HP P4000 G2 SANs offer an all inclusive feature set that enables enterprise functionality at an affordable price. A pay-as-you-grow, all-inclusive pricing model (incl. 3 year support for all multi node P4000 SANs / 1 year support for all single node P4000 Systems) and intuitive storage management software built into every HP P4000 G2 SAN or System makes it perfect for deployments where you wrestle with sophisticated storage requirements while being constrained by tight budgets and limited storage management expertise. A failover/failback wizard is also included with Remote Copy for step-by-step, easy to execute disaster recovery procedures when needed most.

 

 

HP P4000 Overview (video)

HP P4000 Product Proposal (pdf)

HP P4000 Technical Specifications (pdf)

P4000 Whiteboard Presentation

 

 

HP P4000 Provides a Virtual Pool of Storage for the Converged Infrastructure
The HP P4000 G2 LeftHand SAN solutions provide storage that is highly scalable and optimized for email, databases, and sever virtualization. It will allow you to create a virtual pool of storage for the Converged Infrastructure that is simple to manage.

 

 

P4000 SANs scale capacity and performance linearly to seamlessly grow with your business. The P4000 portfolio has affordable enterprise functionality with a comprehensive feature set and simplified central management for all locations. Superior application availability and disaster recovery features are integrated into the P4000 SANs for automated failover/failback in any situation. P4000 SANs are optimized for virtualized environments with VMware ESX & Microsoft Hyper-V integration and offer continuous data availability to users and applications that meets demand on-the-fly.

 

 

 

HP P4000 G2 LeftHand SAN Solutions are a perfect fit for environments with a variety of virtual servers, client virtualization, database, email, and business applications. P4000 G2 SAN Solutions are composed of storage systems that can be added to the system without bringing applications down. Each storage system increases IOPs, aggregate bandwidth, processing power, RAM, cache, capacity and redundancy of a HP P4000 G2 SAN Solutions. Superior application availability and disaster recovery features are integrated into the P4000 SANs for automated failover/failback in any situation.

 

P4000 Whiteboard Presentation

P4000 High Availability & Fault Tolerance

P4500 Disaster Recovery

P4000 & BladeServer Integration Network Diagrams

 

 

Learn How the P4000 Works

 

 

High Availability and Fault Tolerance Storage to Meet Business Continuity Demands
Traditional SANs do not fully address today’s business needs regarding high availability and fault tolerance as they typically cannot tolerate all outages due to disk, network, processor, array, power, or site failures. When it comes to data protection, traditional methods such as hardware RAID and redundant components are not enough. Although the P4000 node is using hardware RAID 5, 6, or 10, hardware RAID and redundant controllers will not protect data from human error, network, or site issues. Your business data must be protected beyond the box, in the event that an entire node goes off-line.

The P4000 Network RAID will allow you to synchronously replicate volumes across all P4000 nodes in a SAN cluster. Essentially, multiple copies of data can be striped and protected across the cluster so that if any node was to go offline, your data would remain available. The data protection levels are defined on a per-volume basis. You can decide what level it needs based on the critically of the data. You can stripe and, if desired, replicate data with 1, 2, or 3 extra copies or use the Network RAID levels 5 or 6 with 1 or 2 parity bits. You can reconfigure the Network RAID levels on the fly with zero downtime and can tailor the level of data protection based on your needs. Bottom line—this is “high availability” for storage, and it is included with every P4000. Let Storage Networks configure and integrate the optimal solution form your business.

 

 

Remote Office/Branch Office Disaster Recovery
The P4500 G2 LeftHand Virtualization SANs and P4500 G2 LeftHand Multi-Site SANs include, at no extra charge, ten licenses for Replication for Remote Offices/Branch Offices (ROBO) which is essentially the same as the P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance Software (VSA). Replication for ROBO capability is optionally available via a VSA license on all other P4000 models VSA supports Hyper-V and VMware. It is the first VMware certified ‘Storage Virtual (details can be found on VMware’s Hardware Compatibility Guide). VSA creates a virtual SAN in ROBO locations using VMware Or Hyper-V server disks, VMware or Hyper-V server JBODs or unused SAN disk drives that already exist at the remote location. Like VSA, the Replication for Remote Offices capability enables replication from ROBO locations to primary locations (or the other way if the remote location is e.g., a DR site). Thus remote data can be integrated into regular storage operations like backup and restore.

 

In summary:

• Replication for Remote Office licenses included with some P4000 SANs—The VSA capabilities to create virtual SANs by pooling server disks, JBODs or SAN. Multiple data centers and sites can be managed from an all inclusive “single pane-of-glass.” All of the P4000 SAN features are managed from the CMC for simple, easy-to-manage storage.
• Centralized Management Console—Multiple data centers and sites can be managed from an all inclusive “single pane-of-glass.” All of the HP P4000 features are managed from the CMC for simple, easy-to-manage storage.
• Remote Copy reduces costs for disaster recovery—Remote Copy replicates snapshots between P4000 SANs at primary/remote locations. Copies are thinly provisioned with no space reservation required. Remote Copy enables centralized backup and disaster recovery on a per-volume basis and leverages application integrated snapshots for faster recovery. Furthermore, it saves time by pre-detecting the empty space/unchanged data and only copies changed data.

