MD3000i

This year's Storage Networking World (SNW) is coming up fast -- October 12-15, 2009.  Dell Storage is participating in 3 excellent Hands On Labs, which you can register for here.  So while hanging out in Phoenix, stop by and get some quality time in with our DL2000, EqualLogic, and MD3000i.  I've listed the theme, abstract, and our labs below:

IP SAN Solutions
In organization of all sizes, Internet (IP) Storage Area Networks (SANs) are increasingly becoming a networked storage solution for business critical IT environments. This Lab guides students through the steps required to quickly setup and configure an IP SAN. Upon completion, attendees will better understand IP based SAN technology, associated strategies, storage system capabilities, and usage of IP Storage solutions.
In detail, students will learn how to setup and configure a iSCSI SAN in a choice of Windows or Linux environments. Students will also learn how to setup and configure a network boot environment using a Windows iSCSI initiator, how to attach to an iSCSI LUN/volume from a virtual host server, and preserve/restore data using snapshot technology.

• Dell EqualLogic PS Series
• Dell PowerVault MD3000i

Storage Virtualization
With ever more focus on ROI and TCO, there is heightened interest in storage virtualization. This Lab guides students through the steps required to establish a virtualized storage environment. Upon completion, students will have a good basic understanding of how to set up and configure a virtualized block storage environment with fault-tolerant protection.
Exercises will include basic provisioning, data migration, volume expansion, and data protection. Students will understand how to set up and take advantage of advanced virtualization features in a storage environment, including dynamic expansion and allocation of resources, replication, data migration, and data protection.

• Dell EqualLogic PS Series

Data Deduplication
With today’s pressure on organizations' storage infrastructure, deduplicating data offers a solution to reduce the physical disk footprint and required bandwidth. This lab guides students through exercises that illustrate how organizations store data - first for backup and disaster recovery, and now across the entire storage ecosystem - using data deduplication technology. Upon completion, students will better understand the powerful cost savings this new technology can offer as a way to augment traditional data protection methodologies.

• Dell PowerVault DL2000 with CommVault

The Dell Virtualization Solutions Engineering team has provided a sample configuration for the Dell MD3000i and vSphere4. Dell PG engineer, Puneet Dhawan, designed the configuration to provide multi-pathing and load balancing for iSCSI storage traffic using two NIC ports on the ESX host for iSCSI traffic and 'Round Robin' path selection policy for iSCSI volumes.

Please visit the Dell TechCenter under Virtualization-> VMware-> VMware and iSCSI-> ESX 4.0 and MD3000i to check it out. Or you can go directly to the page. Drop by and let PG engineering know what you think.