Storage

HP StorageWorks P4000 G2 (Formerly LeftHand)

HP StorageWorks P4000 G2 SAN Solutions are proven for virtual servers, client virtualization, database, email and business applications. With a pay-as-you-grow, all-inclusive pricing model (3-year support included) and intuitive storage management, this SAN is perfect for the budget-minded. Do room for growth, high availability and disaster recovery seem out of reach?

P4000 G2 SANs scale capacity and performance linearly without incurring downtime or performance bottlenecks. HP StorageWorks avoid expensive upgrades. P4000 G2 SANs eliminate single points of failure across the SAN and offer application data high availability, reducing risks without driving up costs. Reservation-less thin provisioning substantially increases your storage utilization and thus reduces costs.

All Inclusive Feature Set Enables Enterprise Functionality at an Affordable Price.

• Storage Clustering allows a customer to consolidate multiple storage nodes into pools of storage. All available capacity and performance is aggregated and available to every volume in the cluster. As storage needs increase the HP P4000 G2 can scale performance and capacity on-line.
• Network RAID stripes and protects multiple copies of data across a cluster of storage nodes, eliminating any single point of failure in the HP P4000 G2 SAN. Applications have continuous data availability in the event of a disk, controller, storage node, power, network, or site failure.
• Thin Provisioning allocates space only as data is actually written without requiring pre-allocation of storage. This raises the overall utilization and efficiency of the HP P4000 G2 SAN, reduces costs and ultimately increases the ROI.
• Snapshots create thinly provisioned, instant point-in-time copies of data on a per-volume basis. Administrators access snapshots to recover individual files from the volume, or rollback an entire volume. Built-in application integration provides automated quiescing for Microsoft VSS applications.
• Remote Copy replicates snapshots between P4000 G2 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.

HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array

Provides enterprises the ability to reduce the management burden of traditional storage with a high-performance disk array tuned for the most popular applications in a fully virtualized environment.

Want to tune your storage for the most visible applications in your complex enterprise environment? EVA provides designed-in virtualization to support your most critical applications as well as your bulk storage needs.

HP StorageWorks 6400/8400 Enterprise Virtual Array automatically improves performance by placing data across more disk drives with tiered storage and tightly integrates replication when using highly visible software applications. The ease of management using HP StorageWorks Command View Software results in less time spent on maintenance and administrative intervention. Higher capacity utilization provides improved performance and manageable storage in a more consolidated environmental footprint.

The EVA6400/8400 allows you to virtualize everything and seamlessly provision your storage when growing your applications. Add virtual servers and EVAs to dynamically build a complete virtualized IT environment—virtual storage for virtual servers tuned for your environment.

Some of the features of the HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array are:

• Adapts to improve performance by placing data across more spindles and automatically re-leveling when new storage is added. EVA solutions tightly integrate local and remote replication with highly visible software applications. EVA offers tiered storage for the most effective use of storage dollars
• Allows IT to focus on innovation by reducing the amount of management resources needed to support, provision and maintain your storage environment when compared to traditional storage. Expanding and shrinking data files is as easy as a few mouse clicks resulting in less administrative intervention
• There is no need to pre-allocate storage capacity due to the management burden imposed by a traditional storage architecture. With the EVA's easy management you can add disks when you want and manage disk capacity and utilization with Dynamic Capacity Management Software
• EVA offers Business Copy EVA and Continuous Access EVA Software for local and remote replication needs. The EVA solution improves data availability and business agility and supports business continuance and disaster tolerant environments for your key business applications

HP StorageWorks P9000 Disk Arrays

The HP StorageWorks P9500 Disk Array is bulletproof storage for mission-critical converged infrastructure where constant access to data is required—even in the event of a disaster. Designed for organizations that simply cannot afford any downtime, the P9500 combines a high-performance online scalable fully redundant hardware platform with unique data replication capabilities integrated with clustering solutions for complete business continuity.

The HP StorageWorks P9000 Software Family decreases the complexities of critical data management. Through thin provisioning, organizations can improve storage utilization. Virtualization simplifies the management of diverse systems. Smart Tiers improve storage performance and controls costs. Application Performance Extender provides end-to-end quality of service so resources can be used effectively. While consolidation becomes a reality by managing open systems, mainframe, and HP NonStop applications all on a single P9500.

