EMC's ControlCenter Version 4.3 now available

Version 4.3 of the EMC ControlCenter product is now generally available. Although EMC did announce this information to its sales force and existing ControlCenter customers, it did not issue a formal announcement of press release. This new version contains the following enhancements.

• New Configuration Manager (bundled with Disk Reallocation) to allow user to make certain configuration changes in open system environments
• Access Controls to allow user to partition control of logical volumes across the enterprise
• Enhanced Symmetrix Optimizer control parameters
• Integration of CLARiiON FC4700 and Connectrix SE
• Symmetrix DB Tuner support for DB2 Universal Database (UDB)

Configuration Manager

The new Configuration Manager component, which is bundled with the Disk Reallocation component of ControlCenter, allows the user to make several configuration changes to a Symmetrix in open system environments. These include:

• Create new Symmetrix logical volumes (define size, RAID protection, type)
• Modify logical volume type (convert between standard, BCV, RDF and DRV)
• Create new or delete existing meta volumes
• Add or remove logical volumes from meta volumes
• Perform or automate Disk Reallocation through command line interface (CLI)
• Swap SRDF source and target volumes
• Set front-end attributes (SCSI or Fibre, host names of port connections)

Evaluator Group comments

This is a very significant enhancement, in that it allows the user to make Symmetrix configuration changes for open system platforms without having to involve EMC service personnel and incurring the associated extra costs. However, it is not applicable to S/390 environments. S/390 users will still have to depend upon EMC service personnel for configuration changes, and possible charges for each configuration change.

Access Controls

The new Access Controls feature allows the user to partition the control of logical volumes across the enterprise by:

• Creating device pools or groups of logical volumes
• Creating access groups that are associated with one or more host systems
• Assigning which actions can be performed against device pools by specific servers (i.e. SRDF, TimeFinder, Administration)

Symmetrix Optimizer

Symmetrix Optimizer identifies hot spots and rebalances workload on the back-end disk devices. The enhancements to Symmetrix Optimizer include:

• Swap approval
• Swap log
• Roll-back capability
• Up to 4 simultaneous swapping operations
• Quality of Service Controls for SRDF, TimeFinder and Optimizer (enable customers to select potential volumes, adjust pace of copy settings, apply preset settings, save preset settings)

Integration of CLARiiON FC4700 and Connectrix SE

• Support for the CLARiiON FC4700 and the Connectrix SE is now integrated in ControlCenter.

Symmetrix DB Tuner for DB2 Universal Database (UDB)

• Symmetrix DB Tuner, developed via a partnership with Precise Software Solutions, now supports DB2 UDB in addition to Oracle. This new capability is sold and supported exclusively by EMC.

The Evaluator Series and Evaluator Series On-Line (ES/OL) are trademarks of Evaluator Group, Inc.