HP StorageWorks XP Provisioning Manager User Guide (December 2005)

Overview of HP StorageWorks XP Provisioning Manager 14
1 Overview of HP StorageWorks XP Provisioning
Manager
This chapter explains the features of HP StorageWorks XP Provisioning Manager, its components, and its
relationships to other programs. The chapter also summarizes what you can do with Provisioning Manager,
and gives an overview of the procedures for installing and operating Provisioning Manager.
• The Provisioning Manager Mission (section
1-1 )
• Provisioning Manager Components (section
1-2 )
• Programs Related to Provisioning Manager (section
1-3 )
• Installing Provisioning Manager (section
1-4 )
• Operations That Can Be Performed With Provisioning Manager (section 1-5 )
• Manipulating Storage Subsystems (section
1-6 )
• Using Provisioning Manager With Other Products (section
1-7 )
1-1 The Provisioning Manager Mission
Storage subsystems and storage service providers (SSPs) have increased enormously in size and functionality
to meet the evolving needs of corporate customers and continuing demands for increased capacity.
HP StorageWorks XP Provisioning Manager is designed to simplify storage management and reduce its costs
by providing seamless control through a single interface over a wide variety of storage subsystems.
1-1-1 Managing Various Storage Subsystems as a Storage Pool
An area of managed data memory that resides on a set of storage subsystems is called a storage pool. The
storage pool is a collection of volumes (LUs). You can use Device Manager’s All Storage (My Storage)
functionality to divide the storage pool into hierarchies and manage those hierarchies for each user group.
HP StorageWorks XP Provisioning Manager enables you to integrate and manage various models and types of
storage subsystems as a single, logical storage pool (see
Figure 1-1).
By presenting the volumes associated with each user group as a single logical volume, Provisioning Manager
lets you manage those volumes without having to be concerned about where they actually reside. This reduces
the workload required to understand the usage condition of each volume and to maintain the various volumes.
For details about All Storage (My Storage) and user groups, see the HP StorageWorks Command View XP
Advanced Edition Device Manager Web Client User Guide.