EMC VNX Simulator (VSA)–How to download the latest version

EMC VNX VSA - How to download lastest version

How to download the latest version of the EMC VNX Simulator (VSA): Here’s a quick guide that shows you how to get hold of and download the latest EMC VNX Simulator (VSA).  For those of you who are not familiar with it, the physical EMC VNX is a unified storage appliance with both file and block storage capabilities, can contain Flash and SAS based storage, and provides connectivity either via Fiber and/or Ethernet (NAS).  It also harnesses some pretty useful and powerful technologies such as Fast Cache and Fast auto-tiering.   For more information head on over to the EMC VNX webpage here.

The VNX Simulator (VSA) is a highly useful addition to your VMware vSphere lab as it provides you with a real-world type VNX experience, from the management (Unisphere web interface) right through to providing you with the ability to copy and run virtual machines off of it.  The VNX simulator offers file (NAS) connectivity to/from your ESXi hosts.  As you can imagine this is ideal for training, product familarisation or if you just want to play around with some pretty cool shared storage in your lab.  I run a VNX simulator in my own home vSphere lab for some shared storage and can normally comfortably run 3-5 VMs off of it (low workloads).

EMC VNX VSA

Before we continue however I want to point out the following “must-know” points regarding the EMC VNX Simulator (VSA):

– This is a non-commercial product and as such isn’t intended for production use.

– It doesn’t come with any “official” EMC support, though check out the EMC community forums as this is a great source of any EMC related information & community support.

– This simulates the File only version of the VNX, ie: no block level storage.

– Don’t expect a publically available Block version of the VNX Simulator, this is due to licensing restrictions.

– As the name suggests, it is a simulator and although it acts and behaves like a physical VNX don’t expect the same blazingly fast IO disk speeds from it.

– It is ideal for a lab environment where high performance isn’t required, more the ability to get hands on time with the product.

I’ve written a few other blog posts here and here, on the EMC VNX VSA and how to get it up and running though these are based on an earlier code release (UBER version).  However if you are after the latest publically available version of the VNX Simulator then simply follow these six basic steps.

Step 1

Open a web browser and navigate to the URL: http://support.emc.com   *Note:  this now replaces EMC PowerLink for your go-to place for any EMC related downloads.

If you already have an EMC account logon then enter in these credentials and click the ‘’Log In” button.  If you don’t already have an account then no problem,  simply click the “Register Now” and enter in the relevant details to have an account set up for you (this is free as you’d expect).

If registering for the first time, when you receive your logon credentials then enter them in to the login fields and click the “Log In” button.

EMC VNX VSA- Download Logon

 

Step 2

Once you have successfully logged in you will then be presented with the EMC Online Support page, as you want to download your own copy of the VNX Simulator (VSA) then click the “Downloads” link indicated below.

EMC VNX VSA Simulator Easy Download

 

Step 3

With you now being at the Downloads page we want to perform a search for the VNX Simulator downloadable file.

EMC VNX VSA Download Steps

Step 4

In the “Find a Product” field type in “VNX/VNXe Series”, this will bring up everything relating to the VNX (both series, ie: 1 & 2)and VNXe.  Simply scroll down and select “VNX/VNXe Series” and then click the blue arrow button (3 – see below) to kick off the search.

EMC VNX Simulator Download Guide

Step 5

Once the search results are returned you will see a large number of VNX related downloads, to make things easier we want to sort this long list of files by the “Title”.  Click the “Title” Sort by field as shown below.

EMC VNX Simulator Latest Version Download

Step 6

With the list of VNX files now sorted by Title, scroll down until you get to the files called “VNX File Simulator”.  You will notice that there are a few different versions of these files, go for the latest.  At the time of writing this post the latest downloadable version was OE 7.1.65.8 (Q1 2013).  Check back from time to time for any new releases.

You will notice that there is a “Single Data Mover” and a “Two Data Movers” version, what one you download is up to you.  As the name suggests one version has a single data mover and the other two (ie: the part of the appliance that handles the “data” as it “moves” in and out of the VNX – in this case via Ethernet connetivity).  If you want to learn more about the various parts that make up a VNX or Celerra then check out my earlier post here on the EMC Celerra VSA. *Note:  the post is on the earlier EMC unified model the Celerra, though much of the fundamentals still applies to the VNX.

In most lab instances you’ll probably only want the single data mover, though if you are studying or want more to configure (ie: dual data movers) then the two data mover version may be a more attractive option to you.

 

EMC VNX File Simulator Download

 

As you can see from the image above, the downloads aren’t small and average about 2.2GB in size, so unless you are on a very fast internet connection now may be a good time to go and put the kettle on.

