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Posts tagged HP
HP adds Windows Server 2012 Support for several HP ProLiant G6 Servers
Feb 27th
Just in time for a new project for a Dutch municipality, involving HP c7000, HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8, HP StoreVirtual 4000 Storage and Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, HP released a new firmware ISO and a new HP ProLiant Service Pack. With version 2013.02.0 (19 Feb 2013) HP adds Windows Server 2012 support for the following HP ProLiant servers:
- HP ProLiant BL460c G6 Server .
- HP ProLiant DL380 G6 Server
- HP ProLiant DL360 G6 Server
- HP ProLiant ML350 G6 Server
Click on picture for link to PDF.
Additionally a number of new HP ProLiant network adapters are now supported:
HP Ethernet 1Gb 4-port 366FLR Adapter
HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 560M Adapter
HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 560FLR SFP+ Adapter
HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 530T Adapter
Download HP ProLiant Service Pack 2013.02.0
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HP Storage Platforms and Windows Server 2012
Dec 12th
[Updated: see 
]
HP bought 3PAR several years ago and as I expected the recently announced HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 series are intended to replace HP EVA. There is even a data migration solution to make the migration as easy as possible. Of course I looked at what 3PAR has to offer in terms of features in Windows Server 2012 and integration with Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012.
The 3PAR StoreServ 7000 datasheet tells us this:
In Windows® Server 2012 environments, built-in, fine-grained virtualization, system-wide striping, and support for multi-tenancy give you the ability to consolidate mixed workloads onto a single HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 system. With Windows Server 2012 Offload Data Transfer (ODX) and the HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000, you can migrate large files—such as databases or video files—up to seven times faster with near-zero network impact due to zerodetection capability integrated into the HP 3PAR ASIC. HP 3PAR Thin Technologies and Windows Server 2012 automatic reclamation of storage automate storage growth and shrinkage, while HP 3PAR Adaptive Optimization Software delivers the right QoS to the right data at the right time in Windows Server 2012 environments.
Not only does the new 3PAR StoreServ 7000 support Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX) but also Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) and a new Web Services API. SMI-S is what Microsoft has promoted vigorously and nobody seemed to believe in. At the end of the day most storage vendors finally comply with this SNIA standard. In our Microsoft Private Cloud Computing book, a good part of the storage fabric chapter is devoted to SMI-S integration in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012.
Lower end and non-comparable storage systems such as Dell’s EqualLogic only promise 2x improvement on file copy with ODX. The 7x promise with 3PAR’s ODX capability sounds good but of course we have to verify this in practice. At TechEd we were shown video’s comparing a 10GB regular copy (in about 3 minutes at 80-90MB/sec) versus a 10 second copy with ODX. I’m not sure if Microsoft used NetApp or EMC for the demo.
HP’s P4500 requires SANiQ v10.0 which is finally available and at a minimum will support Windows Server 2012. Many customers who invested in this platform and plan to upgrade to Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V will no doubt be very disappointed to learn that there is no ODX, no SMI-S, no UNMAP, no Dedupe. At least I cannot find any references to these important integrations for Windows Server 2012, Hyper-V and System Center. A 60-day trial for HP StoreVirtual VSA and documentation can be obtained here:
See an older blog on ODX:
http://www.hyper-v.nu/archives/hvredevoort/2012/04/windows-8-storage-hyper-v-part-4-offload-data-transfer-odx/
And on SMI-S:
http://www.hyper-v.nu/archives/hvredevoort/2011/03/vmm-2012-fabric-deep-storage-integration/
@WorkingHardInIT pointed out that the Dell EqualLogic number for ODX might even be 5x the speed of a regular non-offloaded copy. I based my number on a demo I had seen. In a Dell Techcenter blog on Windows Server 2012 and EqualLogic an increase in copy time of 5x is mentioned. As I stated for the 3PAR number, it is always best to verify these numbers in your own practice.
