAP server is not available for UDS configuration, but multi-protocol is still needed thereby
providing an easy alternative. Local files can be used to resolve UNIX user records in multiple ways including
by passwd, group, hosts, netgroup, and/or home directories.
Starting with Dell EMC UnityOE version 4.2, several NAS enhancements are added including:
• NAS Server Mobility – This provides the ability to change the SP owner on existing NAS Server after
they are created. This is automatically applied to all of a NAS Server’s associated file systems,
enabling this feature to be used for load balancing purposes or to resolve network issues.

Feature Set
• NAS Server Parameters – This enables parameters to be configured at a NAS Server level. This
enables a higher level of granularity and also allows parameters to be automatically replicated as part
of NAS Server replication.
• SMB 3.1.1 Support - SMB 3.1.1 provides improved security and encryption traffic performance for
SMB3 by changing the encryption algorithm from AES-CCM-128 to AES-GCM-128. This change
improves performance under certain conditions such as large file transfers. In addition, this improves
security against man-in-the-middle attacks.
• NFSv4 and Kerberos Support for NFS Datastores – This provides the ability to use NFSv4 or Secure
NFS for VMware NFS datastores. Previously, these protocols options were only available for
traditional file systems.
For more information on NAS Servers and related features, see the white paper titled Dell EMC Unity: NAS
Capabilities white paper available on Dell EMC Online Support.
8.12 Common Event Enabler (CEE)

Dell EMC UnityVSA allows users to connect to a Common Anti-Virus Agent (CAVA) which can be used to
identify and eliminate known viruses before they infect files on a system. CAVA is enabled via the Dell EMC
Common Event Enabler (CEE) framework which is available for download and install for Windows or Linux
environments. CAVA is for CIFS/SMB protocol and does not support NFS protocol.
Starting in Dell EMC UnityOE version 4.1, Dell EMC UnityVSA is able to connect to a Common Event
Publishing Agent (CEPA) using the existing CEE framework. CEPA is a mechanism that allows applications
to receive file event notifications (i.e. receive notifications when a file is created, opened, edited, renamed,
etc.). CEPA is available for CIFS/SMB protocol and is configurable in a NAS Server’s properties.
For more information on CEE, CAVA, and CEPA, see the technical papers titled Using the Common Event
Enabler for Windows and Using the Common Event Enabler for Linux on Dell EMC Online Support.
8.13 Quotas
File system quotas provides administrators with a way to prevent users from consuming more storage than
they should. Soft and hard quotas can be applied to users or to a specific directory. Soft quotas can be
temporarily exceeded until the grace period has expired while the hard quota limit can never be crossed. User
and tree quotas can also be used in conjunction with each other to limit individual users to a certain capacity
and the directory to a different capacity.
For more information about quotas, please see the Dell EMC Unity: NAS Capabilities white paper on Dell
EMC Online Support.
8.14 Import
Dell EMC UnityOE version 4.1 provides the ability to natively import data from an existing VNX1 or VNX2
storage system to a Dell EMC Unity system allowing for greater ease of use and simplicity for customers
looking to refresh their storage platforms. For Block data import, Dell EMC UnityVSA utilizes the existing SAN
Copy capabilities on the VNX series to copy over LUNs, Consistency Groups, and VMFS Datastores with a
simple setup and workflow.
Dell EMC UnityVSA also has the ability to relocate local block resources to different pools on the system. This
gives users the option to balance resources across pools in case certain pools are being over/under-utilized.

Feature Set
For File data, users can import VDMs from VNX1 or VNX2 systems to NAS Servers on Dell EMC UnityVSA
storage systems. Dell EMC Unity OE version 4.1 introduces Native File Import for NFSv3 and Dell EMC Unity
OE version 4.2 introduces Native File Import for SMB. This feature provides a native option for file migration
to Dell EMC Unity from a VNX1 or VNX2 system.
For more information on migration technologies, please see the Dell EMC Unity: Migration Technologies white
paper on Dell EMC Online Support.
8.15 Cloud Tiering Appliance (CTA)

Cloud Tiering Appliance (CTA) enables the ability to tier data from Dell EMC UnityVSA to another location
based on user-configured policies. An example of this includes moving any files that are larger than 50MB
and hasn’t been accessed in 30 days to the cloud. After a file is moved off the primary storage, an 8KB stub is
left which points to the actual location of the data. Any requests to read the data that has been moved can be
passed through or recalled from the cloud. From the end user point of view, this process is completely
seamless since the stub resembles the actual file and the data continues to be accessible on demand.
Starting with Dell EMC UnityOE version 4.1 and CTA v11, CTA is available on Dell EMC UnityVSA. When
using CTA with Dell EMC UnityVSA as the source, only tiering to Virtustream, Azure, and S3 cloud
repositories are supported. To utilize CTA, Dell EMC UnityVSA must be running Dell EMC UnityOE version
4.1 or later. When tiering to a cloud repository, CTA can also leverage compression and/or encryption.
Using CTA helps customers achieve many benefits including reducing capital expenses by reclaiming
capacity on primary storage, lowering operating expenses by reducing number of administrative tasks, and
improved performance by reducing backup times. An illustration of the benefits of CTA can be seen in Figure
19.

