HM 80132
HM 80132
HM 80132
MK-94HM8013-02
May 2016
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2
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Contents
Preface................................................................................................. 5
Product version .......................................................................................................6
Accessing product documentation............................................................................. 6
Getting help.............................................................................................................6
Comments...............................................................................................................6
1 Product overview.............................................................................. 7
About the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00.......................................... 8
Application solutions...............................................................................................12
2 Hardware overview......................................................................... 15
Overview of Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00..................................... 16
Hitachi VSP Gx00 specifications............................................................................... 17
Hitachi VSP Fx00 specifications............................................................................... 20
3 Software overview...........................................................................21
Hitachi Storage Virtualization Operating System........................................................22
Nondisruptive migration.................................................................................... 23
High availability with global-active device........................................................... 25
Accelerated compression................................................................................... 29
Centralized management........................................................................................ 30
Hitachi Storage Advisor..................................................................................... 31
Overview of Storage Advisor........................................................................ 31
Hitachi Command Suite..................................................................................... 32
Dynamic tiering and active flash................................................................... 34
Advanced SAN multipathing......................................................................... 35
Thin provisioning.........................................................................................36
Data replication...........................................................................................37
Performance management........................................................................... 39
Data mobility.............................................................................................. 40
Hitachi Infrastructure Analytics Advisor...............................................................41
Product overview........................................................................................ 41
3
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Hitachi Data Center Analytics.............................................................................42
Hitachi Data Instance Director........................................................................... 42
Hitachi Automation Director...............................................................................44
5 Documentation............................................................................... 69
4
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Preface
This guide provides an overview of the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G200,
G400, G600, G800 (VSP Gx00) and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F400,
F600, F800 (VSP Fx00) storage systems, including hardware components,
general system specifications, software features, management interfaces,
user documentation, and software management examples.
Product version
Getting help
Comments
Preface 5
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Product version
This document revision applies to the following product versions:
VSP Gx00 models, VSP Fx00 models: firmware version 83-03-2x or later
Hitachi Storage Virtualization Operating System: v6.4.1
NAS firmware: v12.6 or later
Hitachi Storage Advisor: v2.0 or later
Hitachi Command Suite: v8.4.1 or later
Getting help
Hitachi Data Systems Support Connect is the destination for technical support
of products and solutions sold by Hitachi Data Systems. To contact technical
support, log on to Hitachi Data Systems Support Connect for contact
information: https://support.hds.com/en_us/contact-us.html.
Comments
Please send us your comments on this document to doc.comments@hds.com.
Include the document title and number, including the revision level (for
example, -07), and refer to specific sections and paragraphs whenever
possible. All comments become the property of Hitachi Data Systems
Corporation.
Thank you!
6 Preface
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
1
Product overview
Based on the industry-leading storage technology, the Hitachi Virtual Storage
Platform G200, G400, G600, G800 (VSP Gx00 models) and the all-flash
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F400, F600, F800 (VSP Fx00 models) include
a range of versatile, high-performance storage systems that deliver flash-
accelerated scalability, simplified management, and advanced data
protection.
Application solutions
Product overview 7
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
About the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G200, G400, G600, G800 (VSP Gx00 models)
and the all-flash Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F400, F600, F800 (VSP Fx00
models) provide unparalleled performance, efficiency, and reliability. The
Hitachi VSP Gx00 and Fx00 storage systems feature complete system
redundancy, hot-swappable parts, nondisruptive updates, and hardware-
based compression and use the same common operating system, network file
services, management, migration, virtualization, replication, and data
protection services as the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000. VSP Gx00
models also include virtualization of external storage.
Cloud-optimized Hitachi VSP G400, G600, G800 with NAS modules. The VSP
G400, G600, G800 storage systems can now be configured with internal NAS
modules to provide native NAS functionality in a compact and powerful
package. This space-optimized design retains Hitachi's unique field-
programmable gate array (FPGA) NAS architecture, enabling customers to
easily deploy a scalable SAN, NAS, and cloud-optimized platform throughout
their enterprises.
