Search results matching tags 'BladeSystem' and 'storage'

Primer on iSCSI and the permutations on BladeSystem

Kleinch — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:10:00 GMT

As iSCSI becomes more popular as an interconnect technology for storage and other devices, we had received a lot of questions as to how, why, what, works with iSCSI and the components of HP BladeSystem.

So, Dan Bowers and Ed McGee put together a primer to help answer a majority of the questions and configurations you may have or want to implement.

I have posted the primer to this community so download it and take a look. Let us know if it helps, hinders, confuses, or what additional things we can help with in this iSCI area.

Part 2: Q&A on blades and storage

lee.johns@hp.com — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:17:00 GMT

In my last post, I promised to talk more about the big picture regarding storage for your bladed infrastructure. Once your blade infrastructure is established, you have already gone through an exhaustive analysis of how it will save you money & benefit your business. You deployed one or more applications and justified the blade purchase based on ROI. So what’s next!?! Is this as good as it gets!?! If you’re at this point, my best advice and only advice to you: “THINK STORAGE”! (it's what we are thinking A LOT about)What I mean is think about new possibilities with better integration of your blade infrastructure with storage.

What if you could build an integrated a self contained "datacenter in a box" for your remote sites where servers, storage and data protection were fully integrated into one box, managed locally or remotely.
What if you could remove the drives from the servers and create a shared pool without having to use the existing SAN infrastucture which may be costly or complex?"
How could you utilize the spare slots in your enclosure for storage infrastructure that is plug and play simple.
What if you could build a server that has a drive capacity beyond the traditional constraints you find with rack and tower servers"

At HP we have been thinking about these questions and more for a while - ever since we introduced the first generation of storage blades for the "Datacenter in a box" customer 9 months ago. Since then, many customers in smaller businesses and replicated remote sites have used this solution to transform their infrastructure. With all of this feedback, we discovered that there is so much more untapped potential out there, so stay tuned!

Regards,

Lee

Q&A on blades and storage

lee.johns@hp.com — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:48:00 GMT

With the blade server market growing in leaps and bounds, I constantly get asked about storage options and how people use them today. The first thing I always say is that everybody uses storage for blades. 100%. Whether it’s the hard drives inside, NAS or SAN – every blade needs storage of some kind. But any move to a bladed infrastructure raises some other common questions about storage:

Q: Can I maintain the same server/storage configuration as I move to blades?
A: This one really depends on the applications and your server. Most blades have 2 to 4 internal drives, but all connect to multiple types of shared storage

Q: Can I maintain my hot plug drives in the server?
A: With most HP blade models, yes.

Q: Do I require shared storage and if so how will I connect to a SAN?
A: It's not required, but it has huge upside, plus connecting is actually easier than you may be used to.

Q: What is my company policy on shared storage? Do I need to connect to our existing SANs or should I purchase a new option?
A: Great questions. Also great reasons to have a chat and a cup of coffee with your SAN team!

Q: What about File Serving? Can I deploy File Servers and gateways in my bladed infrastructure. What interconnect options are available to me with Blades?

A: Even more great questions. Also great reasons to have a chat and a cup of coffee with us.

The good news behind all these questions: HP's strategy is to give you all the same choices with traditional servers – no compromise.

The even better news: There is a big upside to combining blades and shared storage.

Blade Infrastructure lowers the cost of connection to a SAN, significantly
Blade infrastructure provides a lower cost and more power efficient infrastructure up front. Plus it’s easier to manage from a SAN and server perspective.
Blades with Virtual Connect provide a wire-once connection to external storage that makes adding, moving or recovering a server easier and faster.
That also means you can replace a server and have it reconnect back to its allocated storage without hassling the SAN team.

“But what about Storage in the enclosure,” I hear you say? “Can I use the infrastructure to build a more integrated solution than simply improving what I have today?” “What are the new opportunities?”

A: There’s a lot of untapped potential. If you have some time next week, come back and we’ll explore this some more.

Best regards, Lee