Technical white paper HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization solution architecture Delivering convergence, performance, efficiency, and density Table of contents Executive summary ...................................................................................................................................................................... 2 Solution overview .......................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Design objectives ...................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Components ............................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Solution hardware and software ............................................................................................................................................... 6 HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization Standard and Performance hardware configurations..................... 6 HP Intelligent Infrastructure ................................................................................................................................................... 8 HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 Servers – 25-drive chassis ..................................................................................................... 9 HP StoreVirtual VSA .................................................................................................................................................................. 9 Networking ............................................................................................................................................................................... 10 Management software ............................................................................................................................................................... 14 Management software in HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization ..................................................................... 14 Services.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 Licensing considerations ........................................................................................................................................................... 16 Licensing considerations for HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization ............................................................... 16 Appendix A – Solution hardware configuration .................................................................................................................... 17 Appendix B – HP management software ............................................................................................................................... 18 For more information ................................................................................................................................................................. 19 Technical white paper | HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization Executive summary HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization has been designed to address one of today’s top priorities for IT organizations – deploying applications faster through virtualization but in a way that does not increase IT complexity. At first, virtualization efforts focused on optimization – making the server more efficient. These efforts transitioned into standardizing virtualization across the data center, including management of servers, storage and networking. Now customers are looking to use virtualization technology and all supporting infrastructure as a complete and extremely efficient system. Pre-configured to meet the needs of mid-market customers, HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization offerings can be easily, reliably, and rapidly deployed to support a variety of virtualized application use cases such as general IT infrastructure, decision support, collaboration or business processing. HP takes the complexity out of the virtualization solution, using standard, balanced building blocks of servers, storage, and networking, along with integrated management software and bundled support – all delivered as a single, proven solution with VMware hypervisor support. Much of the hardware and software contained in the solution stack is partner-integrated. Close engineering links between HP and VMware have resulted in application programming interfaces (APIs) and other cross-intellectual property (IP) offerings designed to minimize complexity and simplify management and interaction. HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization delivers a broad range of benefits, including the following: • Simplified: HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization is an easy-to-order, complete, pre-configured solution that has been designed for rapid implementation with minimal risk. This solution is supported by HP as a single point of contact, thus improving availability. • Optimized: HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization has been performance-tested for typical workloads and is designed from the ground up to interoperate at the highest performance levels with select virtualization platforms. By using HP Converged Infrastructure to provide core building blocks, HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization is also able to offer exceptional power and cooling efficiency, combined with HP integrated management. By leveraging the HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization, IT management can redeploy resources to more critical business needs. • Flexible: HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization has two pre-defined modular options – whether you are running standard workloads or have a need to support more demanding workloads. The modular design of the solution lets you easily grow the original configuration on an as-needed basis over the lifecycles of your virtualized applications. HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization has the flexibility and scalability to ensure optimal price/performance for industry standard virtualization environments. It provides two pre-defined options: a standard configuration and a performance configuration, which can be expanded from 3 to 8 servers using the appropriate expansion kits. Your choices include: • HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization Standard Starter: Uses 3 x HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers, each with 2 x Intel® Xeon® E5-2640 v2 processors, 96 GB of memory and 12 x HP 300GB 6G SAS 15K disks. It uses two redundant top of rack HP 2920-48G network switches. • HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization Standard Expansion: Each expansion configuration has 1 x DL380p Gen8 server with the same disk and memory configuration as the Standard starter. These additional servers use the network switches included in the starter kit. • HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization Performance Starter: Uses 3 x ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers, each with 2 x Intel E5-2680 v2 processors, 192 GB of memory and 16 x HP 300GB 6G SAS 15K disks. It uses two redundant top of rack HP 5900AF-48G network switches. • HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization Performance Expansion: Each expansion configuration has 1 x DL380p Gen8 server with the same disk and memory configuration as the Performance starter. These additional servers use the network switches included in the starter kit. For both the HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization Standard and Performance configurations, a maximum of eight (8) DL380p servers are housed in a single HP Intelligent 42U rack with HP Intelligent Power Distribution Units (iPDUs) as outlined in HP Intelligent Infrastructure or a rack supplied by the customer. 2 Technical white paper | HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization Figure 1. HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization Standard Starter (3 x DL380p Gen8 servers) plus 5 Standard Expansion kits (5 x DL380p Gen8 servers) configuration. Additional details are outlined in Appendix A – Solution hardware configuration. To help you size an appropriate HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization, HP offers a range of configurations, listed in Table 1, based on the following design objectives: • Provide an optimal number of processor cores • Provide appropriate memory for VMs • Sustain an average storage load of 30 – 50 host IOPS1 per VM Table 1. HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization configurations Raw Storage Solution Physical servers Physical Memory Network racks cores ports on each server Standard 10.8TB Single 3 48 96 GB per server 8x1Gb Starter Performance 14.4TB Single 3 60 192 GB per server 8x1Gb Starter 2x10Gb Standard 3.6TB Single 1 16 96 GB per server 8x1Gb Expansion Performance 4.8TB Single 1 20 192 GB per server 8x1Gb Expansion 2x10Gb 1 Based on random, small-block I/Os with 60% reads/40% writes; varies based on storage model 3 Technical white paper | HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization To provide further assistance with sizing, the HP Sizer for Server Virtualization can be used to access the HP Sizer for ConvergedSystem 300. The sizer will propose an optimized HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization based on required virtualization characteristics specified by you. This paper outlines the design objectives for HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualization and provides detailed information on solution components. Target audience: Chief information