HPE StoreVirtual (VSA)

DWH of HP of StoreVirtual VSA is an industry-first software-defined storage system with the data tiering functions, is created on the basis of LeftHand HP OS.

2019

HPE asks to update urgently a firmware in the SSD

At the end of November, 2019 HPE asked the clients to update as soon as possible a firmware of the solid state drives made by the company. Otherwise devices can fail after 32,768 working hours. And data cannot be recovered, and SSD will be completely non-working.

This fault is relevant for the drives HPE SAS with versions of a firmware to HPD8. In particular, the following product families are subject to a problem: ProLiant, Synergy, Apollo, JBOD D3xxx, D6xxx, D8xxx, MSA, StoreVirtual 4335 and StoreVirtual 3200. Judging by messages at forums, some users already lost the operable drives HPE.

So, one of visitors of the website Reddit wrote that at once eight disks VO0480JFDGT at an interval of several minutes ceased to work in one server. This message appeared in two weeks before the producer released warning of need to update SSD.

HPE told that the company learned about this error from other SSD producer. From whom exactly, it is not specified.

According to the ZDNet edition, a problem it is very similar to what happened to Intel at the beginning of 2019 when the company detected vulnerability in two SSD models (D3-S4510 and D3-S4610). This defect blocked devices after 1700 working hours in standby mode.

HPE published critical updating of the microprogram on the official portal of support and strongly recommends not to delay with its installation.

Besides, the producer released tools for updating of a firmware (under Windows, Linux, Vmware of ESXi), the complete list of "problem" devices and also instructions for determination of time fulfilled by drives.

Some SAS SSD models already received the patches which are released on November 22, 2019, but some more devices will receive corrections only after December 9, 2019.^[1]

2016

StoreVirtual 3200

StoreVirtual 3200 is the storage system focused on SMB.

On August 16, 2016 the Hewlett Packard Enterprise company announced release of a storage system of StoreVirtual 3200.

It is the system of initial level, for accumulation of amount of storage by means of traditional hard drives or solid state drives, is controlled the dual 64-bit ARM controller and it is complemented with an expanded stack of software for information storage, creations of backup copies and replication^[2].

In a basic configuration well more than 2 thousand instant pictures.

The additional Adaptive Optimization function allows to react to differences in input-output systems at change of workloads in real time. For simplification of process of migration of workloads in storage system means of StoreVirtual Migration Manager is used.

The cost of StoreVirtual 3200 in a basic configuration ~ $6 thousand.

2014

StoreVirtual 4335 Storage

StoreVirtual 4335 Storage is storage system for the high performance of virtualized applications.

On January 24, 2014 the HP company provided DWH of StoreVirtual 4335 Storage — the new solution focused on the enterprises of small and medium business.

Innovation provides the highest performance of the virtualized applications, cost reduction by means of moved dynamically this between solid-state (SSD) and classical hard drives (HDD).

The system of HP StoreVirtual 4335 Storage is equipped with unique technology of adaptive optimization (Adaptive Optimization) which analyzes the frequency of data access and moves the most used data from normal disks on solid-state SSD that significantly increases performance in comparison with systems with a configuration "only SSD". For clients it is an opportunity to start more virtual machines at smaller expenses.

DWH requires 59% less investments.

Additions and innovations

• The hybrid storage system of HP of StoreVirtual 4335 Hybrid supports both solid state drives, and the hard drives optimized for automatic distribution of subvolumes by levels (adaptive optimization).
• Software of LeftHand OS v11 (before SAN/IQ) – adaptive optimization (VSA and 4335), support the paravirtualized SCSI, support of SMI-S for Microsoft SCVMM optimized the manager of instant pictures and online updating.
• StoreVirtual 4530 is equipped with the hard drives MDL of SAS with a capacity of 4 Tbytes with a rated capacity of 48 Tbyte on a node
• Software of StoreVirtual VSA is delivered with new options of licensing on the basis of capacity level: 4 Tbytes, 10 Tbyte, 50 Tbyte – convenient updating of licenses for 4 Tbytes and 10 Tbyte for expansion of capacity directly in the course of work
• The new StoreVirtual models founded on HP ProLiant technology of the 8th generation are available: inexpensive 4130, 1U 4330 with a high density, capacious 4530, 4730 with the increased performance, 4630 for BladeSystem
• Increase in flexibility of a cluster of StoreVirtual thanks to adding of support of several protocols. Use of iSCSI, Fibre Channel or both interfaces with the StoreVirtual 4330 and 4730 models is possible