Feature Set
Figure 19. Cloud Tiering Appliance
Starting with Dell EMC Unity OE version 4.2 and CTA version 12, support for tiering of block snapshots to the
cloud is available. This provides the ability to archive and restore block snapshots to and from the cloud. This
works with both LUNs and Consistency Groups and leverages iSCSI connectivity between CTA and the Dell
EMC Unity system. Similar to file tiering, tiering of block snapshots is also based on policies and schedules
created by the administrator. Once a snapshot is archived to the cloud, it can be deleted off the Dell EMC
Unity system to free up storage. Snapshots can also be restored from the cloud on to a new storage resource
on the Dell EMC Unity system.
For more information on CTA support with Dell EMC Unity, see the Dell EMC Unity: NAS Capabilities white
paper on Dell EMC Online Support.
8.16 Virtualization Integration

Dell EMC UnityVSA has tight integration with virtualization technologies. Unisphere includes a VMware page
where you can import and display the VMware vSphere environment details. This includes information about
the VMware vCenter, ESXi hosts, Virtual Machines, and Virtual Disks. This process also registers the
VMware hosts on Dell EMC UnityVSA so they can be granted access to LUNs and VMFS, NFS, or vVol
datastores.
Unisphere allows for creation of VMFS and NFS datastores. When a datastore is created and access is
provided to an ESXi host, it is automatically rescanned and made available as a datastore in vSphere. These
datastores can take advantage of the same data services that are available to LUNs and File Systems, such
as snapshots and replication. Also, when creating an NFS datastore, the allocation unit (AU) size or
application can be selected. This eliminates the overhead and performance impact of unnecessarily granular
mappings.
Dell EMC UnityVSA also supports vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) and vStorage API for Storage
Awareness (VASA). VAAI improves ESXi host resource (CPU, memory, network, and so on) utilization by

Feature Set
offloading storage-related tasks to Dell EMC UnityVSA. For example, an operation such as provisioning full
clones from a template VM can be offloaded to Dell EMC UnityVSA. Dell EMC UnityVSA processes these
requests internally, performs the write operations, and returns an update to the ESXi host once the requests
are complete.
VASA is a VMware-defined and vendor neutral API that enables vSphere to determine the capabilities of a
storage system. The API requests basic storage information from Dell EMC UnityVSA, which is used for
monitoring and reporting storage details to the user. For example, if a datastore has Flash and Thin
capabilities, this information is displayed and also used to determine whether or not a defined policy is
compliant. Dell EMC UnityVSA has a native VASA provider which supports both the VASA 1.0, and 2.0
protocols, so no external plugins or add-ons are required.
For more information about Virtualization Integration, please see the Dell EMC Unity: Virtualization Integration
white paper on Dell EMC Online Support.
8.17 VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols)

VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes™ (vVols) is a storage framework introduced in VMware vSphere 6. vVols
enable VM-granular data services and Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM). In traditional storage
environments, LUNs formatted with VMFS or NFS mount points are used as datastores for virtual machines.
Data services were applied at the LUN or file system level, which means all virtual machines that reside on
that particular datastore were also affected.
vVols enables storing VM data on individual virtual volumes, which reside on a vVol datastore. Data services,
such as snapshots and clones, can be applied at a VM-level granularity and are offloaded to Dell EMC
UnityVSA. Also, policies and profiles can be leveraged to ensure VMs are stored on compliant storage. Any
VMs that become noncompliant result in an alert to the administrator.
When creating Capability Profiles on Dell EMC UnityVSA, characteristics that are not available on Dell EMC
UnityVSA cannot be used. For example, RAID Type and FAST Cache are not available on Dell EMC
UnityVSA so they are omitted. Due to this, the calculations for Service Levels on Dell EMC UnityVSA are
different compared to physical Dell EMC Unity systems. Table 5 shows the available Service Levels for Dell
EMC UnityVSA.
Table 5. Service Levels
TYPE GOLD SILVER BRONZE
SINGLE TIER POOL Extreme Performance Performance Capacity
TWO TIER POOL Extreme Performance Performance Extreme Performance
Performance Capacity Capacity
THREE TIER POOL Extreme Performance
Performance
Capacity
Starting with Dell EMC Unity OE version 4.2, Host I/O Limits are expanded to support vVols. vVols support
either an absolute based limit or a density based Host I/O limit, defined by IOPS or IOPS per GB respectively.

