HPE StoreVirtual Architecture VSA / Hewlett Packard Enterprise Blog

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

The most recent HPE StoreVirtual VSA Architecture technical datasheet was released , and I’d like to talk a little about it. We have been working on the architecture of StoreVirtual VSA for over 8 years. Today, the number of licenses sold is in the millions, and the number of nodes on which this architecture works is tens of thousands. In other words, we have some experience with software-defined storage systems. 

I want to consider a few key aspects that set StoreVirtual VSA apart from its competitors.

1. This is a simple architecture - and we continue to simplify it. Based on it, our Hyper Converged 250 and Hyper Converged 380 solutions work. In a matter of minutes, from the moment the power is turned on to the deployment of virtual machines. The installation of VSA on the server takes about the same amount of time. In the near future I am going to prepare new videos showing how easy it is to work with the software-defined storage system StoreVirtual VSA.
   
   
2. It is a scalable architecture. As your infrastructure grows, all you have to do is add new VSA devices to your environment to increase capacity and increase productivity. By the way, the other day I talked with a customer who uses two StoreVirtual VSA. He asked how to increase productivity. I replied that if he adds another VSA-defined storage system, he will increase productivity by 50%, and if two, he will double it. He did not believe, so I tried to explain figuratively. If a single StoreVirtual VSA device delivers 1000 I / O per second, then a two-node system will give you 2000 IOPs. Add a third node and you get 3,000 IOPs — that is, a 50% increase in performance. Add a fourth node, and you will have 4000 IOPs — twice the size of the two-node system. StoreVirtual VSA has very predictable scalability. Performance in 1000 IOPs is an example; The actual performance of a node depends on factors such as the number and type of drives used.
   
   
3. This is high availability architecture - of course, not everyone can get 100% availability, but listen to the podcast prepared by me and Bart Hingens, who used StoreVirtual VSAfor 7 years without a single second of downtime. How did we achieve this? Find out in the white paper, focusing on Network RAID. Network RAID distributes data between nodes, which provides protection against node failure and allows, for example, updating the OS on one node when everyone else continues to do their job. But what I (and many of our customers) particularly like is the ability to create an extended 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 is completely out of order, it will not affect StoreVirtual VSA in any way.
   
   
4. It's 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 hyperconverged systems.
   
   
5. It's inexpensive: you can test the functionality for free (1 TB license is supplied with each ProLiant server, you can also download a trial version from hpe.com/storage/TryVSA). The cost of paid licenses is designed in such a way that StoreVirtual VSA is cheaper than any other software-defined storage solution. 
   

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

• No restrictions: you can use any equipment, any hypervisor and any client.
  
  
• Best hardware and software: HPE ProLiant is the most popular server in the world, but you can use any other third-party equipment. Code robustness is backed by an 8-year history of StoreVirtual VSA. In addition, Network RAID technology can provide maximum fault tolerance.
  
  
• Industry Standards Support: StoreVirtual VSA uses the iSCSI protocol, not the proprietary protocol. Why is it important? Because any server using iSCSI (whether virtualized, hardware, or some other) can provide shared capacity of the VSA device.
  
  
• Reasonable cost: In almost all cases, the licensing costs of the StoreVirtual VSA architecture will be significantly lower than other solutions.
  
  
• More freedom: it is unlikely that anyone will like the binding to the proprietary hypervisor. 
  

I highly recommend reading the official StoreVirtual VSA datasheet , and visit hpe.com/storage/VSA . A free 1TB VSA can be downloaded at hpe.com/storage/TryVSA .

Author Information

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