HP Storage

Solutions
for VMware
Virtualization
Brochure
2
I. Virtualization is changing the world
To help reduce costs and increase efciency, availability, and
fexibility of their IT organizations, businesses of all sizes are
turning to virtualization. VMware vSphere is an industry-leading
virtualization platform that, when combined with fexible server,
storage, and networking technologies from HP, can create a
powerful and dynamic data center that serves as the platform
for private and public clouds. To maximize the benefts ofered by
VMware virtualization, you need to start with the right storage
foundationone that can deliver the availability, efciency,
manageability, and performance required by virtual server,
desktop, and private cloud environments.
Yesterdays solutions wont solve tomorrows problems. With
HP Storage for VMware solutions, you have a powerful and fexible
infrastructure that stores, protects, and manages your virtual
servers and desktops. As part of the HP Converged Infrastructure,
HP Storage solutions integrate with HP servers, networking, and
software to deliver a new level of agility and efciency.
II. Virtualization environment challenges
The shared nature of resources in a virtual environment dictates
specifc capabilities that storage must deliver to serve as a solid
foundation. These capabilities include:
Performance When virtual machines (VMs) are consolidated,
they squeeze storage performance as the array becomes the focal
point as many vSphere hosts are needed simultaneously. Workloads
in a virtualized environment are unpredictable with random and
frequently occurring I/O. As a result, storage must be resilient
enough to handle numerous hosts and must fully support mixed
workloads.
Availability VMs are only as available as the storage they reside
on. Storage in vSphere environments must be protected at many
levels including disks, controllers, and nodes to ensure survival
and not cause disruptionsshould potential failures occur.
Simplicity Virtualization introduces complexity into the data
center, with particular complexity directly impacting storage.
Storage must be as simple to manage and maintain as possible
and not add unnecessary complexity to the vSphere environment.
Efciency Storage capital expenditures often detract from
the savings of implementing virtualization. Organizations have
historically bought more storage when they run into capacity
or performance barriers. Storage needs to be optimized for
virtualized environments to maximize efciency so that capacity
and performance barriers do not create additional expenses.
Most storage today is unable to keep up with the demands of server
and client virtualization. As a result, deploying VMware vSphere
incorrectly can be challenging and cost-prohibitive, therefore
detracting from the core benefts ofered by VMware virtualization
solutions. HP is uniquely positioned to deliver storage that meets the
requirements of virtualized environments. HP Converged Storage
products such as the LeftHand and 3PAR Storage arrays serve as a
solid foundation for building demanding virtualized environments,
along with HP StoreOnce Backup Systems for protection.
III. HP and VMware partnership: delivering
a more agile and efcient IT environment
For nearly 10 years HP and VMware have worked together to deliver
on the promise of virtualization and to create a more cost-efective,
agile, and efcient IT infrastructure. As strategic partners, HP and
VMware collaborate across storage, servers, networking, security,
software, and services to ofer solutions for VMware vSphere built on
HPs proven, Converged Infrastructure. HP and VMware work together
on projects that include certifcation, integration, new technology
development, reference architectures, and best practice guides.
In addition, as both a VMware Global Technology Alliance Partner
and the industrys leading original equipment manufacturer of
VMware software, HP ofers more VMware solution expertise than
any other VMware partner:
HP ofers more VMware-certifed storage and server models than
any other vendor.
HP Technology and Enterprise Services have more than 1200
VMware certifed professionals.
HP is an ofcial VMware Global System Integrator/System
Outsourcer Partner and a VMware Premier Enterprise Partner.
HP Education Services is one of the largest global VMware
Authorized Training Centers.
HP Technology Services has been an authorized VMware service
partner since 2003.
All HP shared storage products are qualifed and listed in the
VMware Hardware Compatibility Guide and the Storage Virtual
Appliance program. Through HPs industry-leading partnership with
VMware, HP Storage ofers advanced integration across VMwares
storage initiatives, ranging from vCenter Server, to vSphere Storage
application programming interface (APIs), to vCenter Site Recovery
Manager (SRM). In addition, to improve your overall experience after
deployment, you can purchase VMware software from HP with HP
supportgiving you one source of support for your servers, storage,
networking, and virtualization software.