Feature Set
Host I/O Limits are supported on data vVols specifically. Host I/O Limits cannot be applied to config, swap, or
memory vVols. While the implementation of Host I/O Limits is the same for vVols and Block resources, the
management of vVol Host I/O Limits is done entirely through vSphere. Host I/O Limits can be created in
vSphere as a rule for a Storage Policy and then assigned at either the VM or vVol level. Unisphere can be
used to monitor the vVol, with the capability to display any I/O Limits associated with the vVol as well as real
time performance metrics
For more information about vVols, please see the Dell EMC Unity: Virtualization Integration white paper on
Dell EMC Online Support.
8.18 CloudIQ
CloudIQ is a cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) storage system monitoring solution provided by Dell
EMC. This free service requires the configuration of SRS (Secure Remote Services) and the user must allow
the storage system to send data to CloudIQ. CloudIQ can provide a holistic view of multiple systems
regardless if they are on the same network or in different locations allowing for a potential global view of
datacenter environments as it relates to storage. CloudIQ, as seen in Figure 20, monitors not only the health
of systems and storage resources configured, but as well as performance metric data in near real-time.
CloudIQ supports both All-Flash and Hybrid Dell EMC Unity systems as well as Dell EMC UnityVSA
Professional Editions.
In additional to an aggregated dashboard view across Dell EMC Unity systems in a customer’s environment,
CloudIQ provides the benefit of displaying a proactive health score for each system which automatically
identifies potential issues along with recommended remedies to help identify needed administrative tasks.
Other benefits of utilizing CloudIQ include reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) by faster remediation of
issues, minimizing risk by identifying potential vulnerabilities, and higher uptime by optimizing performance
and capacity usage of monitored systems.

Feature Set
Figure 20. CloudIQ Dashboard Page
For more information on CloudIQ, see the white paper titled CloudIQ white paper on Dell EMC Online
Support.
8.19 Unisphere Central

Unisphere Central is an application that enables administrators to monitor multiple Dell EMC UnityVSA, Dell
EMC Unity, VNX, VNXe, and CLARiiON systems from a single interface. It collects information such as
system state, alerts, capacity, and performance information and displays it in its HTML5 interface. It also
features single sign on, system configuration cloning, and predictive pool capacity monitoring.
For more information about Unisphere Central, please see the Dell EMC: Unisphere Central white paper on
8.20 Secure Remote Services

Secure Remote Services (SRS) gateway provides remote dial-in/dial-out connectivity to Dell EMC UnityVSA.
This allows the system to dial home and automatically open Service Requests (SRs) for any issues that may
arise. It also allows Dell EMC to securely transfer files, such as logs and configuration information, off the
system for troubleshooting purposes. The gateway allows you to connect multiple Dell EMC devices such as
Dell EMC UnityVSA, Dell EMC Unity, VNX, VNXe, CLARiiON, Celerra, and more while maintaining just a
single connection to Dell EMC. When configuring Dell EMC UnityVSA on the SRS gateway, the License
Activation Key should be used instead of the Serial Number (prefixed with VIRT) or System UUID. The
License Activation Key is required for SRS since this is tied to the Dell EMC UnityVSA license.
For more information on SRS, please see the Dell EMC Unity: Operating Environment white paper on Dell
EMC Online Support.

Feature Set
8.21 REST API

Representational State Transfer (REST) is a management API that allows clients to interact with Dell EMC
UnityVSA using standard HTTP mechanisms and semantics. Operations that can be performed in Unisphere
or UEMCLI can also be performed using REST API. Application developers can access REST API with any
programming or scripting language capable of making HTTP requests, without requiring a separate client.
For more information on REST API, please see the Dell EMC Unity: Operating Environment white paper on

Comparison
9 Comparison
9.1 Features
Although Dell EMC UnityVSA is designed for small-scale deployments, its feature set is comparable to
physical Dell EMC Unity systems. They also share the same management interfaces and design. Table 6
compares the feature set between a Dell EMC Unity and Dell EMC UnityVSA system.

