HP StorageWorks SAN Virtualization Services Platform administrator guide (5697-0204, January 2010)

Non-virtualized I/O6Customer servers1
VSM servers7Customer SAN, dual-fabric2
SVSP domain8Virtualized I/O as seen by server3
HP Command View management platform9Virtualized I/O as seen by array4
Data Path Modules5
Figure 1 SAN Virtualization Services Platform overview
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Data Path Modules
One way to think of the pair of DPMs is as being similar to a pair of array controllers, only with 8
host ports and 8 back-end ports per controller. Said another way, the even ports on the DPMs are
the SCSI/FCP targets for all I/O requests initiated by your application servers. The odd ports of the
DPMs act as the SCSI/FCP initiators to the controller host port targets. In this release of SVSP, the
DPMs are in an active-passive relationship, meaning that an individual virtual disk is active on one
DPM and on standby on the other DPM within the DPM group. Therefore it is beneficial to partition
your disks between the DPMs.
Virtualization Services Manager
The VSM server has several functions and components. The most visible of these functions is the VSM
user interface. This interface performs functions for the SVSP like HP Command View EVA performs
for EVAs. The VSM application runs on a separate server from HP Command View EVA. The reason
for the custom server configuration is due to other (and less visible) functions performed by VSM.
These other functions include:
• Data import
• Data migration
SAN Virtualization Services Platform overview12