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IV. Enhance your VMware virtualization
environment with HP storage
The requirements for what storage must deliver in a virtualized
environment are clear. Imagine what you can achieve by combining
the power of VMware vSphere with storage platforms designed
to eliminate the challenges of server and client virtualization.
Fortunately, you dont have to imagine it. HPs next generation of
Converged Storage solutions are designed to enhance the benefts of
VMware vSphere, VMware View, and VMware vCloud Solutions.
With HP Storage supporting your VMware deployments you are
able to:
Optimize VM density, availability, and business continuity (BC)
Simplify provisioning and management with less storage and
vSphere complexity
Save on storage costs through better capacity utilization
and efciencies
HP 3PAR and LeftHand Storage, along with HP StoreOnce Backup
Systems, deliver these benefts with the following capabilities:
Optimize
availability and
performance
Simplify
provisioning and
management
Save
on storage costs
Small to mid-
sized business
Enterprise and
service provider
Backup
and
recovery
LeftHand
3PAR
StoreOnce
Network RAID
Multi-Site SAN
Peer motion data
mobility
Wide-striping
Mixed workload
support
VMware VAAI
support
Autonomic restart
Built-in hardware
redundancy
Backup speeds up
to 28 TB/hour
Consolidated
management
interface
Centralized backup
of remote sites
Leading backup
application
integration
Autonomic
groups
vCenter
Management
plug-in
vSphere Storage
API and SRM
integration
Application Aware
Snapshot Manager
vCenter
Management
plug-in
vSphere Storage
API and SRM
integration
All-inclusive SAN
software suite
Thin provisioning
Pay as you grow
w/ clustered nodes
Thin Provisioning,
conversion, and
persistence
Automatic zero
detect
Adaptive
optimization
Pay as you grow
scalability
Couplet based
licensing
De-duplication
reduces backup
data up to 20x
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VM Density with vSphere
using legacy storage
VM Density with vSphere
using 3PAR Storage
VMware ESXi VMware ESXi
VM VM VM
VM VM VM
VM VM VM
VM VM VM
VM VM VM
VM VM VM
VM VM VM
VM VM VM
Legacy
storage
3PAR
V. Using HP storage to overcome
virtualization challenges
From small businesses to large enterprises, HP storage ofers
a wide range of solutions to extend the value of your specifc
VMware environment. There is no one-size-fts-all when it comes to
virtualization and HP can deliver a storage solution that meets your
needs and requirements.
HP LeftHand Storage, optimized for small to mid-sized businesses
deploying VMware virtual server and desktop environments, is
based on a clustered storage architecture that eliminates single
points of failure and scales-out non-disruptively in capacity
and performance. Built on industry-standard HP ProLiant and
BladeSystem hardware, and using HP scale-out software and
converged management, the HP LeftHand portfolio ofers afordable
enterprise functionalitywith an all-inclusive feature set and a
pay-as-you grow modelfor small to mid-sized businesses.
HP 3PAR Storage, the next generation of Tier 1 storage for
virtualized enterprise and service provider environments, combines
autonomically managed and dynamically tiered storage arrays with
advanced internal virtualization capabilities to increase administrative
efciency, system utilization, and storage performance. By enabling
the consolidation of multiple workloads while simultaneously
reducing operational costs on a modern architecture, HP 3PAR
Storage is designed specifcally for the unpredictable demands of
virtualization, the cloud, and IT-as-a-Service.
HP StoreOnce provides high-performance and cost-efective
disk-based data protection targets for data centers and remote
ofces to help overcome challengespresented by the backup
and recovery of virtual environmentsto unique areas like service
level agreements, recovery time objectives, and recovery point
objectives. The rapid growth of VMs creates a lot of data and most
of this data is not unique. HP StoreOnce Backup systems, with local
deduplication to reduce storage and bandwidth needs, integrate
seamlessly into your VMware environment; expanding as backup
requirements grow.
VI. Challenge: eliminating performance
bottlenecks that limit VM density
HP Solution: Optimize and increase VM density through unique HP
storage performance features.