HP ProLiant Gen8 Tech Day 1 – Customer Inspired Innovation
May 8th
Today was the first of a 2-day HP ProLiant Gen8 Tech Day in Houston. The ten bloggers who were invited are all from the US except for me. Some of them I have met from other HP events like HP Discover in 2011 and an event in Madrid in the same year. Since I moved to Inovativ which is a 100% System Center & Hyper-V consultancy firm, hardware hasn’t been so much of an issue for me. You deal with whatever server, network or storage hardware the customer has. When I worked for a system integrator, HP was the one and only vendor we worked with, so I can say I know the product range quite well. It was surely a fantastic opportunity to come to Houston and be brought up to speed on the new HP ProLiant Gen8 server family.
We had a couple of really interesting sessions today, both from marketing and technical folks at HP. One good introductory presentation was by Gary Thorne (VP Strategy Industry Standard Servers and Software). Gary’s presentation was on Transforming the server experience with customer-inspired innovation. Most of the changes you will see in the Gen8 stem from over 100.000 customer interactions. Whenever there was a server down situation, HP would ask the customer to detail the problems so HP could learn from them. After all, the aim is to get the most amount of uptime with the least amount of effort, speed deployment of systems and deliver the desired performance. This is not something you get after just one round of interviewing customers. It is more like a multi-year project and it takes a large budget for R&D. HP spent $300M on R&D which is at least twice the amount spent on the previous generation.
HP ProLiant Gen8 Tech Tour
May 6th
Tomorrow I will fly to Houston from San Diego where I have been staying for a few days after a great TEC2012 event. HP asked me to join them for their HP ProLiant Gen8 Tech Tour. Coming all the way from Europe just for the 2 days would have been crazy, but as I was in the neighborhood (3 hour flight) HP’s invitation was a good opportunity to find out about the latest HP ProLiant server generation.
I have quite a history with HP servers, dating all the way back to the first true PC based server, the Compaq SystemPro back in 1989. The first HP ProLiant generation I remember is the ProLiant 1000 ranging to the ProLiant 5000 which supported nothing less than 4GB of memory. Without going into too much of history, many readers are more likely to remember the DL/ML/BL series which up-to-now has known seven generations. I recall the HP ProLiant G5 series was the first server to support Hyper-V as it required hardware virtualization support. The G6 introduced SLAT capable processors which made virtualized memory management a lot more efficient. The G7 arrived relatively quickly after the G6 for a reason I can’t recall.
HP has already formally announced its new HP ProLiant Gen8 server series. Hey … that sounds different! Why didn’t they call it G8? Well I might be able to find out on May 7th during the Tech Tour in Houston. If you have any questions you want me to ask, just leave a comment at the bottom of this blog.
Assuming the HP ProLiant Gen8 series will play an important part in the building of many new private and public clouds, and also the upcoming release of Microsoft Windows Server 2012, makes this a really interesting topic. I will be writing a few blogs and might publish a video or two depending on what crosses my path. I’ll keep you posted.
Related
Blog Hans de Leenheer:
Technical Deep Dive – http://hansdeleenheer.blogspot.com/2012/03/hp-proliant-gen8-technical-deepdive.html
Tech Q&A – http://hansdeleenheer.blogspot.com/2012/02/hp-proliant-gen8-tech-q.html
HP P6000 EVA and Microsoft Hyper-V
Jun 21st
In a recent technical brief HP zooms in on the new HP P6000 Enterprise Virtual Array combined with
Hyper-V. The paper discusses a number of topics related to HP’s new storage array:
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Thin Provisioning
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LUN Migration
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FC, iSCSI and FCoE
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Performance
HP Discover 2011: last chance to win an HP Envy Notebook
Jun 21st
During my “social media” coverage of HP Discover 2011 in Las Vegas, HP offered a few brand-new HP Microservers and HP Envy notebooks. Well, I was one of the lucky bloggers! My contributions have awarded me the HP Envy notebook and now it is my turn to re-award this prize to one of our readers!!
$1050 worth! Click on this picture for awesome specs!
Quite a number of you have started to follow me and retweeted my #hpdiscover messages, but I really need a lot more response before I can select a winner. Therefore, I have decided to extend the promotion until July 1st 00:00 CET.
What can you do to win this fantastic notebook?