 

HP P4000 Features & Options

HP P4000 SANs scale capacity and performance linearly to seamlessly grow with your business. The P4000 portfolio has affordable enterprise functionality with a comprehensive feature set and simplified central management for all locations. Superior application availability and disaster recovery features are integrated into the P4000 SANs for automated failover/failback in any situation. P4000 SANs are optimized for virtualized environments with VMware ESX & Microsoft Hyper-V integration and offer continuous data availability to users and applications that meets demand on-the-fly.

P4000 Features
Options

 

HP P4000 Features

Remote Copy lets customers replicate thin provisioned snapshots between primary and remote locations. Because HP P4000 G2 SAN Solutions Remote Copies are thin provisioned no space reservation at the remote location is required. Remote Copy is used for centralized backup and disaster recovery and can be set up on a per-volume basis. Remote copies placed on a recurring schedule allow customers to achieve point-in-time asynchronous replication of the data between locations, sites, or data centers.

Integrated into the Remote Copy software is intelligent bandwidth management ensuring that the data traffic can be sent across shared WAN links without adversely impacting other network traffic. Administrators simply set the bandwidth limit for remote copies between the two sites and the SAN/iQ software holds that limit.

 

HP P4000 Options

 

 

 

The HP P4300 and P4500 SANs are great pieces of hardware that are fairly unique in the industry. However, there is some room for improvement that HP will hopefully address in future generations of this product. As your trusted advisor, Storage Networks would like to point out some notable faults of the P4300 and P4500 G2 product line.

 

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Lack of Unified Storage in the HP P4300 and P4500 G2

HP has traditionally not been a large contender in the unified storage department. Unified Storage refers to SAN hardware that has both file and block storage mechanisms. File protocols include CIFS (Windows) and NFS (Unix / Linux.) These file protocols allow for your storage system to act as a file server without the need for separate hardware (e.g. a file server.) The P4300 and P4500 offer block storage only. Obviously, you can use a fairly inexpensive Windows or Linux Server attached to the P4300 / P4500 to act as a file server but this adds to the cost of your SAN. HP offers file server gateway devices that do just this, but they are not included in any P4300 or P4500 bundle.

 

 

No Automated Storage Tiering in the HP P4300 G2 and P4500 G2

The HP P4300 G2 and HP P4500 G2 does not offer automated storage tiering. Storage Tiers refer to the speed and quality of the media that your data is written to. The HP P4300 G2, P4500 G2, and P4900 G2 storage systems support high speed SSD disks, fast 15K RPM SAS disks, and slower (high capacity) 7200 RPM SAS-MDL disks. Each storage node only supports ONE type of disk. Further, all nodes in a storage cluster should use the same disk type (SAS, SSD, or SAS-MDL.) Automated storage tiering moves “hot” (highly accessed) data to FAST disks (Such as 15K drives or SSD drives) and less frequently accessed data to slower (high capacity) disks without any user intervention. With the HP P4300 G2 and HP P4500 G2, you can create separate storage clusters with different disk tiers; database (high i/o) as one and backup (low i/o) as a second, for example. However, there is no feature in SAN/IQ that will automatically move data between storage clusters of varying performance.
If automated storage tiering is important to you, you may want to consider an HP / 3Par P9000 product.

 

 

Potential Upgrade Path Problem with the HP P4300 G2 and P4500 G2

For the time being, the HP P4300 G2 and P4500 G2 storage systems offer great scalability by allowing you to add nodes and restripe your data as your budget and space requirements dictate. However, when you add new P4300 or P4500 G2 storage nodes to a cluster, you must match drive speeds and types. For example, you (can, but should not!) add a P4300 Node with 8x 2TB SAS-MDL disks to a cluster using existing P4300 nodes with 8x 600GB 15K SAS disk drives. The performance of a cluster is based on the cluster’s slowest performing node and the SAS-MDL disks (spinning at 7200 RPM) will slow down your P4300 or P4500 cluster. Likewise, the raw capacity of your cluster nodes will be equal to: (the number of nodes) * (the smallest capacity node in the cluster.) If HP stops producing 300GB 15K disk drives, for example, you will only be able to add 450+GB P4300 and P4500 nodes to a cluster and will NOT be able to take advantage of extra space that 450+GB drives provide.
To HP’s Credit: The P4000 product line began shipping in 2008 with the P4300 G1 that used 300GB disk drives. As of March 2012, HP STILL sells P4300 G2 upgrade nodes with 8x 300GB disk drives that will fit nicely into a P4300 G1 cluster. While the concern about having to (over)pay for truncated capacity is a concern, HP has not made this concerns a reality.

 

 

HP configuration, ordering, and bundled discounts can get complicated. Don't leave money on the table! Contact a Storage Networks Project Coordinator for configuration, ordering, integration assistance, and to receive additional discounts for feature options, bundling of products, and trade-in allowances that you are entitled to.

 

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