Comparison
Table 6. Feature Set
FEATURE DELL EMC UNITY DELL EMC UNITYVSA
CLOUDIQ ✓ ✓*
FAST VP ✓ ✓
HOST I/O LIMITS ✓ ✓
ISCSI ✓ ✓
MIGRATION (IMPORT) ✓ ✓
MULTIPROTOCOL ✓ ✓
NFS ✓ ✓
QUOTAS ✓ ✓
REST API ✓ ✓
SMB ✓ ✓
THIN PROVISIONING ✓ ✓
DELL EMC UNITY FILE SYSTEM ✓ ✓
UNIFIED ASYNCHRONOUS REPLICATION ✓ ✓
UNIFIED SNAPSHOTS ✓ ✓
UNISPHERE CENTRAL ✓ ✓
UNISPHERE HTML5 GUI ✓ ✓
VVOLS ✓ ✓
COMPRESSION/DATA REDUCTION ✓
DATA AT REST ENCRYPTION ✓
DATA IN PLACE CONVERSION ✓
FAST CACHE ✓
FIBRE CHANNEL ✓
RECOVERPOINT ✓
SYNCHRONOUS REPLICATION ✓
*CloudIQ support is not available for Dell EMC UnityVSA Community Edition

Comparison
Note that the following features are not available on Dell EMC UnityVSA:
• Compression/Data Reduction – Dell EMC UnityVSA does not have control over caching mechanisms
to utilize compression or data reduction.
• Data-in-Place (DIP) Conversions – Dell EMC UnityVSA does not have physical components to
convert to a higher performing model so DIP is not available.
• Data at Rest Encryption – Encryption is not available on Dell EMC UnityVSA since there is no SAS
Controller. A server-based encryption solution or SEDs (Self-Encrypting Drives) can be leveraged if
encryption is required.
• FAST Cache – Due to the virtualized nature of Dell EMC UnityVSA, the disk information is abstracted
from the VM so FAST Cache cannot be used.
• Fibre Channel – Dell EMC UnityVSA only supports iSCSI for block connectivity.
• Multi-Tenancy – Dell EMC UnityVSA does not support network isolation for file tenants.
• RecoverPoint – RecoverPoint is only available physical Dell EMC Unity systems.
• Synchronous Replication – Synchronous Replication requires Fibre Channel, which is unavailable on
Dell EMC UnityVSA.
Note that the following features are different on Dell EMC UnityVSA compared to physical Dell EMC Dell EMC
Unity systems:
• Secure Remote Services (SRS) – Dell EMC UnityVSA only supports the SRS gateway and does not
support integrated SRS.
• Link Aggregation – The virtual ports on Dell EMC UnityVSA cannot be used for link aggregation but
the physical ports on the ESXi host can use link aggregation.
• Non-Disruptive Software Upgrades – Code upgrades on Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP require a
reboot, which means the system must be taken offline temporarily in order to complete the upgrade.
Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP Deployment upgrades are non-disruptive.
• Quick Start Mode – This feature is designed to automatically configure pools in situations where
FAST VP and FAST Cache are not licensed. Since users must select the appropriate tier for each
virtual disk and FAST VP is included in the base license on Dell EMC UnityVSA, this cannot be used
on Dell EMC UnityVSA.
• Unisphere CLI/REST API – Some commands, such as those related to disks and storage pools, will
be different in syntax for the Dell EMC UnityVSA than a physical Dell EMC Unity system. Features
that are not available on the Dell EMC UnityVSA will not be accessible via Unisphere CLI and REST
API.
• Write Cache – Dell EMC UnityVSA does not have write cache since the contents may be lost if the
VM is shut down unexpectedly.
9.2 Specifications
A high-level comparison of the specifications of the highest capacity Dell EMC UnityVSA Professional Edition,
50TB, and the smallest physical Dell EMC Unity system, Dell EMC Unity 300F, is shown in Table 7. Dell EMC
UnityVSA system limits are the same when comparing Single-SP deployments and Dual-SP deployments.

Comparison
Table 7. Specifications
CATEGORY DELL EMC UNITY 300F DELL EMC UNITYVSA (50TB)
MAXIMUM DRIVES 150 (Dual SP) 16 vDisks (Single SP)
CPUS PER SP 6 cores @ 1.6GHz 2 cores @ 2GHz+
TOTAL SYSTEM MEMORY 24GB 12GB
EMBEDDED IO PORTS PER SP 2 x 10GbE and 2 x CNA 4 x 1GbE or 10GbE
SUPPORTED PROTOCOLS SMB, NFS, iSCSI, FC SMB, NFS, iSCSI
SUPPORTED DRIVE TYPES Flash, NL-SAS, SAS vDisk
MAX. DRIVE/VDISK SIZE 15.36TB 50TB
MAX. TOTAL CAPACITY 2.4PB 50TB
MAX. POOL LUNS PER SYSTEM 1000 64
MAX. POOLS PER SYSTEM 20 16
MAX. NAS SERVERS 90 16
MAX. FILE SYSTEMS 500 32
MAX. SNAPSHOTS PER SYSTEM 8000 128
MAX. REPLICATION SESSIONS 1000 16

