Convergence of storage and blade servers

IT administrators have long used DAS as a quick and low-cost method for deploying applications such as Microsoft Exchange or unstructured file repositories. Unfortunately, server blades don’t offer as many options for DAS. Administrators have had to rely on more expensive SAN storage for all their application needs.

Now you have a better option: DAS designed specifically for the HP BladeSystem. HP has redefined DAS for the HP BladeSystem environment by taking advantage of serial attached SCSI (SAS) storage. SAS provides high-performance connectivity, enabling high data transfer rates, yet it’s cost-effective because it doesn’t require new networking expertise to add storage. This solution provides even more scalability and flexibility than was previously available for rack mount servers.

The new HP StorageWorks 600 Modular Disk System (MDS600) allows you to easily provision drives for each blade server on the fly, without complex configuration or recabling, and without requiring you to use a SAN. By directly connecting your BladeSystem to SAS storage devices like the MDS600, you can gain many of the flexibility and resource utilization benefits of centralized network storage, yet with the simplicity of DAS.

Virtualization is another example of how the line is blurring between servers and storage. In order to have the availability and performance required by virtual machines, you need shared network storage. It’s important, however, that your storage solution be designed with virtualization in mind.

For blade server deployments where you need scalable and highly available internal shared storage, HP has combined the HP StorageWorks SB40c Storage Blade with the HP LeftHand P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance (VSA™) Software, essentially turning DAS into a virtual SAN that can be accessed by any other server in the infrastructure, bladed or not. Because the software runs on a virtual machine, you can run application and storage on the same server, improving resource utilization.

The iSCSI SAN storage is managed from a single interface, allowing you to quickly scale capacity and performance as needed within a single enclosure or spanning multiple enclosures. The clustered architecture and integrated replication features extend these capabilities across sites to help with disaster recovery.

Business critical applications need the fastest performance possible. The traditional approach to increasing application performance is to provide a large number of physical drives. But this can drive up costs and decrease efficiency, particularly if storage capacities are relatively low.

Now, applications requiring high transaction rates and real-time data can achieve maximum performance with the HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator for BladeSystem c-Class. This solution brings high input/output performance—up to 100,000 IOPs—and low latency access to storage, enabling the storage to perform quickly, as though it’s distributed across multiple disks. The IO Accelerator also helps companies get even more power savings from their blade infrastructures because it uses solid state technology (SST). SST can quickly shift from very low power modes to full performance, without the delays of spinning disks.

Bringing blade servers and storage closer together is the logical answer to common storage challenges. HP has been rethinking the way blade servers and storage work together, and the result is a set of solutions totally optimized for blade environments, helping you draw every possible advantage from your blades.

HP BladeSystem with HP StorageWorks solutions is a smarter way to build an infrastructure to support your critical business applications. Now you can extend the benefits of blades—especially low cost and great flexibility—to the storage systems that blade servers access.