Key features of the VSP Gx00 models and VSP Fx00 models include:
Up to 4M IOPS performance
100% data-availability guarantee
Cloud-optimization
Enhanced integration for VMware, Windows, and Oracle environments
Embedded NAS functionality (VSP Gx00 models only)
Advanced active-active clustering, replication, and snapshots
Active flash tiering and groundbreaking flash modules
Cloud-optimization
With many enterprises implementing both private and public cloud services
as part of their overall IT strategy, the ability to take advantage of this hybrid
data migration solution is critical. The data migrator to cloud feature enables
policy-driven, user-transparent, and automatic file tiering of less used (cold)
files from unified VSP Gx00 models to private clouds, such as Hitachi Content
Platform, and public clouds, such as Amazon S3 or Microsoft Azure. This
approach frees up storage resources for more frequently accessed
applications for Tier 1 storage, thus reducing overall storage expenditures.
8 Product overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
maximize the utilization and capabilities of your storage resources while at
the same time reducing operations overhead and risk. Standards-compatible
for easy integration into IT environments, storage virtualization and
management capabilities provide the utmost agility and control, helping
customers build infrastructures that are continuously available, automated,
and agile.
Product overview 9
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
exports. File system creation automatically mounts and formats the new
file system.
10 Product overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
and repeatable storage management tasks can be simplified, improving
reliability and helping to deliver new IT services quickly to the business.
Command control interface
The command control interface (CCI) software enables you to perform
storage system configuration and data management operations by issuing
commands to enterprise storage systems. CCI provides command-line
access to the same provisioning and storage management operations that
are available in Hitachi Command Suite and Hitachi Device Manager -
Storage Navigator as well as in-system replication, remote replication, and
data protection operations. CCI commands can be used interactively or in
scripts to automate and standardize storage administration functions,
simplifying the job of the storage administrator and reducing
administration costs.
HAF features patented flash module drives (FMDs) that are rack-optimized
with a highly dense design that delivers greater than 154 TB effective
capacity per 2U tray based on a typical 2:1 compression ratio. IOPS
performance yields up to five times better results than that of enterprise
solid-state drives (SSDs), resulting in leading performance, lowest bit cost,
highest capacity, and extended endurance. HAF integrated with SVOS enables
leading, real-application performance, lower effective cost, and superior
consistent response times. Running on VSP Gx00 models and VSP Fx00
models, HAF with SVOS enables transactions executed within sub-millisecond
response even at petabyte scale.
Key features
HAF delivers outstanding value compared to enterprise SSDs. When
compared to small form-factor 1600 GB SSDs, the HAF drives deliver:
10 times faster inline compression with no performance impact
Up to three times the per-device random read 8 KB I/O performance
Up to five times the per-device random write 8 KB I/O performance
Up to 70% lower effective bit price
60% lower response time at peak load
60 times faster formatting speed
Superior data integrity
Product overview 11
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
flash translation layer empower the drives to deliver up to 80% data
reduction (typically 2:1) at 10 times the speed of competing drives. With
up to two times more raw capacity (6.4 TB) and inline, no-penalty
compression, FMD DC2 enables up five times more write IOPS than SSDs.
Nondisruptive migration
Hitachi offers nondisruptive migration capabilities in two options.
Organizations can choose the service that Hitachi Data Systems Global
Services Solutions (GSS) offers through its migration center of excellence
team, or self-service delivery built on Hitachi Command Suite management
software. Both options accelerate data center infrastructure transformations
by leveraging Hitachi's latest enterprise storage technology. These offerings
enable large-scale migration capabilities that require less time and effort to
execute and deliver continuous operations while ensuring application quality
of service and maintaining data protection.
Hitachi Command Suite nondisruptive migration option is designed for
experienced administrators who prefer a self-service option for traditional
one-to-one platform refresh.
Nondisruptive migration from GSS migration center of excellence team is
intended for more complex, large-scale, heterogeneous and replicated
data center environments.