Serviceability
10 Serviceability
Dell EMC UnityVSA has been designed to be easy to deploy and use by storage administrators, virtualization
managers, IT generalists, and more. Occasionally, there may be instances where Dell EMC UnityVSA is
unable to function adequately, potentially due to issues with the virtual and/or physical environments. When
opening a support case for Dell EMC UnityVSA, the following information should be included to expedite the
troubleshooting process.
10.1 Returning to Normal Mode When in Service Mode

A Dell EMC UnityVSA SP could boot into Service Mode for various reasons including issues with system
software or lost communication to peer SP for dual-SP deployments. In any case, a Dell EMC UnityVSA SP
can be brought back to Normal Mode once the underlying issue has been resolved (i.e. restored network
connections to peer SP). This can be done by following the below procedure:
1. Open VMware console to corresponding Dell EMC UnityVSA SP VM.

2. Login as service user.
3. Clear boot counters by running the following command: svc_rescue_state -c
4. Reboot SP VM by running the following command: svc_shutdown -r
If the SP VM is in a healthy state and underlying issues have been resolved, the SP VM will return to Normal
Mode to continue system operations. A similar process can be initiated from the Unisphere management
interface as well via the “Service Tasks” page for each corresponding SP, as applicable.
10.2 Collect Service Information (Dell EMC UnityVSA)

The Collect Service Information script can be executed on the Service page to gather a data collect. This
script collects information about the system such as logs and configuration data which is useful for
troubleshooting purposes. When this is run on Dell EMC UnityVSA, additional VSA-specific data is also
collected automatically.
10.3 Collect Service Information (Tie Breaker Node)

For Tie Breaker Node in Dual-SP deployments, service collect information is only available via the TBN VM
itself and not available through regular “Collect Service Information” via Dell EMC UnityVSA system
management interfaces. To collect service information for a TBN VM, the following process should be
followed:
1. Open a VMware Console window for the TBN VM.

2. Login with service user account.
3. Default username and password: service/service.
4. Configure a network IP for the TBN VM by using “svc_tbn_network” command.
5. Run a data collect operation for the TBN VM by using the “svc_tbn_dc” command.
6. Use WinSCP or similar program with SCP capabilities to copy the .tar data collect file from the TBN
VM to your local computer.
7. After finishing copying the data collect file, can turn off the network interface by using the
“svc_tbn_network” command.
The default TBN password can be changed by using the “svc_tbn_password” command. Also, the TBN
VM can be rebooted from the console by running the “svc_tbn_shutdown” command.

Serviceability
Below is a table of available TBN service command scripts that can be utilized and their associated
descriptions:
Table 8. Tie Breaker Node Service Commands
Command Help (Condensed)
svc_tbn_dc Usage: svc_tbn_dc [-v|--version] [-h|--help]
This script is a user to collect trace in TBN VM.
svc_tbn_network Usage:
svc_tbn_network -v | --version
svc_tbn_network -h | --help
svc_tbn_network -a <IP address> -n <NETMASK_OR_PL> -g

<gateway>
svc_tbn_network -d | --dhcp4
svc_tbn_network -o
This script allows a user to configure a network IP for the TBN VM.
svc_tbn_passwd Usage: svc_tbn_passwd [-v|--version] [-h|--help]
This script allows a user to change password of service user.
svc_tbn_shutdown Usage: svc_tbn_shutdown [-v|--version] [-h|--help] {-r |

--reboot}
This script provides shutdown facilities.
10.4 Service Host Check

In order to assist the user with identifying possible defects in the environment, the service host check script
can be used. This script checks for the following issues:
• CPU over-subscription
• Network latency
• Dropped network packets
• Network errors
• Disk latency
The output of the script and its log is automatically included in the data collect. This information can be used
to analyze disk and CPU data in more depth.
Users can also run the script manually to provide insight about possible host issues affecting Dell EMC
UnityVSA. In order to run this script, users must first gain access to the command line interface of Dell EMC

Serviceability
UnityVSA. This can be done by opening the VM console or by enabling SSH and connecting with an SSH
client. Login with the service account and then run the svc_vp_hostcheck command, as shown in Figure
21.
Figure 21. Service Host Check
10.5 VMware System Logs

The VMware System Logs provide additional information about the configuration and environment that’s used
to host Dell EMC UnityVSA. This information is also very useful for troubleshooting purposes. The process to
collect these logs depends on the version of vSphere so please refer to the VMware Knowledgebase for the
latest information.
10.6 Storage Logs

