What is EMC VNX?

With EMC VNX you'll have the right blend of flash, capacity, and application-aware software. Scale up storage for midrange workloads, optimized for virtual applications and cloud environments.

Also known as

VNX

Sample customers

Samsonite, Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Kindred Healthcare

EMC VNX Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars

(18)

Brad eley li?1414330038

Network Analyst at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 17 2017

Can combine drives of different types into a virtual Storage Pool.

Valuable Features: One of the best features of the VNX is the ability to combine drives of different types into a virtual Storage Pool. By combining small but fast flash drives, SAS drives, and high-capacity but slower NL-SAS drives, the VNX can intelligently move data to the different tiers of... more »

Gildo PinheiroAs a model of a vnx structure with steps for a convergent network What is... more »

VMware and Storage Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

Apr 15 2017

I value deduplication and compression to save space. The CLI could be better documented.

Valuable Features: I really value deduplication and compression to save space. • Improvements to My Organization: It is our Tier-2 storage which is easy to provision from and has decent performance. • Room for Improvement: The CLI could be better documented, like with VMAX. • Use... more »

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Technical Sales Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Mar 30 2017

Integration with VMware is valuable, due to the migration from bare metal to virtualized environments and then on to the cloud.

Valuable Features: The most valuable feature is the tight VMware integration, due to the migration from bare metal to virtualized environments and then on to the cloud. VNX provides the full feature set, automated storage tiering to optimize flash, and file dedupe in what used to be a... more »

José Alberto Oliveros Garcia Alcañiz

Director de Explotación IT. COE. at a security firm with 10,001+ employees

Mar 30 2017

Some of the valuable features are tier configuration and backup and refresh development on test environments.

Valuable Features: Good performance for VM environments In one cabinet, we have many environments: VMware, Oracle, Adabas, NAS (CIFS and NFS resources), and mix disks on tier configurations Tier configuration with different disks (SAS, SATA, Flash) The software for management is very... more »

Rahul Rukhaiyar

Tech Specialist at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Mar 30 2017

FAST doesn't require configuration and is managed by the array itself.

Valuable Features: FAST (auto-tiering): Doesn't require configuration and is managed by the array itself. SNAP feature: Takes only 10% of the space, an improvement compared to the earlier space utilization with RLPs. NAS: Using CIFS, NFS, and mixed mode shares is not as cumbersome as when... more »

Vasileios Axaris

IT Infrastructure and Operations Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 30 2017

Some of the valuable features are non-disruptive updates, SSD tier, and storage pooling.

Valuable Features: Reliability, excellent support by EMC, and VMware integration High availability including non-disruptive updates: We cannot afford downtime windows. SSD tier: Provided desired performance with fewer disks Storage pooling and auto-tiering: Simplified storage management... more »

Senior SAN Engineer at a government with 501-1,000 employees

Mar 21 2017

The auto-tiering helps in the speed of data access.

Valuable Features: The most valuable feature is the auto-tiering, which helps in the speed of data access. We have a big VMware storage pool in each of our three arrays and we have never had users complain about response of any VM in our environment. • Improvements to My Organization: It... more »

System Administrator at a software R&D company

Mar 20 2017

Customer service responds on time. The management software could be easier to use.

Room for Improvement: Ease of use of the management software • Use of Solution: I have used it for five years. • Deployment Issues: We have not encountered any deployment issues. • Stability Issues: We have not encountered any stability issues. • Scalability Issues: We don't... more »

Senior System Administrator Infrastructure at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 16 2017

Archives data to be placed in NL-SAS disks where IOPS is not in demand.

Valuable Features: It is very stable, even during multiple power failures. • Improvements to My Organization: A hybrid, tiered storage such as VNX: Enables data where IOPS is critical to be placed in SSDs Archives data to be placed in NL-SAS disks where IOPS is not in demand • Room... more »

Storage Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It's easy to use and integrate, but they need to make major changes to the file services.

Valuable Features: It's easy to use, and integrate, I'm not storage-centric, as I just integrate storage along with other things. I can go in there and follow instructions to complete the job. I know all products are different, especially how they’re all clustered differently. For me, I don’t... more »

IT Director at a Consumer Goods with 1,001-5,000 employees

We can deploy quickly and it’s storage-based, making it data-focused that provides a virtualized and structured way of moving data.

Valuable Features: It’s a great platform that’s evolved very quickly that overtook NetApp with the Vblock initiative. Everything was valuable – HA, SRM, Vplex, metrocluster, entire suite of products • Improvements to My Organization: We can deploy quickly and it’s storage-based, making... more »

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Solutions Architect - EMC at a reseller with 501-1,000 employees

It's a powerful and effective entry level SAN that you can provision on your own, but it needs to support FAST-VP.

Valuable Features: It is easy to deploy, has a simple interface, and has all the valuable features a small business would need to get going. It has thin provisioning which means a lower TCO and it has FAST cache support which means that performance is not compromised. • Improvements to My... more »

Matthew Bradley

Director at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Block and NAS on multiple VNX's are all managed from the same Unisphere GUI, but with the functionality/flexibility, the interface is more complex.

Valuable Features: Block and NAS on multiple VNX's are all managed from the same Unisphere GUI. Plus, it has great data migration tools e.g. EMCopy. • Improvements to My Organization: Unisphere provides a one-stop go-to place to manage all my VNX storage arrays, saving me time, and... more »

Senior Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We're able to copy in more than two data centers, but setup with more than three data centers was complex.