Some of the features of the HP StorageWorks P9000 Disk Arrays are:

• Operating a business demands constant uptime; the risk of data loss or downtime is always at the forefront. The HP StorageWorks P9500 Disk Array mitigates that risk, since all components are redundant, hot-swappable, and can be upgraded online
• With a large-scale disaster, you need to not only have high levels of data protection but also business continuance. P9500 Disk Array supports a clustering solution that allows remote mirroring to be integrated with a high availability server cluster to provide multi-site disaster recovery
• Your data is protected even if power goes out as the P9500 Disk Array write cache data is backed up in a Solid State Drive. RAID 6 adds fault tolerance. Continuous Track checks the P9500 for unseen issues, and the end-to-end checksum confirms data integrity from host port to disk and back
• Decrease your exposure to data loss with the security features in the HP StorageWorks P9000 Array Manager Software. Reduce the risk of unauthorized access, prevent unauthorized modification, and protect your information at the end of its lifecycle by completely deleting data on a specified volume

NetApp

Data Center Virtualization demands for Storage Virtualization Technology
The momentum in data center virtualization has increased the focus on virtualization technologies which contribute to more effective application provisioning, business continuity, and resource consolidation. Storage virtualization technology provides the ability to represent data independently of where and how it is physically stored, thus enabling increased storage utilization, faster application recovery and reduced space, power and cooling requirements. However, the extent to which virtualization technology is able to deliver such benefits will depend upon the completeness of the storage virtualization solution and how well it is integrated into the core data management architecture.

The NetApp Storage Virtualization Solution
NetApp's Data ONTAP software environment incorporates storage virtualization technology that simplifies enterprise data management while dramatically reducing TCO. Since Data ONTAP enables a logical presentation of data based on virtual storage pools that are not constrained by physical storage infrastructure, attention can be focused on critical business applications instead of hardware complexity. NetApp provides storage virtualization capabilities at every level of the storage hierarchy and this capability is built into all NetApp storage platforms.

Data Deduplication

Exagrid Systems

ExaGrid's disk backup appliances work seamlessly with the industry's leading backup applications, and the appliance typically installs in about one hour. The product line's six appliance models can be combined into a GRID configuration for environments of up to 100TB.

ExaGrid's disk-based backup with deduplication product line revolutionizes how organizations backup and protect their data. By leveraging your current backup application and replacing tape in your nightly backup process, ExaGrid's simple, turnkey appliance can:

• Reduce the disk space required by at least 10:1, and up to 50:1
• Shorten your backup window by 30-90%, ensuring all of your data is fully protected
• Improve your disaster recovery plan through off-site disk-based retention of your data
• Reduce the amount of time your IT staff spends on managing backups
• Scale easily and cost-effectively with your data growth
• Fully protect your virtualized environment
• Reduce other costs associated with tape-based backup

The ExaGrid disk backup appliance uses post-processing to perform its deduplication. This means that the backup data is written directly from the backup server to ExaGrid's Landing Zone (disk) at the highest possible rate with no inline processing to interfere, resulting in the smallest possible backup window. Once the backup job is complete and off the network, the data is protected and immediately available for restore or tape copy. Then the appliance deduplicates (and simultaneously replicates) the data in the background.

ExaGrid's innovative approach minimizes the amount of data to be stored by using byte-level data deduplication across all received backups. ExaGrid's byte-level delta technology stores only the changed bytes from backup to backup instead of storing full copies. This unique approach reduces the disk space required by at least 10:1, and up to 50:1, delivering unparalleled performance for the fastest backups and restores, all in a solution that costs about the same as a new tape library.

The six core ExaGrid disk-based backup appliances include GRID computing software which allows them to virtualize into one another when plugged into a switch. As a result, any of the six appliance models can be mixed and matched into a single GRID system with full backup capacities up to 100TB (6 PB logical). Once virtualized, they appear as a single pool of long-term capacity. Capacity load balancing of all data across servers is automatic, and multiple GRID systems can be combined for additional capacity. Even though data is load-balanced, deduplication occurs across the systems so that data migration does not cause a loss of effectiveness in deduplication.