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Tweet the following message including the hashtags at least three times:
RT @hvredevoort Win an HP Envy notebook!! Visit http://www.hyper-v.nu & find out why Hyper-V is such a good fit with HP #HPDiscover #hyperv -
Visit the http://www.hyper-v.nu blog and leave a message on this blog explaining why you think HP (servers/storage/network) and Microsoft Hyper-V are such a good fit
On the 1st of July I will select one lucky follower who has retweeted the above exact message at least three times AND has given the best reply to this blog promoting the combination of HP and Hyper-V
Excluded are my family, my co-bloggers at @hypervnu including myself of course.
I can surely recommend the DiscoveringHP metablog created by one of the HP Discover 2011 bloggers: @freitasm (Mauricio Freitas). DiscoveringHP is a great collection of all the bloggers’ contributions during HP Discover 2011.
The 10 selected contributors are:
My son Jelle Vredevoort has drawn Pete Zerger as the winner of the HP Envy notebook. It will be shipped to you from HP in the United States. Congratulations and thanks everyone for your great contributions.
Live Migration of Hyper-V VM’s with 3PAR across datacenters
Jun 9th
In November 2009 I met Matthias Popp from HP Labs at Microsoft TechEd 2009 in Berlin. During that event he showed me the first example of a live migration of Hyper-V Virtual Machines between two datacenters. The setup demonstrated a multi-site cluster, two HP EVA storage arrays with Continuous Access and HP Cluster Extensions (CLX) which takes care of the storage failover if one of the datacenter fails or when the storage has to be taken down for maintenance at one location.
This week at HP Discover 2011 in Las Vegas, I talked to Matthias again. HP announced that similar functionality is now available for HP 3PAR storage and was really the first integration created for the newly acquired Cloud Storage platform.
In this video Matthias shows how a stock trading system runs in several VMs in one datacenter and how they are live migrated to the other datacenter without losing its availability or its performance. The VM’s run on top op Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V hosts and are migrated via the built-in Cluster Administrator.
| Want to win that HP Server or HP Laptop? Then just click this link: http://www.linkcounter.com/go.php?linkid=326371 |
HP EVA P6000 details live from HP Discover 2011
Jun 8th
This morning I attended a session about HP StorageWorks EVA feature enhancements. I will recap some of the details discussed in that session. After a short introduction by Tom Joyce, VP of StorageWorks Marketing, Joseph Algieri, Master Solution Architect at HP continued the presentation. Also Sheridan Kooyers, Master Firmware Architect for EVA at HP was available for answering questions. Sheridan is responsible for Continuous Access and is now working on VAAI development integration.
EVA has been HP’s enterprise storage flagship it was introduced in 2001, celebrating its 10 year anniversary. Their first models were the EVA3000 and EVA5000. Meanwhile 100.000 EVA’s have been sold to a large and very loyal customer base. HP have been talking to lot of customers and have organized focus groups. HP also learnt a great deal from the engineers of the acquired storage companies LeftHand, IBRIX and 3PAR. The storage engineering team has grown considerably. Large investments have been made in the product to again focus to deliver quality.
| Want to win that HP Server or HP Laptop? Then just click this link: http://www.linkcounter.com/go.php?linkid=326371 |
Virtual Connect, NIC’s, VLANs, Teaming… Tips and Tricks
Jun 8th
Configuring networking in Hyper-V is not that smooth as we would like it. You have al the possibilities you need but you need to know where you can configure what option and how you need to configure it. In this blog I will describe some tips and tricks and will show you how you can configure the several network components. This blog is based on a HP Hyper-V server (blade server) which is member of a Hyper-V cluster. The NIC’s (8 pieces) are presented through HP Virtual Connect. The total bandwith I received was 20 GB and I need to share that between the 8 NIC’s.
HP Converged Storage
Jun 8th
Here is a video about HP Converged Storage. David Scott is talking.
Also take a look at blog post by @HPStorageGuy on this topic: http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Converged-Infrastructure/Converged-Storage-It-s-about-time/ba-p/93565
Please also view this: http://www.linkcounter.com/go.php?linkid=326371
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