Major Update For DELL EMC Unity/Unity XT OE (5.2.0.0.5.173)

by Davoud Teimouri · 04/05/2022

EMC has released new OE (5.2.0.0.5.173) for Unity/Unity XT storage array family with new features and major changes. The new release also contains lots of resolved issues for different components. The biggest changes are “Data Reduction and Advanced Deduplication” can now be enabled for hybrid storage pools and also dynamic pools will be expanded faster than before.

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New Features in OE (5.2.0.0.5.173)

The new release has one new feature and the feature expanding storage arrays replication capabilities.

Fan-out and cascade replication is now available

In fan-out and cascade replication topologies, a NAS/file system resource can have one synchronous replication session and three asynchronous replication sessions for a maximum of four sessions. You can preserve a specific asynchronous session so that if the synchronous session is failed over or failed back, the specified asynchronous session enters a hibernated state. You must create a snapshot to use as a common base to enable any new synchronous replication sessions to use the preserve function; otherwise, a fully copy is created. Multi-write topologies are not supported.

Changed Features in OE (5.2.0.0.5.173)

The biggest change in the features is about “Data Reduction” on hybrid storage pools but other changes are also interesting.

Add support for type 7 and type 8 SCSI-3 Persistent Reservation

Support was added to all Unity physical models and UnityVSA for two additional SCSI-3 persistent reservation types, type 7 and type 8. Support for types 7 and 8 is required to support certain VMware functionalities such as WSFC (Windows Server Failover Clustering) on ESX using shared VMDKs. IBM clustering requires types 7 and 8 for fast I/O fencing.

Pause and resume operations for multiple replication sessions can now be run

You can pause and resume multiple replication sessions in a single operation using either Unisphere or the command-line interface. You must specify each connection that you want to pause or resume. The local paused and resumed replication sessions must have the same connection type as the remote replication sessions. If the remote Unity system is running an OE version earlier than 5.2, only sessions on the local Unity system will be paused or resumed.

Unity 5.2.x systems now support Secure Connect Gateway (SCG) version 5.10 for centralized ESRS

Support Assist Enterprise (SAE) and Secure Remote Services (SRS) capabilities are now part of Secure Connect Gateway (SCG).
SCG supported products include Dell server, storage, chassis, networking, virtual machines, and converged or hyperconverged appliances.

Data Reduction and Advanced Deduplication can now be enabled for hybrid storage pools

You can now enable the Data Reduction and Advanced Deduplication features in hybrid storage pools. A minimum of 10% Flash capacity must be retained in the pool.

Enhanced functionality for dynamic storage pools on Unity and Unity XT system Hybrid Flash Arrays (HFA)

Expand a dynamic storage pool for faster access by adding multiples of the pool’s RAID strip width plus one drive.

Support added to configure LDAP servers using a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN)

Unity OE 5.2 now allows you to configure an LDAP server in a NAS server based on an FQDN. Previously, you could manually configure LDAP servers by static IP addresses, or by using dynamic LDAP domain lookup (auto-discovery). You can use either Unisphere, CLI, or REST API to configure the FQDN.

Manage replication sessions online help topic

Starting with OE version 5.2, in Unisphere, the Preserve option for preserving an asynchronous replication session is replaced by two options. The first option, Preserve first async replication, switches the first asynchronous replication session to the production site after the synchronous replication session has been failed over or failed back. The second option, Preserve specified async replication, enables you to choose which asynchronous replication session is switched to the active production site after the synchronous replication session has been failed over or failed back.

Other Changes in OE (5.2.0.0.5.173)

There are some alerts changes, deleted alters and new error code.

Resolved Issues in OE (5.2.0.0.5.173)

Many issues are resolved in OE (5.2.0.0.5.173), the most important issues were fixed are as follows:

Improve Fibre Channel I/O performance
Recovery of Fibre Channel data frame loss is slow
I/O interruption occurs unexpectedly when an ISCSI client is using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) version 8
One SP may reboot unexpectedly during NDU due to the large size of the “dc_lastrun_log” log file
SPA reboots when conflicts occur while cleaning up I/O during a firmware recovery operation
Resetting the service password fails to authenticate on the command line interface when using the “\” (backslash) special character
LUN goes offline after the peer SP reboots during a LUN trespass operation
A lot of jobs in the management database may cause a system reboot

Conclusion

The new release “5.2.0.0.5.173” includes new features, changed features and many improvements and fixes. I recommend that update OE to 5.2.0.0.5.173 on any EMC Unity/Unity XT storage array as soon as possible. Unity UEM CLI, Error Codes Reference and other some related guides and documents have been updated. Read the related documents and guides to find more information.