HPE StoreVirtual VSA Architecture

Many medium and small businesses with relatively small IT environments that require shared storage to implement virtualized servers are ideally suited for the StoreVirtual software-defined architecture. As, however, and remote offices / branches of large companies.


Recently, the official technical description of the HPE StoreVirtual VSA Architecture was released, and I would like to talk a little about it. We have been working on the StoreVirtual VSA architecture for more than 8 years. Today, the number of licenses sold is estimated at millions, and the number of nodes on which this architecture operates is tens of thousands. In other words, we have some experience in software-defined storage systems.

I want to consider a few of the main aspects that make StoreVirtual VSA stand out from the competition.
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1. This is a simple architecture - and we continue to simplify it. On its basis, our solutions Hyper Converged 250 and Hyper Converged 380 work. From the moment of power-up to virtual machine deployment, a few minutes pass. Approximately the same time it takes to install VSA on the server. In the near future, I’m going to prepare new videos showing how easy it is to work with the StoreVirtual VSA software-defined storage system.
   
   
2. This is a scalable architecture. As your infrastructure grows, all you have to do is add new VSAs to your environment to increase capacity and improve performance. By the way, the other day I spoke with a customer who uses two StoreVirtual VSA. He asked how to improve performance. I replied that if he added another software-defined VSA storage system, he would increase productivity by 50%, and if he added two, he would double it. He did not believe it, so I tried to explain figuratively. If one StoreVirtual VSA device provides 1000 I / O performance per second, then a two-node system will give you 2000 IOPs. Add a third node and you will get 3000 IOPs - that is, a performance boost of 50%. Add a fourth node, and you will have 4000 IOPs — twice as many as a two-node system. StoreVirtual VSA has very predictable scalability. A performance of 1000 IOPs is for example; actual node performance depends on factors such as the number and type of disks used.
   
   
3. This is a high availability architecture - of course, not everyone can get 100% availability, but listen to the podcast prepared by me and Bart Hayngens, who used StoreVirtual VSA for 7 years without a single second of downtime. How did we do it? Find out in the official description, paying special attention to Network RAID. Network RAID distributes data between nodes, which provides protection against node failure and allows, for example, updating the OS on a single node when everyone else continues to do its work. But what I (and many of our customers) particularly like is the opportunity to create a stretched cluster. You can distribute StoreVirtual nodes geographically (for example, between two sites), thus creating a disaster-proof solution. After that, even if your data center completely fails, it will not affect the work of StoreVirtual VSA.
   
   
4. This is a flexible architecture - StoreVirtual VSA can use Hyper-V, VMware and KVM hypervisors. You can deploy this virtual storage system on your own, on existing servers, or on our hyperconvergent systems.
   
   
5. It's inexpensive: you can test the functionality for free (a 1 TB license comes with every ProLiant server, or you can download a trial version from hpe.com/storage/TryVSA). The cost of paid licenses is calculated in such a way that the StoreVirtual VSA is cheaper compared to any other solution in the field of software-defined storage systems.
   

Recently, other solutions have appeared on the market for software-defined storage systems. But I think the StoreVirtual VSA architecture is the best choice, and here's why:

• No restrictions: you can use any hardware, any hypervisor, and any client.
  
  
• Better hardware and software: HPE ProLiant is the most popular server worldwide, but you can use any other third-party hardware. The reliability of the code is supported by an 8-year history of StoreVirtual VSA. In addition, Network RAID technology can provide maximum fault tolerance.
  
  
• Industry standard support: StoreVirtual VSA uses the iSCSI protocol, not the proprietary protocol. Why is it important? Because any server that uses iSCSI (whether virtualized, hardware or some other) can share the capacity of the VSA device.
  
  
• Reasonable cost: in almost all cases, the costs for licensing the StoreVirtual VSA architecture will be significantly lower than other solutions.
  
  
• More freedom: hardly anyone would like to bind to a proprietary hypervisor.
  

I strongly recommend that you read the official technical description of StoreVirtual VSA , and also visit the hpe.com/storage/VSA page. Free 1TB VSA can be downloaded at hpe.com/storage/TryVSA .

Author Information

Kelvin Zito has been working in the IT industry for 33 years, 25 of which are engaged in data storage systems. For the sixth year in a row, he is an VMware vExpert expert. He actively uses social networks and communities, has been blogging for 8 years. The pseudonym in social networks is HPStorageGuy, but after dividing HP uses a CalvinZito twitter account. The author can be contacted by email .