HP StorageWorks SAN Virtualization Services Platform Administrator Guide (5697-0934, May 2011)

Creating snapclones using HP Business Copy SVSP
See the “Using snapclones” chapter in the HP StorageWorks SAN Virtualization Services Platform
Manager User Guide for information on creating snapclones.
Creating remote mirrors using HP Continuous Access SVSP
See the “Using mirroring” chapter in the HP StorageWorks SAN Virtualization Services Platform
Manager User Guide for information on using asynchronous mirroring.
Maintaining write order or crash consistency across multiple virtual disks
See the “Working with virtual disk groups” chapter in the HP StorageWorks SAN Virtualization
Services Platform Manager User Guide for information on creating, viewing, managing virtual disk
groups (VDGs) for write order consistency.
Best practices
NOTE: You will find some best practice information throughout this document. In addition, much
more is in the HP StorageWorks SAN Virtualization Services Platform Best Practices Guide.
The key to a successful SVSP implementation is planning ahead in terms of how the existing storage
array is used to build the needed SVSP storage pools. For example, while it is possible to build
one large pool and carve it up into many small LUNs, such an implementation might negatively
impact system performance. To reduce the potential for performance issues, you need to build the
pool and back-end LUs to an appropriate size.
The following is a quick overview of the best deployment practices for SVSP.
If a front-end virtual disk consumes most of the bandwidth of an array port, build a back-end LU
that is 1 GB larger than the front-end virtual disk, and use it for a single member pool.
If several front-end virtual disks still do not consume the performance capabilities of a single array
port, it is possible to use multiple back-end LUs to build the storage pool that is used for creating
the new front-end virtual disks.
Additional best practices guidelines are:
• Manually distribute the preferred controller that is assigned when a back-end LU is created.
• Monitor both storage array and switch throughput performance to find potential bottlenecks.
• Use fabric zoning to limit the number of paths between the servers and the DPMs, and between
the DPMs and the storage arrays.
See “Configuration best practices” (page 96) for additional best practices in this document.
Supported configurations
All components for a single site must be within multi-mode fiber distances of each other, are typically
co-located within the same computer room, and attached to a dual no-single-point-of-failure (NSPOF)
fabric SAN (as defined in the HP StorageWorks SAN design Reference Guide). Starting with SVSP
version 2.1, a stretched domain is also supported (see Figure 34 (page 86)). When configuring
a stretched domain, only the interswitch links may use approved single-mode fiber. All other
connections, such as VSM-to-switch or DPM-to-switch, must use approved multi-mode fiber. See the
HP StorageWorks SAN Design Reference Guide for Fibre Channel specifications.
Provided utilities and files
The Virtualization Services Manager (VSM) installation CD that is provided with the media kit
contains files and utilities that perform important functions. The VSM opening menu shows a list of
these files.
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