Valuable Features: Scalability High performance Easy administration • Improvements to My Organization: We need, in real time, to be able copy in more than two data centers, and EMC gave us a better solution with great performance. • Room for Improvement: We get... more »

Arsalan shafinia li?1422853761

Arsalan Shafinia

Technical Manager / Administrator at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

This SAN series provides us with vendor-specific features in our VMware Hypervisor-based virtualized infrastructure. However, it needs ASIC-based functions.

Valuable Features: They have more different/flexible models in the midrange storage area In comparison with other vendors . They have also built in VMware specific features . Lastly, it has reasonable performance/cost. • Improvements to My Organization: In a virtualized... more »

Prasun Talukdarwhat are those VMWARE specific features of VNX ? more »

System Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

With raid pools, you aren't limited with RAID size, but caching needs to be improved.

Valuable Features: Raid pools Snapshots • Improvements to My Organization: With raid pools, you aren't limited with RAID size. Snapshots will ease your testing on the applications. • Room for Improvement: Caching Auto-tiering • Use of Solution: I've... more »

Michael Pennington

Network Engineer at a K-12 educational company or school with 501-1,000 employees

We're able to over-provision and have had plenty of storage for the past two years, but it only supports 10Gb copper and not 10Gb fiber.

Valuable Features: The cost of the product, because it's considered an entry level product for what it does, but it had everything we needed for a great price. • Improvements to My Organization: All our storage is now in two places, a primary site and a DR site. Network... more »

Gaganpreet Singh

Storage admin (Server Support Team) at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It's got some great features, such as fast caching and RecoverPoint, but it's expensive.

Valuable Features: Fast VP Fast cache Snap clone Snap shot RecoverPoint SAN copy Mirror copy Access Logix • Use of Solution: I have worked on CLARiiON and all series of VNX. • Implementation Team: I implemented and performed the migration myself. • Cost and... more »

Sascha Schmidt-RiesI find the VNX / VNXe competitively priced if you use all the features... more »

Ajaz ahmed li?1429549007

Ajaz AhmedHow does licensing work when an underlying array like VNX is abstracted by,... more »

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Articles

Ddp 8148

Ariel Lindenfeld

Sr. Director of Community

IT Central Station

Top Enterprise Flash Array Storage - 2016 Edition

Here at IT Central Station, we offer a crowdsourced platform that allows real users to share their opinions about tech products with the rest of the enterprise tech community. We have compiled over 46,000 views of the top enterprise flash array storage vendors by real users in 2015 and analyzed... more »

Chris2

Chris ChilderhoseInteresting article when gauging options for storage since there are so many... more »

User Success Manager

IT Central Station

May 11 2017

Top 6 All-Flash Arrays Q1 2017

IT Central Station’s crowdsourced user review platform helps technology decision makers around the world to better connect with peers and other independent experts who provide advice without vendor bias.You can read user reviews for the top six all-flash arrays of Q1 2017 here, to help you decide... more »

Chris2

Chris ChilderhoseInteresting to see the rankings. Thought maybe Nimble would be higher. more »

Darren HermonWould not pay much attention to this as how can it not include the number 1... more »

Naomi GoldbergHi Darren, our rankings are not based on analyst opinions. They are... more »

User Assessments By Topic About EMC VNX

Valuable Features

One of the best features of the VNX is the ability to combine drives of different types into a virtual Storage Pool. By combining small but fast flash drives, SAS drives, and high-capacity but slower NL-SAS drives, the VNX can intelligently move data to the different tiers of storage based on usage. This maximizes performance and investment by making sure commonly accessed data is stored in flash, while rarely-accessed data can be sent to the NL-SAS drives.

Improvements to My Organization

By utilizing the Storage Pools feature of the VNX, our organization can provide the required performance without having to over-invest in storage for data that doesn't require expensive drives.

Room for Improvement

The management software used for the VNX is Unicenter. While it is an improvement over Navicenter, used in older EMC SANs, it still feels outdated in comparison to other SAN management software. Reporting is clunky and requires data collection to files, which then have to be retrieved and uploaded to a third-party site for processing before finally downloading the report.

Scalability Issues

We did purchase additional shelves of drives a few years after the initial purchase. Again, with the support of EMC technical services, the hardware was added to the VNX without downtime or disruption. The Storage Pools allow for dynamic addition of new drives.

Technical Support

EMC technical support is top notch when utilizing the ESRS appliance which sends critical alerts directly to EMC. Failed drives were replaced without any input on my end, sometimes before I became aware of the failure. Support can also remote in and perform code upgrades.

Previous Solutions

Previous to the VNX, we were using an EMC CX-80 SAN. The reason for switching was to stay on a supported platform.

We calculated our ROI to three years and the planned life of the VNX is six years. We are currently in the process of migrating to a new EMC XtremIO SAN, which will have an even shorter ROI.

Cost and Licensing Advice

While EMC tends to be on the expensive side, the stability and support of their products are top-notch and I feel are worth the cost.

Other Solutions Considered

When we evaluated SANs, we also looked at solutions by IBM. Our familiarity and relationship with EMC weighed heavily with our choice.

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EMC VNX Projects By Members

Check out these projects from our community members.

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Complete server and storage upgrade.

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Brad eley li?1414330038

Enterprise architecture and integration

Cisco UCS Implementation

Deployed Cisco UCS environment to support our Hyper-V virtualization infrastructure

Brad eley li?1414330038

Virtualization

EMC VNX Storage Migration

Migrated 100TB storage from EMC CX3-80 SAN to VNX7500

Brad eley li?1414330038

As seen in

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