To maximize the return on investment (ROI) and benefts that
virtualization provides, you need to increase efciency and drive
VM density as high as possible. High VM density helps dramatically
lower virtual infrastructure acquisition and operational costs.
Storage often becomes the limiting factor to achieving higher VM
density as it is a single resource that is shared across all the hosts
in the environment. Therefore, selecting storage that is designed to
handle the unique demands of virtualized environments is critical to
achieving your desired growth and levels of consolidation.
HP 3PAR Storage eliminates the barriers to increased VM density that
you encounter with traditional storage arrays. The HP 3PAR Mesh
Active architecture and wide striping capabilities allow you to double
VM density and dynamically balance workloads across the entire
array. HP 3PAR provides consistent levels of performance regardless
of the capacity utilization of the array and eliminates storage
bottlenecks typically encountered in vSphere environments.
HP 3PAR Storage provides at least double the VM density compared to traditional, legacy storage arrays
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Low-latency link
VMware highly
available
server
infrastructure
HP LeftHand Multi-site SAN
VMware vSphere VMware vSphere VMware vSphere VMware vSphere
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Site 1 Site 2
Single volumes stretched across locations
HP LeftHand Multi-Site SAN
VMware vSphere VMware vSphere VMware vSphere VMware vSphere
HP LeftHand Storage has a clustered node architecture that enables
non-disruptive scaling of performance and capacity. Unlike traditional
storage area network (SAN) storage architectures, LeftHand nodes
scale capacity and performance linearly to seamlessly grow with
your business. All LeftHand Storage clusters are pre-optimized to
balance performance and capacity resources within the node so that
customers can start with what they need today and easily grow by
adding storage nodes to their clusters without taking systems ofine.
VII. Challenge: improve availability and
business continuity
HP Solution: Optimize application availability and data protection by
ensuring always-on and protected VMs.
Virtualization provides many benefts, but there is also a certain
level of risk that virtualization brings to the data center. Hardware
failures in virtual environments, due to their consolidated nature,
can be highly disruptive compared to physical environments. VMware
vSphere environments can utilize features like High Availability (HA)
and Fault Tolerance (FT) to minimize the impact of a host failure, but
these features provide no protection against storage failures. Storage
that is used with vSphere must have no single points of failure and be
able to withstand the failure of any storage component.
HP LeftHand Storage is designed to maximize application availability
in virtualized environments. This is achieved through built-in
protection against data faults and site failures, as well as the
ability to scale non-disruptively. Network RAID stripes and protects
multiple copies of data across a cluster of storage nodes, eliminating
any single point of failure. The HP LeftHand Multi-Site SAN, certifed
with vSphere, provides users with the ability to assign storage
nodes in the cluster to diferent sites across racks, rooms, buildings,
and cities. Based on this assignment, the software automatically
makes the appropriate confguration and operational decisions to
protect data from site failure. This can be utilized in conjunction
with the vSphere HA and FT features to provide high or continuous
availability across sites separated by distances.
The Peer Motion feature available on both 3PAR and LeftHand arrays
provides data mobility so data can be migrated from one cluster
to another without disruption to applications and without taking
systems ofine. Peer Motion compliments VMware Storage vMotion
by ofoading the migration of clusters to the array, therefore
eliminating the burden placed on server and network resources.
Disaster recovery and BC demands that virtual environments be
protected beyond local failures and many companies must extend
this protection to of-site locations as well. All HP storage solutions
feature Storage Replication Adapters that allow integration with
VMwares vCenter SRM. This provides the ability to work directly with
SRM to stage and automate the process of failing over to a remote
site. Protecting applications and their data is just as important as
protecting whole VMs, as well as both 3PAR and LeftHand arrays
including application-aware snapshot capabilities that support one-
click, application-consistent, point-in-time snapshots for VMware
virtual machine fle system (VMFS) datastoresto ensure fast and
reliable VM recovery.
HP LeftHand Multi-Site SAN allows data to be seamlessly stretched across remote data centers
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Virtualization requires re-thinking the backup environment.
