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PowerStore achieves new levels of operational simplicity and agility. It uses a container-based microservices architecture, advanced storage technologies, and integrated machine learning to unlock the power of your data. PowerStore is a versatile platform with a performance-centric design that delivers multidimensional scale, always-on data reduction, and support for next-generation media.
PowerStore brings the simplicity of public cloud to on-premises infrastructure, streamlining operations with an integrated machine-learning engine and seamless automation. It also offers predictive analytics to easily monitor, analyze, and troubleshoot the environment. PowerStore is highly adaptable, providing the flexibility to host specialized workloads directly on the appliance and modernize infrastructure without disruption. It also offers investment protection through flexible payment solutions and data-in-place upgrades.
Some features of and enhancements made to PowerStoreOS 3.6 are:
PowerStoreOS 2.0.x introduced the support of remote syslog capability for audit events. In PowerStoreOS3.6, this support is enhanced by providing a way to allow system administrators to efficiently monitor and triage log events from appliances in a central repository. In PowerStoreOS 3.6, there is a way to send alerts and text messages when creating a remote syslog server entry in Settings > Remote Logging.
PowerStoreOS 3.6 introduces a highly anticipated feature called Data in Place (DIP) conversion. The feature allows users to convert a PowerStore x000T (Gen 1) to a PowerStore x200T (Gen 2) system while maintaining the system online. No downtime is required. The feature is part of Dell’s Future Proof program which allows users to perform hardware upgrade without downtime.
Prior to PowerStoreOS 3.6, PowerStoreOS supported the following NVMe-oF configurations:
With PowerStoreOS 3.6, support for NVMe/TCP has been added for vVols. This feature aligns itself well with VMware’s support for NVMe/TCP in vSphere 8.0U1 and represents the strong partnership between Dell Technologies and VMware.
A metro volume provides synchronous replication of block storage volumes across two PowerStore clusters in metro distance for VMFS datastores in a vSphere Metro Storage Cluster architecture (vMSC). New to PowerStoreOS 3.6 is Metro Witness. Metro Witness enhances the metro volume feature by adding an automatic decision to keep nonpreferred paths online during certain failure situations, such as a link or site failure. For the list of supported operating systems, see the PowerStore Support Matrix.
Note: Some of these features are applicable or supported in an Oracle environment. For additional information, including configuration, management, and limitations about PowerStore and remote syslog server support, see the References section.
The PowerStore Manager UI is the primary management tool for PowerStore configuration and administration (see the following figure). Some benefits of PowerStore Manager are:
The PowerStore platform also has a REST API available for administrators to automate management tasks.
All PowerStore models are 2U rack-mountable enclosures, and are configured at the factory in one of two base-model configurations:
With the initial PowerStore release (Gen 1), the following models were available:
Four additional models (Gen 2) with dual CPU sockets are now available:
PowerStore also offers the PowerStore 500, a single CPU socket, 12 core @ 2.2 GHz with 96 GB memory.
All PowerStore 3.0 models and newer use UEFI partitioning and provide secure boot.
This paper discusses PowerStore T models with Oracle Standalone single instance and Oracle RAC databases.
A PowerStore cluster consists of one to four appliances.
A PowerStore 5200T model single-appliance cluster was used for this paper.
NVMe drives provides lower latency and higher bandwidth in throughput when compared to SAS drives.
With PowerStore 2.0, NVMe drives are only available in the base enclosure. When scaling-out PowerStore was a requirement, SAS expansion shelves were needed, with a maximum of three 25-drive SAS expansion shelves.
Starting with PowerStore 3.0, only NVMe expansion shelves are available for scaling-out PowerStore. The NVMe expansion shelves eliminate the SAS-to-NVMe performance bottle neck when SAS expansion shelves were used in scaling PowerStore 2.0. NVMe expansion shelves provide a complete end-to-end NVMe model for improved performance.
Expansion shelves in a PowerStore appliance must either be all NVMe or SAS. Mixing NVMe and SAS expansion shelves in a PowerStore appliance is not supported. NVMe SCM SSDs are not supported in NVMe expansion shelves.
PowerStore 3.0 prioritizes the NVMe drives in the base enclosure as the first choice for meta data, providing the best possible performance for internal meta data. NVMe drives can also be:
For the PowerStore 500, a 4-port 25 GbE optical mezzanine card is required to support NVMe expansion shelves using reserved ports 3 and 4.
For the new PowerStore 3.0 models, the embedded Module v2 comes with the system. A 2-port 100 GbE card on the embedded Module v2 is optional and is only required if NVMe expansion shelves will be used.
Embedded Module v1 only ships with PowerStore x000 models and is required for SAS expansion shelves.
When deploying PowerStore for large, critical Oracle Enterprise solutions demanding greater performance requirements, Dell Technologies recommends using PowerStore models x200 as they support NVMe expansion shelves.
Online support, context-sensitive help, and general support are provided through PowerStore Manager which is the primary reference material for optimal configuration of PowerStore. This white paper provides additional guidance. For supplemental information, see References.