Unity VSA Deployment

EMC released the new mid-range storage array “Unity” at EMC World this year.  There are 3 different options: Unity All Flash, Unity Hybrid Flash and UnityVSA.  The Unity VSA platform can scale up to 50TB and can be fully unified.  The UnityVSA Community edition allows up to 4TB of capacity for free!  Below are the step on how to deploy Unity VSA:

System Requirements:

• vCenter 5.5 update and later.
• ESXi 5.x and later
• 12GB Memory
• 2 vCPU
• 4TB Usable Capacity for the Community edition
• UnityVSA OVA can be downloaded from the EMC Support site

Deploying UnityVSA OVF

Right Click on the host you want VSA to run on and select “Deploy OVF Template”

Select the OVA you downloaded

Review the details and “Accept extra configuration options”

Name the VSA and select a folder

Specify the Storage.

Setup the networks. There will be a management port and Data Network Ports

Customize the template. Specify the System Name, IPv4 Management and IPv6.  Leave the IPs blank if you want to use DHCP.

Review and Deploy

Once the OVA is deployed add some VMDKs that you want to use for storage in the VSA by editing the settings.  Once you power on it can take up to 15 minutes for UnityVSA to be up and running.

Initial Configuration Wizard

Once the VSA is up and running start the Initial Configuration by going to the Management IP and using the default admin credentials

Accept the Copyright

Set the new admin and service account passwords. They can be set to the same.

License the VSA by using the System UUID identified

Go to the following site and use the System UUID to create the license

Once you have the license browse to it and upload

Verify License installed

Set DNS

Set NTP

You have the options of creating Pools or doing this at another time

Setup Email and SMTP

Create any iSCSI Network interfaces. This can be done later

Create any NAS Servers. This can be done later.

At this Point the Initial Configuration is complete!

Go forth and enjoy UnityVSA!!

I plan on doing several more blogs on UnityVSA including NAS Servers, NFS Shares and replication.  Stay tuned!