Specifications

Capacity

• from 2.4 Tbytes
• Max. 1536 Tbyte
• At most on management team

Description of the drive

• (800) disks of SAS of a small standard size or
• (256) disks MDL of SAS of a small standard size or
• (384) disk of SAS of a big standard size or
• (384) disk MDL of SAS of a big standard size
• The maximum quantity of disks is supported

Interface of an array

• 1 GbE iSCSI, (128) ports
• 10 GbE iSCSI, (64) ports
• Fibre Channel, 8 Gbps, (64) ports
• at most, depending on model
• additional updating up to (64) ports 10 GbE iSCSI

Options of expansion of capacity of storage

• For increase in capacity of storage use of a clustering and adding of nodes of storage of StoreVirtual in an array is possible.

Control functions

• The centralized management console, the system of remote control of HP of ProLiant Integrated Lights-Out 4, the controller for management of the central payment of IPMI 2.0.

Support of a clustering

• The superexcess clustered storage system

Replication support

• LeftHand Remote Copy Asynchronous Replication with capacity regulation; Multi-Site/Disaster Recovery software with synchronous replication

Support of Thin provisioning technology

• LeftHand Thin Provisioning

Support of Smart clone technology

• LeftHand SmartClone

Support of instant pictures

• The instant pictures managed by the LeftHand application

Functions of ensuring availability

• Standby units of a power supply with a possibility of hot swap
• reserve fans
• reserve hard drives with a possibility of hot swap, the built-in controller of data storage with autonomous a cache buffer on a flash memory
• RAID 5, RAID 6 и RAID 10
• the superexcess clustered storage system
• network RAID of levels 0, 5, 6, 10, 10+1 and 10+2 (for each volume) with a possibility of creation to four copies of data provides data availability in case of power failure, a disk, the controller, a node of storage system or network.

Compatible operating systems

• Apple OS X. Citrix XenServer
• HP-UX
• IBM AIX
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012
• Novell NetWare
• Oracle Enterprise Linux
• Red Hat Linux
• Oracle Solaris
• SUSE Linux
• VMware
• support of all basic operation systems and hypervisors.

The StoreVirtual 4335 model is available on sale at the price from $41 thousand. The standard configuration of HP of StoreVirtual 4335 includes:

• seven hard drives SAS SFF of 900 GB;
• three SSD disks Enterprise Mainstream on 400 GB;
• LeftHand 11.0 OS is complete functionality and a set of licenses.

HP ConvergedSystem 200-HC StoreVirtual

HP ConvergedSystem 200-HC StoreVirtual - The HSS integrating hardware resources and management tools.

On October 16, 2014 the HP company provided HP ConvergedSystem 200-HC StoreVirtual — a system on the basis of services open data. She turns on components of HP OneView InstantOn, HP OneView for VMware vCenter, HP StoreVirtual VSA.

The solution is focused on the mid-size enterprises, remote offices and branches using modular approach in creation of infrastructure for simplification of IT transactions, acceleration of delivery of services and ensuring disaster recovery of virtual and physical servers.

HP ConvergedSystem 200-HC StoreVirtual

HP ConvergedSystem 200-HC StoreVirtual is the integrated hardware and software system. It supports virtualization of servers and the VDI environment on the basis of technologies of VMware. A system helps to react quickly to business needs, to simplify administration and to increase availability of applications.

