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

(22)

Brad eley li?1414330038

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

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 »

Solutions/Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sep 14 2017

It can scale to meet the needs of the growing business without compromising performance

Valuable Features: Auto Tiering: Ability to automatically move data from fast SSD drives to low cost disk drives and vise versa. Performance: Increase performance with FAST Cache (SSD), QoS and Auto Tiering. Unified storage: Provides capabilities for both block and file storage. •... more »

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Krishna Mohan Sharma

Technical Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Sep 14 2017

We require a very high throughput for our database and this product gives us the desired response

Valuable Features: Levels of performance Protection Compliance Ease of management • Improvements to My Organization: In a banking environment, on which we required a very high throughput for our database, we have used this product and our desired response was received. • Room for... more »

Consultor de soluciones de tecnología

Sep 14 2017

It has a good, high-level of storage along with Auto Tiering

Valuable Features: Auto Tiering It has a good, high-level of storage. • Improvements to My Organization: With integration, you can compress, and reduce the load of your Oracle DB, in relation to HCC. • Room for Improvement: Main business applications run on it. • Use of... more »

Professional system engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Sep 13 2017

Technical support is fast and always fixes the issues

Valuable Features: It is hard to say which features are the most valuable. All other arrays can do pretty much the same, so it's hard to tell. At least I haven't used any feature that would be unique to other arrays. • Improvements to My Organization: As long as I have been working at my... more »

Asst.Manager - IT Operations at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Sep 12 2017

One of the best supports you will ever get with top notch tech support and live chat

Valuable Features: Its reliability and ease of use. Single console for managing block and file (CIFS/NFS) Data replication to DR site for both block and file Auto tiering - Data movement in-between the pool Fast cache - Global cache for low end arrays EMC ViPR - A complete insight into the... more »

Infrastructure Architect at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 14 2017

It Was Ill-Equipped To Handle Our Environment Though Tiering Does Allow Dynamic Data Allocation Among Disk Types

Valuable Features: Tiering, because it allows your data to dynamically move among different disk types based on demand in the last 24 hours. This removes the manual work to keep data in certain disk types. • Improvements to My Organization: We actually stopped using the VNX as it was... more »

Territory Manager

Aug 03 2017

Enables hardware disk replication.

Valuable Features: From my point of view, the configuration that I can sell is restricted to the EMC best practices. It is hard to make a mistake in a solution. It means that the configuration has good performance and scalability options. • Improvements to My Organization: VNX 5200 works... more »

IT Officer - Hardare & Software

Jul 05 2017

Some of the valuable features are integration with VMware and support for virtualization.

Valuable Features: Integration with VMware Support for virtualization High performance Easy management • Improvements to My Organization: It has increased our availability as we have gone to full virtualization. It has greatly improved our efficiency as we have reduced server deployment... more »

Vice President at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Jul 05 2017

It is very stable even during multiple power failures.

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 SSD and archive data to be placed in NL-SAS disks where the IOPS are not in demand. • Room... more »

Storage Solutions Architect IV at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 15 2017

The VNX 5700 provides a large number of features including the ability to work for both file and block as a unified array.

Valuable Features: The VNX 5700 provides a large number of features including the ability to work for both file and block as a unified array. The ability to run a unified array is a great advantage when the company economics would not allow you to have separate arrays for your servers and... 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 »

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

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

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 »

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Articles

Content and Community 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... 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 »

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Greg SchulzDarren brings up a good point, interesting how the number one AFA as defined... more »

Content and Community Manager

IT Central Station

Jul 09 2017

Top 4 Modular SAN Solutions 2017

What are the best modular SAN tools, according to our users? 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. Our users rank top modular... more »

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HenryIs Modular SAN Solutions means the future? 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.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

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.

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.

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.

EMC VNX Projects By Members

Check out these projects from our community members.

Virtualization

Complete server and storage upgrade.

Summer of 2015 we accomplished a complete refresh of our server and storage environment. This involved the setup of... more»

Virtualization

XenDesktop 5.6 Virtual Desktop Deployment

Converted all in-patient Computer-On-Wheels computers with thin clients and kiosks with Wyse zero clients. Deployed... more»

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

Vendor 7228 screenshot 1502992979

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