hp virtual array: double your operating efficiency
executive summary In today’s market environment, you are constantly challenged to find ways to both grow your business and save costs. And with the current market growth uncertainties, saving costs is getting a lot of attention by everyone from Main Street to Wall Street to inside the Beltway. HP has invented a solution that will get you on the road to saving money and set you up to grow revenue streams once the economy turns around. That solution is HP’s Virtual Arrays.
table of contents ” customer quotes • • • • • Amazon.
customer quotes After seven years and 20,000 sales, we hardly consider virtualization new. Many companies have optimized their performance with HP, including: ” Amazon.com State of New Mexico “We look at three things when selecting data warehouse disks. Price per terabyte, throughput capabilities, and availability features. With the HP Virtual Array 7100, the price per terabyte was extremely competitive and the throughput was phenomenal.
customer quotes cont’d ” Santa Clara ViaSat “We needed to move to the next generation of technology as we merged data centers. We had outgrown the large server farm scenario and wanted to focus on consolidation. In discussing our current and future needs for our NT environment, the VA7400 was the best solution. We have transformed to an enterprise environment with great expandability for the future.
1 section 1 hp storage white paper virtualization, simplification and storage These are not trivial benefits. Data centers are already complex, and with the continued explosion in storage capacity they will only become more so. HP’s Array Virtualization is evolutionary, not revolutionary. It is a logical progression in array technology. It is proven. It is necessary. It is the perfect storage area network (SAN) technology.
1 hp storage white paper array virtualization defined achieve a balanced workload and eliminates “hot spots” This allows the array to dynamically allocate and de-allocate clusters of any RAID type without affecting the logical view as seen from the server. In other words, clusters can be moved and new RAID 5 and RAID 1+0 stripes can be created or extended dynamically without the host view being changed and without system administrator intervention.
hp storage white paper 1 reasons for more virtualization in the array why now is the time for array virtualization managing traditional storage “The mistakes are all there waiting to be made.” —Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower on the game’s opening position Data centers have become enormously complex. Interestingly, new technologies that initially held the promise of simplifying the data center have, in fact, added to the complexity—at least for now.
1 section 1 hp storage white paper administrators oftentimes don’t have all the critical information. They don’t know the precise database performance requirements for each of the pieces, and they don’t know the performance behavior of the array in its multitude of configurations. In addition, the same processes must be followed whenever disk drives are added or the environment changes.
section 1 the system administrator’s dilemma • • Change is the issue. Many environments change over time and this makes their initial configurations progressively less and less optimal. The dilemma is that an optimum configuration today eventually becomes out-of-date, and typically over time, performance degrades in traditional arrays, but the administrator usually has neither the time nor the window of opportunity to bring the system down and perform the necessary reconfiguration.
section 1 1 hp storage white paper automating the cache parameters The HP Virtual Array accepts new disks while the array is up and running and accepting I/Os as with some higher-end traditional arrays. However, the HP Virtual Array takes it one step further. Once the disk is inserted, the array automatically includes that disk into the existing disk space and stripes all LUNs across that disk.
1 section 1 hp storage white paper Every LUN would have 30 spindles at its disposal. And don’t forget, in the virtual array the spare disk capacity is also spread across all of the spindles, i.e., there are no unused spindles in an HP Virtual Array. for more details. Question: Shouldn’t a good system administrator know which RAID level the data is in? With the virtual array, I have no idea if it is in RAID 5 or RAID 1+0.
1 section 1 hp storage white paper environment changes. HP’s Virtual Array Architecture tunes the array automatically, 24 hours per day. It is the hands-down winner in real-world performance. A better analogy would be to compare the multiple manual processes required to set the type, load the paper, and actually print books on the old-style printing presses with those of the automated printing systems of our generation. Obviously, automation in printing presses adds to greater performance.
1 section 1 hp storage white paper Consider: It is always easier to manage a smaller number of things than a larger number of things. At first, bits were grouped into bytes. When there were too many bytes to keep track of, they had to be grouped into blocks. When there were too many blocks to manage, someone invented volumes and volume managers.
2 section 2 “hp extends virtualization to the array” —by D.H. Brown Associates, Inc. virtual value in hp’s va7000 series Virtualization is a key to solving complexities associated with storage configurations. As Information Technology continues its non-stop evolution, tools and devices that improve manageability while increasing business efficiency will command a premium in the marketplace.
section 2 2 “hp extends virtualization to the array” —by D.H. Brown Associates, Inc. super redundancy enhances RAID VA7000 virtualization, managed at the array level, offers the advantage of providing greater granularity when managing a pool of logical storage. Logical Unit Name (LUN) capacity is definable as a logical set of storage blocks rather than as a specific set of predefined physical disks.
section 2 2 “hp extends virtualization to the array” —by D.H. Brown Associates, Inc. reliability characteristics of hp’s va7000 series • • • • • • • (consisting of all the even-numbered disk slots). Data movement and failover occur in the same manner as in the VA7100.
2 section 2 “hp extends virtualization to the array” —by D.H. Brown Associates, Inc. software extends virtual functions While hardware design and functionality are critical to enabling performance, software function can maximize the efficiency and flexibility of the device. HP’s software packages extend the management and flexibility of the VA7000 family while exploiting the virtualization capability.
section 2 The major HP Surestore software packages1 (identified on page 2.2) include, • • • • • 2 “hp extends virtualization to the array” Command View SDM speeds and eases local and remote management, including install, configure, monitor, and control via a web browser, direct host attach, or SAN. HP Predictive Support programs and Event Monitoring Service (EMS) provide phone-home capability.
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