In the solution the unified environment of management of DWH of HP StoreVirtual, is offered by HP servers of ProLiant and HP OneView. Integration with VMware vSphere is in addition provided. By means of programs masters preparation and start of the platform is available to the person - not the storage systems specialist.

The HSS will be available for sale in December, 2014.

Updating of HP of StoreVirtual VSA

On August 27, 2014 HP presented a new solution for the program configured DPCs, the simplifying deployment of horizontally scalable storage systems for environments of cloud computing and virtual servers.

HP StoreVirtual Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) is completely integrated solution for the "cloud" Helion OpenStack HP platforms and HP Helion OpenStack Community Edition. Specialists of the company expanded support of different hypervisors in software of HP StoreVirtual and now HP StoreOnce VSA is provided in the form of the program license allowing to reduce costs for backup in the small companies and remote offices by 86%.

HP StoreVirtual VSA supports any external systems of storage connected with through a hypervisor to any physical servers, providing the maximum flexibility of the program configured environments.

Software supports VMware vSphere OS, hypervisors of KVM and Microsoft Hyper-V.

The HP solutions of StoreVirtual delivered as in a license type of Virtual Storage Appliance and ProLiant created on a hardware platform of HP servers, support the updated Cinder interface for management in the OpenStack environments and also all necessary set of the programming interfaces REST for automation managements of "cloud" services. Use of these improvements helps to create horizontally scalable environment of storage of high availability to "cloud" calculations.

Besides, in HP implemented the full-function program configured solution for management of data storage integrated with the software of HP of StoreVirtual VSA as a part of a packet of cloud solutions of HP Helion.

In addition to management tools and the orchestration of HP Helion, customers can use for choice and other platforms allowing to simplify management of storage for virtual servers and cloud environments.

The connected modules of HP of OneView for VMware vCenter and HP StoreFront Manager for Microsoft provide "master" for installation, configuring and condition monitoring of environments of data storage on the basis of VSA.

Users of HP of StoreVirtual Storage can monitor their high-speed performance, capacity and working capacity using the HP solution of StoreFront Analytics Pack for VMware vCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS). The functions of release of space for environments of VMware and Microsoft allowing will be provided in HP StoreVirtual Storage it is more rational to use available tanks.

These functions will allow to make automatically available the space which is released as a result of removal of virtual machines and other files. The advanced multipathing HP StoreVirtual function for environments of VMware allows to optimize high-speed performance due to capacity growth for 58% and decrease in transfer lag on network.

Risk reduction and costs for data protection - from branch networks with the license for 4 Tbyte allows to reduce costs for data protection to the softwares "cloud" environments of HP StoreOnce VSA and optimum is suitable for data backup at small offices. Software of HP of StoreOnce VSA as reference architecture is offered to the providers who are going to provide a cloud service of backup. This software gives the increased flexibility due to support of an expanded set of hypervisors Microsoft Hyper-V including VMware vSphere. Besides, with HP StoreOnce VSA it is possible to use the packet of HP of StoreOnce Security Pack implementing means enciphering and reliable removal of data and also other functions necessary for accomplishment of regulatory requirements.

2013

HP StoreVirtual VSA

HP StoreVirtual VSA is the first virtual software-defined storage system supporting all primary standard servers and several hypervisors for 6 years.

Most effectively StoreVirtual VSA will be able to use:

• Enterprises of small and medium business. Use of software will help to reduce complexity and cost due to joint placement of the virtualized applications and the general storage.

• Independent providers of a public cloud environment. Providing new cloud and managed services perhaps integrating the solution StoreVirtual VSA with modular assemblies.

• Large companies. They will be able to carry out the centralized execution of operations, the fault tolerance due to replication of data from virtual remote offices in big corporate data processing centers will improve.

HP StoreVirtual VSA it is equipped with software of HP of Adaptive Optimization which continuously analyzes loading and moves data or on high-performance drives (for example, SSD), or on more economic (normal HDD). It will provide significant savings as at the customer there is no need to use a configuration on the basis of only solid-state disks. Besides, HP Adaptive Optimization helps to virtualize older server hardware from other producers, to use it as additional volumes of storage.