Industry leading backup applications, combined with the multi-
platform support and solution fexibility of HP StoreOnce, provide
superior value to VM-intensive environments. HP StoreOnce
provides VM-specifc benefts such as improved de-duplication and
smooth VMware integration.
VIII. Challenge: costs associated with
storage growth and inefciencies
HP Solution: Save costs through improved storage utilization
and efciencies
To achieve maximum virtualization ROI, reducing both capital
expenses and operational costs is important. Storage is often the
most costly part of a virtual environment so being able to drive
down the cost of storage will help minimize your upfront costs and
maximize your long term savings. Often, because of inefciencies
with traditional storage arrays, more storage is purchased than is
necessary to meet capacity and/or performance requirements of
virtual environments. Most virtual environments tend to have rapid
growth due to the ease of deploying new VMs which can quickly
consume limited storage resources. Having storage that is both
efcient and easy to non-disruptively scale to meet future growth
needs is important.
HP 3PAR thin technologies allow you to reduce your capacity
requirements by breaking the traditional link between allocated
and purchased capacity. HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning software
enables you to allocate as much logical capacity to a VMFS volume
as needed without dedicating any physical capacity up front. This
translates into less capacity to purchase up front and less power
and cooling costs over the long term, which eliminates waste. HP
3PAR Thin Conversion software provides you with the ability to
get thin by converting fully-provisioned fat volumes from other
storage platforms into more efcient thin volumes, which allows
you to purchase up to 50% less capacity. HP 3PAR Thin Persistence
helps you stay thin as your data demands change. HP 3PAR Adaptive
Optimization Software provides a granular, policy-driven, autonomic
storage tiering solution that delivers service level optimization at
the lowest possible cost while increasing agility and minimizing risk.
HP LeftHand Storage allows you to pay-as-you-grow so you can
scale capacity and performance as needed. Unlike traditional SAN
storage architectures, LeftHand SANs scale capacity and performance
linearly to seamlessly grow with your business and dont require
systems to go ofine. LeftHand SAN also ofers reservation-less thin
provisioning, meaning that the systems capacity is only dedicated as
you write to the volume. Thin provisioning efciencies underlie every
HP LeftHand SAN function including snapshots, remote copy, volume
migration, and asynchronous replication, providing excellent capacity
utilization with the potential for signifcant storage cost savings. The
all-inclusive management suite included with HP LeftHand solutions
delivers an array of value-added tools required to integrate your
LeftHand Storage with your VMware environment. This eliminates the
need to purchase additional software and services to get your solution
up and running, helping to drive down total cost of ownership.
HP StoreOnce drives backup costs down by eliminating redundant
data that exists in your virtual environment. VMs have a lot of
similar data since they typically run the same operating systems and
applications. Backing-up and storing all that redundant data gets
very expensive over time. The de-duplication that HP StoreOnce
provides optimizes your backup storage capacity by identifying and
eliminating redundant data which allows more data to be stored
on the same disk footprint. HP StoreOnce can provide up to a 20x
reduction of backup data in vSphere environments to drastically
reduce the amount of duplicate data. This translates into big savings
as it lowers disk capacity requirements and all the associated
operational expenses.
IX. Challenge: complexity in deploying
and managing storage within your
VMware environment
HP Solution: Streamline and simplify storage deployment
and management
The dynamic nature of virtualized environments can create havoc with
most storage systems. The mapping and visibility of storage through
multiple layers and components (VMs, hosts, logical unit number
devices, switches, host bus adapters, etc.) creates management
complexity. In addition, VMs are always on the move, both from host
to host, and from storage device to storage device, which can make
management even more complex. Even in environments that have
dedicated SAN administrators, storage can be difcult to manage on
both sides as there is no visibility between virtual storage assets and
physical storage assets. As a result, management integration is a
must in order to simplify operational tasks and to eliminate the added
complexity of a vSphere environment.
HP 3PAR Storage can reduce provisioning and management by up
to 90% through autonomic management features such as HP 3PAR
Autonomic Groups, which eliminates tedious manual repetition of
commands when provisioning storage to VMware host clusters.
