ESG Lab Review: HP P4000: Affordable, Scalable, Reliable Storage


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As shown in Figure 1, the HP P4000 SANs can scale from an entry level software solution powered by the P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance Software (VSAs) to an enterprise-class physical SAN based on a cluster of P4000 SAN appliances. . The P4000 VSA Software is, as of this writing, the only VMware certified Storage Virtual Appliance.1 With a pay as you grow, all-inclusive licensing model and intuitive storage management, the P4000 SANs support online upgrades, firmware changes, modification of the SAN layout and advanced high availability to address the ever changing needs of the business.


From the software-only VSA option (available as a free download for a 60 day trial) to the pre-packaged hardware of P4000 SAN appliances, the underlying power and enterprise-class functionality of the P4000 SAN is provided by SAN/iQ software:


 Storage clustering  Network RAID 5,6,10,10+1, 10+2 (Volume level HA with up to 4 sets of striped, protected data)  Remote copy andmulti-site replication with bandwidth throttling  Virtual and physical SAN appliancesmanaged from one pane of glass  An Enterprise-class feature set with all-inclusive pricing  Three years of support included for P4000 SANs  Pay as you grow pricing  Non-disruptive online upgrades  Wizard-driven ease of use  Hardware RAID 5,6, and 10  Thin provisioning  SmartClones  Application Integrated Snapshots


Getting Started with Virtual SAN Appliances


The test bed shown in Figure 2 was used to demonstrate the ease of getting started with P4000 SAN technology using P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance Software (VSA). Testing began with a pair of HP ProLiant DL380 servers, each equipped with 2 GB of RAM and a pair of 36-GB hard drives for internal storage. The physical servers were pre-installed with free VMware ESXi software to create a platform for server virtualization. HP P4000 VSA, which is distributed as an industry standardVMware virtual appliance, was installed and run in a virtual machine on each of the two physical servers.


Figure 2. Getting Started with Virtual Storage Appliances Two click online upgrade


VSA Virtual Machines


Physical Servers Internal Storage


Two node VSA cluster 1 http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php? © 2010 Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Four node VSA cluster


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