Part 2 in my series about my travels with the VNXe3200 from EMC, is what happened after I connected the 4x10Gbit(iSCSI/NFS) and 1Gbit(Management) connections.

I found the management IP in the DHCP, as it’s described on the setup-poster, punched it into a browser and put in the default username/password – ready, set – go!

It recognizes that it’s the first start-up and kicks off the Unisphere Configuration Wizard:

First you accept the EULA:

Change the default password to your own:

Put in the license you received from EMC or your supplier:

Yiha, it worked 🙂

Put in DNS settings:

Add a NTP server, required for Active Directory domain things, so the VNXe’s time doesn’t get skewed from the domain time:

When I saw this warning, I was wondering why it appears in the initial setup. If it’s not able to apply the NTP settings without a reboot, that you’re not allowed to do during the initial setup, why not make it run the NTP setup after the configuration reboots the VNXe…

Now the fun begins, Disk configuration:

First, I configured the FAST Cache, the settings are pre-selected:

A summary, that doesn’t let you change anything and doesn’t really provide anything you didn’t know…

And FAST Cache is created:

Successfully!:

And now the FAST Cache is done, it’s time to do the Storage Pools:

Decide for a fitting name and description:

Here the fun begins, first create a Performance tier, which equals use of SAS disks

To save a spare disk, I used 5 out of 6 available SAS disks

Tech guy says Yes! here – always! Though if for use with CIFS shares, probably would put it at No.

Review details and click Finish – first Storage Pool is created.

Working…

And done…

As the test unit VNXe has more Flash, I create another Storage Pool:

Extreme Performance tier Storage Pool:

As I only have 3 drives and must keep 1 spare, this is the used config:

Just another info slide, where nothing new is shown:

And another…

And it’s doing magic:

And it’s done:

Then you’re ready to proceed with the next step in the initial setup, EMC Support registration, here I put in my login for the EMC Support site, it gets accepted, but it fails when trying to set up the connection with EMC.

Sure, sounds great (if it works)

Setup SMTP for notifications and alerts:

Now the connectivity setup begins, configuring the first connection pair:

Doing stuff:

Setup the other interface pair, I only connected 2×2 10Gbit connections, so no more interfaces needs configuration for me:

Now the NAS/NFS server setup:

Here you can only choose one, even though it looks as if both can be selected, should maybe be a drop down box:

DNS Setup:

Verify settings before creation:

Aaaand done:

NFS is ready:

As the NTP service couldn’t be configured, the CIFS option is not availabe before after the first reboot and afterwards the NTP config.

So now it’s ready to finalize the configuration:

After the reboot, a software update for Unisphere was available – as a good IT guy always make sure your stuff is updated 🙂
Select to Obtain the candidate online, and download the newest version from the EMC Support site:

Then select the Upload and browse to the downloaded file and select Upload:

When it’s done, you’ll see both version in the top part of the windows:

Then select to Install Candidate Version and be aware:

Starting:

And working:

Then I tried to set up the EMC Secure Remote Support option:

I haven’t tried the Live Chat to figure out what isn’t working, but might do that and update this post.

All in all, I’ve got to say, this is the most straight-forward set up I’ve tried on such a unit. “Luckily” almost everything worked, wonder if this crashes – it is web-based – would probably have to open up some SSH or IPMI… 🙂