Licensing

HP provides new options of licensing of HP StoreVirtual VSA allowing the customer to scale smoothly storage infrastructure in process of growth of his requirements. In addition to the standard license for 10 TB HPs offers the license for 4 TB for small offices, the license for 50 TB for large deployments. In process of growth of loadings, the client can pass without excess difficulties and expenses on VSA of bigger capacity or on HP StoreVirtual 4000.

Management

For management of DWH of HP of StoreVirtual VSA of rather basic preparation in environments of VMware and Microsoft. Support of the VMware ParaVirtualized SCSI controller allows to use the CPU resources most effectively. The improved integration of Microsoft Windows Server with Hyper-V will help users to select quicker capacity from Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

HP StoreVirtual Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) it is well free for buyers of HP servers of ProLiant Generation 8

In November, 2013 the HP company announced what software of HP of StoreVirtual Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) is well absolutely free for all buyers of HP servers of ProLiant Generation 8 (Gen8) now. Software of HP of StoreVirtual VSA turns ProLiant HP servers into effective platforms of storage for modern software-defined DPC.

HPE StoreVirtual VSA is established on computing nodes of a virtual cluster. Virtualization platforms are supported:

• VMware vSphere,
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• KVM. To the first two integration plug-ins with the management consoles are developed that creates uniform point of entry for the management of all infrastructure.

Standard deployment of HPE StoreVirtual VSA requires three nodes: two for fault tolerance, and third for Quorum Witness placement, it will be responsible for coordination of data on all nodes in case of a rupture of communication. The scenario using two nodes is possible, however in this case independent NFSv3 the general directory is necessary for Quorum Witness placement.

From the point of view of the administrator of a virtual cluster, StoreVirtual VSA represents virtual machines under control of Enterprise Linux — on one on each node of a cluster. Installation can be made, as by means of a special form, and deployment of an OVF image. In both cases it is necessary to create a configuration of a disk of the virtual machine. Its size will depend on the size of the block specified when formatting the data warehouse.

The product is licensed on the volume which is represented to a hypervisor as the data warehouse. It is important to understand: it will be "crude" volume from the point of view of the end user. First of all, local disks of servers will be united in RAID groups at the level of the node RAID controller. The turned-out net volume requires licensing. After start of each separate VSA they integrate in a cluster and sum up disk space in one general pool available then to users (servers) under the block protocol (iSCSI).

StoreVirtual VSA is equipped with the basic functions typical for hardware storage systems:

• "thin provisioning" are the "thin" volumes allowing a system to select space in process of the actual filling with data;
• Peer Motion is migration of volumes without interruption of access to them;
• Multi-site SAN — the uniform volume distributed on two or three platforms — and so forth.

The application has opportunities:

• synchronous and asynchronous replication;
• is able to create jellied molds of virtual machines (snapshots) at the level of applications;
• builds otkazoustochivy schemes at the level of cluster nodes (RAID Network technology), and clusters can be geographically distributed (Split Site)
• adaptive optimization.

Management of functionality is available, as through CMC (Centralized Management Console, the central management console), and by means of a plug-in to the management console VMWare/Hyper-V.

The product StoreVirtual VSA belongs to family of the hyper convergent systems. And as any software component of similar solutions - is a budget analog of the hardware original — the selected DWH. The main objective of software — creation of the failsafe protected storage for the virtualized cluster without purchase of the additional hardware.

Advantages to clients:

• Cost reduction on deployment of storage with the general access to 80% in comparison with traditional arrays of storage. (4)
• The convenience of deployment in environments of a hypervisor of VMware or Microsoft is needlessly professional to understand technologies of storage.
• Increase in flexibility owing to an opportunity to scale computing resources and resources of storage in parallel, in process of growth of requirements.
• Reduction of risks owing to the built-in technologies of a clustering and disaster recovery, including support of VMware Metro Storage Cluster.

Notes