HP LeftHand Storage is designed to be simple to get up and running
quickly. From out of the box, to rack and stack, and on through the
software setup wizard you can have volumes confgured and ready
to use. The management console for LeftHand Storage allows you
to centrally manage all of your LeftHand nodes to help ease you
through the installation and confguration process.
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For integrated management, HP ofers a single plug-in so you can
manage and monitor every part of your physical environment inside
of vCenter Server. The Insight Control plug-in for vCenter Server
allows you to manage physical servers, storage, and networking
assets from a single tab inside of vCenter Server. The HP Insight
Control Storage Module plug-in works with the LeftHand and 3PAR
arrays to enable integrated monitoring of HP storage arrays and
provisioning of HP storage. The Storage Module plug-in delivers
powerful HP hardware management capabilities to VMware
administrators, enabling comprehensive deployment, provisioning,
monitoring, remote control, and power optimization directly from the
vSphere client. This gives VMware administrators enhanced visibility
into storage resources and precise insight into how VMs are mapped
to datastores and physical storage volumes. Specifc physical storage
information such as component health, RAID levels, drive types, and
volume types are displayed within vCenter Server which helps reduce
administration time and improves clarity between the virtual and
physical layers.
To provide even more integration between vCenter Server and storage
devices, HP 3PAR and LeftHand arrays fully support the vSphere
Storage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA). VASA allows vCenter Server
to detect the capabilities of the storage array volumes and expose
them to the vCenter environment providing a foundation for quality-
of-service-based profle management. The information provided by
VASA can be used with vCenter Server storage profles for policy-based
placement and rebalancing of VMs to maintain required service levels.
Managing HP storage using the Insight Control Storage Module plug-in for vCenter Server
X. HP storage services for virtualization
HP ofers a comprehensive range of services to assess, design,
implement, and manage your VMware environment. From strategy
and planning, through migration and modernization, HP experts
ensure that you can bridge business and technology to gain full
value from your storage investments. HP has over 20 years of
experience in designing and implementing storage solutions. Now
we meld server virtualization with storage virtualization for an
end-to-end solution. Services HP ofers that will help you with your
VMware environment include:
Storage Modernization for Virtualized Environments
This provides alternative reference architectures that integrate
new technology with existing infrastructure and defnes the
envisioned target storage environment based on a proven solution
design methodology.
Data Migration Services - HP will discover your source data and
help you model a target environment, assess data quality and
infrastructure remediation, and design a migration plan that
achieves your migration goals. We will test and build the process,
then run the migration so your data and VMs will be seamlessly
migrated to the new environment.
Storage Preparedness for Cloud - Ensure that your storage
infrastructure can support your cloud initiatives. HP will assess your
readiness by reviewing the technologies you have in place to deliver
cloud services and match recommended data locations to service-
level requirements. Youll get a practical reference architecture as
well as a detailed business case and cost justifcation.
Backup/Recovery Modernization - Optimize your backup/recovery
solution to meet the needs of your VMware environment. Practical
deliverables include reference architecture, cost analysis, and
justifcation for any new hardware or software needed.
XI. Summary
HP Converged Storage are next-generation storage systems
designed to deliver high-performance, HA, efcient storage
utilization, and simplifed management for virtual server and
client environments. HP Converged Storage will help you optimize,
simplify and reduce costs in your VMware deployments.
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Copyright 2011-2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services.
Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.
4AA3-6683ENW, Created August 2011; Updated June 2012, Rev. 1
Mid-market
HP VirtualSystem
VS1
HP VirtualSystem
VS2
HP VirtualSystem
VS3
Enterprise
Large enterprise
VirtualSystems
HP also ofers complete turnkey solutions for both server
and client virtualization for those that want to avoid the
complexity, time and expense of trying to design and build
your own vSphere environment. HP VirtualSystem for
VMware delivers a Converged Infrastructure consisting of
best in class HP storage, servers, networking and software
that is delivered pre-tested, pre-confgured and ready
to run with VMware software installed. VirtualSystems
provide you with the fastest time to value by eliminating
many of the complex and costly steps in developing a
virtualization environment.