December 6, 2012 at 11:49StoreVirtual - new name for Left-Handed
In December, HP begins shipping its third generation iSCSI-based storage systems for SANs. These systems, formerly known as the HP LeftHand P4000 (LeftHand is the name of the company that HP acquired three years ago), will now be called the HP StoreVirtual 4000 Storage. HP, like other vendors, periodically updates its brands, for example, from the Compaq legacy for ten years only ProLiant is left (except for OpenVMS and NonStop).
However, LeftHand will remain in the name of the Left-handed operating system, which is renamed from SAN / iQ to HP LeftHand Operating System (OS). Considering that all the functionality of the HP StoreVirtual 4000 Storage is implemented exclusively at the software level, including clustering, linear performance scalability, and improved fault tolerance based on Network RAID, we can assume that the name LeftHand will not go out of use for a long time. In addition, the entire Lefthand OS package is included in the standard Lefty configuration and buyers of these systems do not need to spend money on licensing options that implement the most “advanced” functions (for example, synchronous and asynchronous replication, thin provisioning or snapshots).
The upgrade to the HP StoreVirtual 4000 Storage lineup began with junior systems. HP introduced two third-generation models that are built on top of the latest HP ProLiant Gen8 single-unit rack-mount servers with a single Xeon E5-2620 six-core processor. The HP StoreVirtual 4130 is the Lefty's most affordable model, targeting SMB companies and corporate affiliates. In its case, four six-gigabyte 2.5-inch SAS hard drives are integrated in RAID-5 (usable capacity is 1.56 TB). Thanks to LeftHand OS technology, it scales to 32 arrays with 128 disks and 128 Gigabit Ethernet network ports.
The second more powerful HP StoreVirtual 4330 model, 1U high, is equipped with eight 2.5-inch drives supporting RAID 5, 6 and 10. Storage can use ten-thousandth SAS with a capacity of 450 or 900 GB and single-terabyte MDL SAS drives of 7200 rpm. As standard, this model, like the HP StoreVirtual 4130, is equipped with four Gigabit Ethernet ports, which is twice as much as in the previous generation. If this is not enough, then the system can be equipped with two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports. The main innovation of this generation is support as an option for two eight-gigabit Fiber Channel ports. This option is useful for those customers who want to connect their servers using Fiber Channel to the Lefthander, combine FC and iSCSI networks into one infrastructure, or plan to gradually replace the existing FC storage network with iSCSI SANs.
The older systems will be updated at the beginning of 2013 and will be positioned as the main store in medium-sized companies or for virtualization in large companies, as support almost all the functionality of VMware vSphere and MS Hyper-V.
Key enhancements to LeftHand OS include enhanced Active Directory integration (administrators can manage authentication of HP StoreVirtual Storage users using Windows AD tools) and the implementation of the recovery function using Recovery Manager instant snapshots for Windows files and folders. It is worth noting that the owners of the second generation HP LeftHand P4000 G2 will be able to transfer their systems to the new OS for free.
However, LeftHand will remain in the name of the Left-handed operating system, which is renamed from SAN / iQ to HP LeftHand Operating System (OS). Considering that all the functionality of the HP StoreVirtual 4000 Storage is implemented exclusively at the software level, including clustering, linear performance scalability, and improved fault tolerance based on Network RAID, we can assume that the name LeftHand will not go out of use for a long time. In addition, the entire Lefthand OS package is included in the standard Lefty configuration and buyers of these systems do not need to spend money on licensing options that implement the most “advanced” functions (for example, synchronous and asynchronous replication, thin provisioning or snapshots).
The upgrade to the HP StoreVirtual 4000 Storage lineup began with junior systems. HP introduced two third-generation models that are built on top of the latest HP ProLiant Gen8 single-unit rack-mount servers with a single Xeon E5-2620 six-core processor. The HP StoreVirtual 4130 is the Lefty's most affordable model, targeting SMB companies and corporate affiliates. In its case, four six-gigabyte 2.5-inch SAS hard drives are integrated in RAID-5 (usable capacity is 1.56 TB). Thanks to LeftHand OS technology, it scales to 32 arrays with 128 disks and 128 Gigabit Ethernet network ports.
The second more powerful HP StoreVirtual 4330 model, 1U high, is equipped with eight 2.5-inch drives supporting RAID 5, 6 and 10. Storage can use ten-thousandth SAS with a capacity of 450 or 900 GB and single-terabyte MDL SAS drives of 7200 rpm. As standard, this model, like the HP StoreVirtual 4130, is equipped with four Gigabit Ethernet ports, which is twice as much as in the previous generation. If this is not enough, then the system can be equipped with two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports. The main innovation of this generation is support as an option for two eight-gigabit Fiber Channel ports. This option is useful for those customers who want to connect their servers using Fiber Channel to the Lefthander, combine FC and iSCSI networks into one infrastructure, or plan to gradually replace the existing FC storage network with iSCSI SANs.
The older systems will be updated at the beginning of 2013 and will be positioned as the main store in medium-sized companies or for virtualization in large companies, as support almost all the functionality of VMware vSphere and MS Hyper-V.
Key enhancements to LeftHand OS include enhanced Active Directory integration (administrators can manage authentication of HP StoreVirtual Storage users using Windows AD tools) and the implementation of the recovery function using Recovery Manager instant snapshots for Windows files and folders. It is worth noting that the owners of the second generation HP LeftHand P4000 G2 will be able to transfer their systems to the new OS for free.