LeftHand P4000 now works on HP BladeSystem blades

In the spring, we already talked about the HP StorageWorks P4000 clustered disk storage system for HP's iSCSI-based SAN networks, recently based on the development of LeftHand Networks, which was taken over last year. In June, a new powerful system from this HP StorageWorks P4800 series was introduced.

Recall that the SAN / iQ package created in LeftHand, which implements fault-tolerant clustering, multi-level storage functions, Network RAID, snapshots, cloning, remote replication and thin provisioning, can work on any servers of the standard x86 architecture and can be purchased separately without server hardware as VMware running in a VMware ESX environment. And if dual-processor rack-mount servers are used as control nodes of other HP StorageWorks P4000, then the StorageWorks P4800 SAN / iQ is installed on four BL460 G6 standard half blades in accordance with HP's strategy for gradual “bladeization” of its servers and storage systems. HP BladeSystem c-Class chassis form factor, backed up via the active-active SAN / iQ Storage Clustering feature. Therefore, the full name of the new product is HP StorageWorks P4800 BladeSystem SAN.

Two rack-mounted HP StorageWorks MDS 600 disk shelves are connected to the cluster nodes through two eight-port, three-gigabit SAS switches installed in the HP BladeSystem c-Class chassis. The special feature of these shelves, consisting of two drawers, is the super-dense placement of the disk capacity. One five-unit StorageWorks MDS 600 accommodates seventy full-size 450-GB SAS and, as a result, StorageWorks P4000 BladeSystem SAN scales from 63TB in a standard 140-disk configuration and up to a quarter of a petabyte when connecting additional StorageWorks MDS 600 shelves.

HP has developed reference hardware configurations (the so-called Reference Architecture) for large-scale implementation of virtualized workplace infrastructure (VDI) based on appropriate VMware, Microsoft and Citrix software solutions using the new storage system and HP BladeSystem c-Class blades.
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For example, the Reference Architecture solution for VMware View 4, ready for deployment, consists of two HP BladeSystem C7000 chassis, in which up to 28 72-GB ProLiant BL490c two-socket blades with 72 GB RAM are installed, which serve desktop virtual machines and are connected to the chassis. HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 modules, and four more blades BL460 G6 from StorageWorks P4000 BladeSystem SAN, and two MDS 600 shelves where virtual desktop images are stored.

This solution is able to provide maintenance of virtual desktop infrastructure for more than a thousand users. Due to the use of high-speed data exchange channels and a large number of hard drives, the StorageWorks P4800 works fast enough to cope with the traffic that is generated if several hundred users start the virtual machines of their desktops at the beginning of a working day. And the fault-tolerant SAN / iQ technologies ensure the smooth operation of virtual desktops and the online storage capacity expansion as new users are added to VDI or data volumes of current users grow.

The new StorageWorks P4800 BladeSystem SAN can also be used for those tasks for which rack-mount server-based StorageWorks P4000 models are already being used, such as storing virtual machine images when deploying server virtualization from VMware, Microsoft and Citrix.