If Dell EMC UnityVSA is consuming storage from a Dell EMC storage system on the backend, the logs from
the storage system should also be included. Please include the names of the storage resources that are used
for Dell EMC UnityVSA. The process to collect these logs depends on the storage system so please refer to
the appropriate documentation for more information.
10.7 Administrator Password Reset

In case the admin password is forgotten, there is a method to reset it back to the default. This procedure
requires a reboot of Dell EMC UnityVSA SP, which results in an outage if using a single-SP solution, so a
maintenance window should be scheduled. Note that this procedure also applies to Dell EMC UnityVSA HA
and only requires one SP to be rebooted. Follow these steps to reset the password:

Serviceability
1. Open the VMware console for Dell EMC UnityVSA SP VM (Either SP for dual-SP solution will work).
2. Login as the service user.
3. Run the following command to reboot Dell EMC UnityVSA SP: svc_shutdown -r.
4. Wait a few minutes for Dell EMC UnityVSA SP to shut down.
5. When “EMC Boot” is displayed, as shown in Figure 22, press Tab within three seconds to interrupt
the boot process.
Figure 22. Boot
6. Once the kernel parameters are displayed, append ”unityvsa_reset_admin_password” to the

end, as shown in Figure 23, and press Enter.

Serviceability
Figure 23. Kernel Parameters
7. Wait for Dell EMC UnityVSA to boot up.

8. Once the VM has fully booted, login to Unisphere using the default credentials: admin/Password123#.
9. You will be prompted to change the password to something other than the default, as shown in Figure
24.

Serviceability
Figure 24. Password Reset

Interoperability
11 Interoperability
11.1 VMware
VMware administrators should monitor Dell EMC UnityVSA for alerts as they would for any other VM.
VMware features are designed to be used with standard VMs so special considerations must be taken when
applying some of these features to Dell EMC UnityVSA.
• Supported
- VMware High Availability (HA) - VMware HA is highly recommended to restart Dell EMC
UnityVSA in case of host failure. Note if deploying Dell EMC UnityVSA dual-SP, it is highly
recommended to set the anti-affinity rule between the two SP VMs before configuring VMware
HA. This is to ensure the SP VMs remain on separate hosts and retain the HA nature of the
solution.
- Cold Migration – Cold migration can be used to migrate Dell EMC UnityVSA VMs while the
VM(s) are offline. If you want to relocate one of the UnityVSA dual-SP virtual disks, the following
procedure should be followed:
1. Power off both SPs.

2. Remove all shared disks from the SPA VM, but do not delete the associated VMDK files. The
shared disks include: Hard disk 2, 4, 5 and all disks serving as virtual drives for capacity
allocation.
3. Migrate the SPB VM to the destination host/datastores as applicable.
4. Then migrate the SPA VM to the destination host as applicable.
5. Reattach the shared disks to the SPA VM. Note that the first 3 shared disks that are serving
as system disks and heartbeat datastores (30GB, 2MB and 2MB respectively) should be
assigned to the same SCSI bus IDs (SCSI 0:1, 0:3, and 0:4 respectively) as those on the
SPB VM.
6. Power on both SPs.
• Not Recommended
- Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) - Migrating Dell EMC UnityVSA while the VM is online
may cause latency issues.
- Nested Virtualization - Do not run Dell EMC UnityVSA inside a virtualized ESXi VM as this may
cause degraded performance.
• Not Supported
- Fault Tolerance (FT) - Fault Tolerance should not be used due to the increased latency.
- VM Replication - Dell EMC UnityVSA cannot be replicated and failed over.
- VM Snapshots - Taking or reverting Dell EMC UnityVSA to snapshots is not supported.
- VM Backup - Dell EMC UnityVSA cannot be backed up and restored.
- VM Suspend - Dell EMC UnityVSA cannot be suspended and resumed but it can be powered off
instead.
- Storage vMotion - Storage vMotion cannot be used to migrate Dell EMC UnityVSA virtual disks
while the VM(s) are online. Alternatively, cold migration is supported for virtual disks while the
VM(s) are offline.

Interoperability
- vMotion - vMotion cannot be used if Dell EMC UnityVSA SPs are online, but cold migration can
be used to migrate Dell EMC UnityVSA VM(s) to another host as long as the VM(s) are offline.
11.2 Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition with VMware Cloud on AWS
As customers select a cloud-operating model to support their applications, they look for the elasticity and
scalability of public clouds and enterprise file capabilities such as tiering, quotas, and snapshots. Customers
are also looking to leverage the cloud for file synchronization and disaster recovery operations.
Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition addresses these requirements with support and certification for VMware Cloud
(VMC) on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition can be easily deployed in a VMware
Cloud SDDC (Software-Defined Data Center) to provide native file services such as NFS, SMB, FTP, and
SFTP. Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition also enables disaster recovery between on premise deployed Dell EMC
Unity family systems and VMware Cloud-based appliances.
Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition supports both the single-SP and dual-SP deployment solutions in VMC. The
single-SP solution, running OE 4.5 or later, can be deployed directly into VMC using the VMC vSphere Web
Client. The dual-SP solution, running OE 5.0.1 or later, is deployed using a deployment utility which runs on
Windows 64-bit systems, as shown in Figure 25.

