9.0 HP StorageWorks P4000 VSA Installation and Configuration Guide

CPU
Because the CPU of the VSA must be reserved, platforms that will host a VSA and other VMs should
be built with more processor cores to accommodate the additional VMs. Multi-core processors with
at least 2 GHz per core should be used so that a single core with at least 2 GHz can be reserved for
the VSA. All additional cores are then available for use with other VMs, thereby avoiding resource
contention with the virtual SAN. For example, a platform with two dual core processors could host a
VSA and use 3 cores to share for other VMs.
Memory
Similarly the memory of the VSA must be reserved. For platforms that will host a VSA and other VMs,
build in additional memory to accommodate the additional VMs. Assuming the hypervisor and
management applications will use less than 1 GB, memory beyond 2 GB is available to use with
other VMs, again avoiding resource contention with the virtual SAN. For example, assuming a VSA
using less than 4.5 TB, a platform with 10 GB of RAM could host a VSA and use 8 GB of memory
to share for other VMs.
Virtual switch or network
The virtual switch or network should be entirely dedicated to the VSA and not used for any other
traffic.
Controllers and hard drives
The internal disk controller and actual hard disk drives of a platform affect the capacity and IO
performance of the VSA. Ideally VSAs should use storage that is hosted by many SAS or SCSI drives.
If you are designing a new server that will host VSAs, you should incorporate the following
recommendations.
• Use as many hard drives as the platform will allow and prefer faster rotation speeds. The more
hard drives and the faster their rotation speed, the more IOPs, and better performance.
• Select controllers with protected write cache and ensure that the write cache is enabled.
Network adapters
The number of network adapters available in a platform affects your options for configuring virtual
switches. VSAs that will have a dedicated server platform only need 2 Gigabit network adapters.
Platforms that will host VSAs and other virtual machines should have at least 4 Gigabit network
adapters so that two adapters can be dedicated to the VSA and iSCSI traffic.
Virtual network design
The virtual switch or virtual network that is used for VSA should be at least a redundant Gigabit
network, if possible. Performance and reliability can be improved even further by using more than
two Gigabit adapters in the iSCSI and VSA virtual networks.
Using VSAs with HP StorageWorks SAN Solutions
VSAs and physical platforms can be mixed in management groups and clusters. When mixing virtual
and physical platforms, and mixing differently configured VSAs, you should take the following
requirements and guidelines into consideration.
Designing a virtual SAN26