HP Storage Provisioning Manager (SPM) Version 2.0 User Guide

C Working with EVA storage systems
HP P6000 EVA Storage Systems have several value-add features. It is important to understand how
SPM handles management of environments using those features. See the following sections for an
explanation of these features:
Understanding how to import EVA arrays into SPM
Using the Import Array feature in the SPM 2.0 GUI, EVA x400 and P6000 arrays may be imported
into SPM. This in turn allows storage pools and volumes on the array to be imported. An SPM
storage pool object maps to an EVA disk group. For the purposes of this document, we will use
the terms storage pool and disk group interchangeably. During the array import wizard, a set of
authentication credentials must be provided. The credentials include the IP address of the
management server where HP P6000 Command View (formerly HP Command View EVA) software
is running, and the username and password for accessing HP P6000 Command View. Note that
if the HP6000 Command View is not running on the default port, that port must be appended to
the hostname with a “:” separator (e.g. “myHost:2345”). SPM accesses the EVA CommandView
server with the given credentials. The user name/password combination should be in the
CommandView server’s “HP Storage Admins” group.
Once credentials are entered, P6000/EVA arrays that are actively managed by HP P6000
Command View instance are listed as available for import. After importing the EVA array, storage
pools may be imported. This step of the import wizard shows a list of available storage pools in
the selected arrays. Note that SPM has no mechanism for creating storage pools on the EVA array.
After importing existing storage pools from the EVA array, volumes may be imported. The list of
available volumes is limited based on the disk groups that are imported. There are several classes
of volumes that cannot be imported: snapshot volumes and remote copy volumes will all be ignored
by SPM’s import wizard.
NOTE: Unsupported models, like the EVA 3000/5000, will not be listed as available for import.
Even though these arrays may be reported within the HP6000 Command View, they are obsolete
and unsupported by SPM. For more information, refer to Minimum requirements.
Understanding EVA capacity reporting
SPM tracks capacity for storage pools and volumes within its catalog. These capacity values are
used to generate candidates for storage provisioning. In order to understand the candidate
generation process, it is important to know what SPM tracks and how that relates to EVA modeling
of storage pools and volumes.
Storage pool capacity
At the storage pool level, SPM tracks physical capacity, committed capacity, and subscribed
capacity. Physical capacity is the total number of bytes that are physically allocated to the storage
pool. Committed capacity represents the space that has been allocated within the pool for all of
its volumes. Subscribed capacity is the total capacity for all the volumes contained in the pool.
Additionally there is a calculated value, “available capacity”, which is used when selecting
candidate pools for volume creation or growing.
In the EVA resource model one finds that the combined capacity of all storage pools represents
the raw available capacity of the EVA system. This raw available capacity can be then used to
create Vdisks or Volumes. Total raw capacity may be obtained from the array properties in SPM
or CommandView. In the EVA, RAID levels are assigned to each volume. Allocated capacity grows
when:
• A fully provisioned volume is created, in which case necessary disk space is allocated to the
disk group to account for the full size of the volume and RAID overhead.
• A thin volume is allocated, a small amount of disk space is allocated to cover admin space
requirements
• When a host writes to a thinly provisioned volume
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