Interoperability
Figure 25. Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition HA Deployment Utility
Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition (single-SP) and Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition HA (dual-SP) provides the
enterprise file capabilities of the Dell EMC Unity family within a VMware Cloud SDDC. Enterprise Capabilities
such as snapshots, quotas, and tiering are delivered with a common experience. With Dell EMC Unity Cloud
Edition, file services are consumed within each Customer SDDC, so there is no need for an external file
appliance or file service. Existing customers can now leverage Unity Cloud Edition as part of their hybrid-
cloud strategy leveraging the flexibility of VMware Cloud.
Since Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition and the Cloud Tiering appliance (CTA) are designed for VMware ESXi,
they are well suited to run within the VMware Cloud on AWS. Administrators can log into their cloud vCenter
instance and deploy the appliances just as they would with their local or on-premises environment. This
allows for very flexible usage of Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition to augment a local array to provide file services
to applications in the cloud, for DR, or to allow the CTA direct communications with Amazon S3 storage.

Interoperability
Figure 26. Unity Cloud Edition and Cloud Tiering Appliance on VMware Cloud
Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition is available on the VMware Solution Exchange and VMware Cloud
Marketplace. For more information about Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition and Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition HA,
reference the Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition with VMware Cloud on AWS white paper, available on Dell EMC
Online Support.
11.3 Dell EMC UnityVSA with vSAN

Dell EMC UnityVSA is certified to be VMware Ready for vSAN. Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP can be
leveraged in conjunction with vSAN to provide rich file services over SMB, NFS, FTP, and SFTP. Other
features such as snapshots, replication, quotas, shrink/extend, multiprotocol, storage tiering, cloud tiering,
migration, and more are also available. Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP systems running on vSAN feature
interoperability with other Dell EMC systems for replication, migration, and disaster recovery use cases. Dell
EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP is not currently supported on VSAN deployments.
Dell EMC UnityVSA is available on the VMware Solution Exchange marketplace. For more information on
how to deploy Dell EMC UnityVSA with VxRail, please reference the Dell EMC UnityVSA Installation Guide.

Interoperability
Figure 27. Dell EMC UnityVSA - VMware Ready for vSAN
11.4 Dell EMC UnityVSA with VxRail

Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP offers support for deployment on Dell EMC VxRail Appliances. Combining
these solutions offer a fully featured software-defined storage solution as well as a fully integrated Hyper
Converged Infrastructure developed and tested by Dell EMC and VMware.
The following versions are supported for running Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP and VxRail:
• Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP:
- Dell EMC Unity OE Version 4.2+
• Dell EMC VxRail:
- Dell EMC VxRail Version 4.0+
When deploying and configuring the network for the Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP on a VxRail Appliance, it
is recommended to deploy the Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP on the same network that is used by the client
VMs that are residing on the VxRail appliance.
When Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP is configured on a vSAN datastore, the overall IO throughput is limited
by the I/O capabilities of the vSphere/vSAN cluster that is being used. The I/O capabilities of a vSAN cluster
scales almost linearly as nodes are added to the cluster and as disk groups are added to the hosts. Likewise,
the cluster throughput can be limited by the choice of network ports that are configured. The recommendation
is to use NICs with 10Gb ports instead of NICs with 1Gb ports.
Figure 28. Dell EMC VxRail
For more information on how to deploy Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP with VxRail, please reference the Dell
EMC UnityVSA Installation Guide.

Conclusion
12 Conclusion
Dell EMC UnityVSA is a software-defined storage solution that enables increased flexibility and agility by
enabling easy deployments and reduced dependencies on hardware. It enables the Dell EMC Unity family to
be deployed on general purpose hardware platforms. In test/development and remote office/branch office
environments, Dell EMC UnityVSA can be utilized to quickly deliver both block and file resources over iSCSI,
SMB, and NFS. The rich feature set included in the base license including Unified Snapshots, Asynchronous
Unified Replication, FAST VP, vVols, NAS capabilities, and more provides additional value.

