HP Storage Provisioning Manager (SPM) version 2.1 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 SPM Import Array feature, EVA x400 and P6000 arrays can be imported into SPM.
This enables storage pools and volumes on the array to be imported. An SPM storage pool object
maps to an EVA disk group. (In this section, the terms storage pool and disk group are used
interchangeably.) When running 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 Software is running, and the username and password for accessing HP P6000
Command View. Note that if HP6000 Command View is not running on the default port, that port
must be appended to the hostname with a “:” separator (for example, “myHost:2345”). SPM
accesses the EVA CommandView server using the credentials provided. 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 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 are all ignored
by SPM's import wizard.
NOTE: Unsupported models, like the EVA 3000/5000, are not 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, see 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
66 Working with EVA storage systems