I hope you found this brief download guide of use, I will be producing a couple of posts and a video on the next steps, ie: installing and configuring the EMC VNX simulator so check back soon for these posts. Though in the meantime here is a link to one of my blog posts which contains links to a PPT presentation I did a while back which provides a summary on how to install and run the VNX VSA. *Note: Unfortunately the webcast has since expired and been removed (not by me), though a link to download a copy of the presentation is still available.

25 Comments

  2. iscsi option is really missing on this vsa . EMC competitor Netapp simulator support both file and block .Also old Clarion simulator support both block and file .
    EMC have to rethink the existing limitations .
    Thanks Simon for sharing this information

  3. the validication code that was given to me in my email is 6qH75y77, then I use it for the verification but validation code is not correct. how was that?? can you help me… 🙁

  4. Hi Simon, I’m new in EMC Storage and downloaded emulator, Can you tell me how configured it in VMware workstation.

    • Hi Sameer,

      Apologies for the delay in replying to you. I will be putting together a post shortly that will show you how to do exactly this. I will be making a start on this “how to” post this week.

      Thanks,

      Simon

        • Hi Sathyan,

          I’m publishing a post today with some links to some “must have” EMC storage lab simulators/virtual versions, and then from there I will be starting on a number of posts that outline how to install and configure the following for use in a VMware vSphere lab environment:

          EMC VNX/VNXe
          EMC Isilon
          EMC ViPR

          Thanks for reading TechHead, and keep checking back for these new posts. 🙂

          Cheers,

          Simon

  5. […] You will need to create an EMC Support Portal account, which is free and quick to do, and then from the EMC Support portal you’ll be able to locate and download the latest build of the VNX VSA.  EMC Support account creation details can be found in my post here and VNX VSA download instructions can be found here. […]

  8. Hi Simon,

    firstly thanks much for all the efforts you are putting in for the posts. I have been working very close to storage team (working as a Backup admin ) since 3years and i’ m very much fascinated with the dynamic work involved in storage. This blog can be the best thing in my life; I had a little chance to work on hitachi tagma store pretty old box. However i have been searching for simulators as well. I downloaded VNX now. If you can guide me how to kick start my knowledge on storage boxes that would be a great help.

  9. I was able to login to the VNX Simulator Station as “root – nasadmin” but now I need to configure all 3 NICs (eth0,eth1,eth2) in addition to dart_eth0, dart_eth1,dart_eth2 etc. I dpeloyed on the fixed IP network, need to know how many addresses to request.

    Where can I find instructions for that, please?

      • Hi Simon,

        Indeed, that was not that hard 🙂
        Thanks for the link for the VNX File simulator, working with it right now. One question off the bat: do I need to start the Unisphere control station manually by some script or it should start automatically? Also, do I have to configure those “dart_eth0” and “dart_eth1” NICs since they have some weird values of IP address like 128.221.252.100, outside my netowrk range…

        Posting a step-by-step video covering that would be of course most welcome. And last but not least – EMC is no offering a Block storage simulator for either VNX or VMAX/Symmetrix arrays as of now, correct?

        cheers,
        Dan

      • One more question Simon: the VNX simulator 8.1.0 OVA VM comes with 3 NICs – in my case all connected to same network. eth0 has a fixed IP per the Document you shared with me (10.118.175.185) but eth1 and eth2 (which referred to on the page 17 of the VNX configuration document as Unisphere one) are configured to have internal IP addresses 192.168.20.1xxx. Unfortunately, I cannot access the VNX simulator VM from an external environment by fixed eth0 IP (10.118.175.185).
        Are we using eth0 or eth2 to access the Unisphere and if the latter, should it e changed from an internal value 192.168.20.1 to fixed IP acceptable for outside network? The config guide is not clear on that. Thanks!

  10. Now I am having a consistent problem with my VNX File simulator (8.1.0-38015.ova) : I deploy on static IP VM network, use the netconfig -d eth 1(2) command to set static IPs for eth1 and eth2 NICs. After that the Unisphere is available via https://... but right after I start configuring additional controllers by running /opt/blackbird/tools/configure_nic server_2 -a eth1 (note that eth1 is different from eth2 but for eth2 used in both cases it was the same) and then “reboot” the VM, the Unisphere control station no longer is available via https:// and I have no idea why.
    I need to configure Data mover and LUNs in order to get a real life File storage functionality and I seem to be able to do that using /nas/sbin/setup_clariion –init, but w/o being able to access the results via Unisphere control station I cannot use it. Please advise what I might be doing wrong – I follow the VNX File storage simulator manual. Thanks!~

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