Technical support and resources
A Technical support and resources

Dell.com/support is focused on meeting customer needs with proven services and support.
Storage technical documents and videos provide expertise that helps to ensure customer success on Dell
EMC storage platforms.
A.1 Related resources

The following documents can be found on Dell EMC Online Support:
• Dell EMC Unity: Best Practices Guide
• Dell EMC Unity: Cloud Tiering Appliance (CTA)
• Dell EMC Unity: Compression
• Dell EMC Unity: Compression for File
• Dell EMC Unity: Data at Rest Encryption
• Dell EMC Unity: Data Integrity
• Dell EMC Unity: Data Reduction
• Dell EMC Unity: DR Access and Testing
• Dell EMC Unity: Dynamic Pools
• Dell EMC Unity: FAST Technology Overview
• Dell EMC Unity: File-Level Retention (FLR)
• Dell EMC Unity: High Availability
• Dell EMC Unity: Introduction to the Platform
• Dell EMC Unity XT: Introduction to the Platform
• Dell EMC Unity: NAS Capabilities
• Dell EMC Unity: MetroSync
• Dell EMC Unity: MetroSync and Home Directories
• Dell EMC Unity: MetroSync and VMware vSphere NFS Datastores
• Dell EMC Unity: Migration Technologies
• Dell EMC Unity: OpenStack Best Practices for Ocata Release
• Dell EMC Unity: Operating Environment (OE) Overview
• Dell EMC Unity: Performance Metrics
• Dell EMC Unity: Replication Technologies
• Dell EMC Unity: Snapshots and Thin Clones
• Dell EMC Unity: Unisphere Overview
• Dell EMC Unity: Virtualization Integration
• Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition with VMware Cloud on AWS
• Dell EMC Unity Data Reduction Analysis
• Dell EMC Unity: Migrating to Dell EMC Unity with SAN Copy
• Dell EMC Unity Storage with Microsoft Hyper-V
• Dell EMC Unity Storage with Microsoft SQL Server
• Dell EMC Unity Storage with Microsoft Exchange Server
• Dell EMC Unity Storage with VMware vSphere
• Dell EMC Unity Storage with Oracle Databases
• Dell EMC Unity 350F Storage with VMware Horizon View VDI
• Dell EMC Unity: 3,000 VMware Horizon Linked Clone VDI Users
• Dell EMC Storage with VMware Cloud Foundation

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White Paper

Dell EMC UnityVSA

December 2016 OE 4.1 update

July 2017 OE 4.2 update

March 2018 OE 4.3 update

August 2018 OE 4.4 update

January 2019 OE 4.5 update

August 2019 Unity Cloud Edition HA update

2 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

3 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

8.9 Host I/O Limits ..................................................................................................................................................32

4 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

5 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

6 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

7 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

2 Requirements (Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP)

Table 1. Server and VM Requirements (Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP)

18GB (ESXi 6.0)

HARDWARE NETWORK 4x 1GbE or higher for I/O and management

DISK SPACE Minimum 100GB

VMWARE ESXI ESXi 6.0 – 6.7

STORAGE PROCESSORS (SPs) 1

VIRTUAL MEMORY 12GB

VIRTUAL NETWORK (MANAGEMENT) 1 x 1GbE or 10GbE

VIRTUAL NETWORK (DATA) 4 x 1GbE or 10GbE

8 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

3 Requirements (Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP)

3.1 Heartbeat Mechanism (Dual-SP)

9 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

3.2 Server Requirements (Dual-SP)

Table 2. Server Requirements (Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP)

18GB (ESXi 6.0)

4x 1GbE or higher for I/O and management

VMWARE ESXI ESXi 6.0 – 6.7

1 private or shared datastore for private system data per SP VM (60GB)

STORAGE PROCESSORS (SPs) 2

VIRTUAL CPUS (per SP) 2

VIRTUAL MEMORY (per SP) 12GB

VIRTUAL NETWORK (DATA) 4 x 1GbE or higher

3.3 Tie Breaker Node (Dual-SP)

10 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

3.4 Server Requirements (Tie Breaker Node)

Table 3. VM Requirements (Tie Breaker Node)

VIRTUAL CPU 2x vCPUs

VIRTUAL MEMORY 2GB RAM

VMWARE ESXI ESXi 6.0 – 6.7

DISK SPACE At least 12GB of disk space

11 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

Figure 1. Dell EMC UnityVSA Product Offerings

4.1 Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Professional Edition

12 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

Table 4. Expiration Alerts

• 10TB to 25TB upgrade

4.2 Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Community Edition

4.3 Dell EMC UnityVSA Dual-SP Professional Edition

13 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

14 Dell EMC UnityVSA | H15092

5 Dell EMC UnityVSA Single-SP Deployment

Figure 2. Dell EMC UnityVSA Deployment