Application solutions
VMware support
Hitachi VSP Gx00 models and VSP Fx00 models are aligned with the
VMware software-defined storage vision, providing the following support:
Virtual Volumes (VVols)
Virtual Volumes (VVols), implemented via VMware vSphere API for
Storage Awareness (VASA) Provider, provide a simplified method for
VMware admins and storage admins to deliver effective storage that
meets advanced VM requirements. Hitachi solutions for VVols deliver
flexible and efficient storage for VMware vSphere environments. VVol is
supported for both block and file on unified VSP Gx00 models.
vSphere Storage APIs - Array Integration (VAAI)
VAAI uses storage-native file cloning technology to drive the cloning of
VMs from within VMware's standard GUI. This functionality is displayed in
VMware as "Hardware Acceleration". Cloning a VM using file clones is
substantially faster and more space efficient than traditional host-based
copy software.
Hitachi vSphere API for Storage Awareness (VASA) Provider
12 Product overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
VASA Provider enables policy-based datastore operations. In the policy-
based datastore operation, you can create a datastore by selecting a
Storage Container without any special knowledge of the storage system.
You can create a virtual machine (VM) by setting policies (such as high
IOPS and reliability) and can also verify whether the VM complies with
these policies.
Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter (SRA)
Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) for VMware Site Recovery
Manager provides a disaster recovery (DR) solution that works with both
your storage environment and your VMware environment. Supporting
both block and file, Hitachi SRA provides an automated replication solution
between the production and recovery sites to replicate the storage hosting
the VMs, enabling running VMs to seamlessly fail over to the recovery site.
Arrays at both sites are "paired" during Site Recovery Manger
configuration, and VMware administrators use the Site Recovery Manager
application to manage the configuration and definition of the DR plan.
Hitachi Virtual Infrastructure Integrator (V2I)
Hitachi Virtual Infrastructure Integrator (V2I) provides managed data
protection/clone services for VMs and VMware datastores and enhanced
storage management and best practices validation for VM administrators.
Hitachi V2I enables you to leverage VM-level storage hardware snapshots,
resulting in improved RTO/RPO. Both VM-consistent and application-
consistent backup are provided, and new VMs are automatically protected.
Hitachi V2I also provides visibility to NFS storage services so you can see
which VMs are sharing the same datastore and which NAS system is
serving a specific datastore. Hitachi V2I API services are enabled for
Hitachi Data Instance Director (HDID) integration.
vStorage API for Multipathing (VAMP)
Hitachi VSP Gx00 models and VSP Fx00 models support VAMP to provide
enhanced control of I/O path selection and failover.
vStorage API for Data Protection (VADP)
Hitachi VSP Gx00 models and VSP Fx00 models support VADP to enable
backup applications to perform file-level or VM-level backup of running
VMs.
Hitachi Storage Manager for VMware vCenter
Hitachi Storage Manager for VMware vCenter is a plug-in that provides
integrated management of Hitachi storage systems within vCenter.
Product overview 13
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Hitachi Infrastructure Adapter for Microsoft Systems Center Operations
Manager
Hitachi Storage Adapter for Microsoft Storage Management Provider
Hitachi Storage Adapter for Microsoft Systems Center Orchestrator
Oracle support
Hitachi Data Systems has developed and supported IT solutions for many of
the worlds largest companies with the most demanding Oracle database
environments, solutions that maximize business value, enhance your
progress toward greater business outcomes, and ensure that you continue to
see great performance from your Oracle systems.
Hitachi storage and server adapters for Oracle databases provide
integrated tools for converged infrastructure management and data
protection. Hitachi Storage Adapters for Oracle Enterprise Manager, Oracle
VM, Oracle Web Center, Oracle Automated Storage Reclamation Utility, and
Oracle Database Cloning help you manage your database with less effort
and better results. Hitachi Storage Adapter for Oracle Recovery Manager
integrates multiple protection services to maximize database availability.
Hitachi drivers for Oracle environments enhance consolidation,
performance, and efficiency.
The Database Infrastructure Evaluation Tool (DIET), available to Oracle
database administrators at no cost, analyzes your entire Oracle database
environment and provides best practices and expert recommendations on
areas for improvement to ensure your storage, compute, and converged
infrastructure operates at peak utilization.
Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning gives your Oracle applications the right
amount and right type of storage to maximize performance and efficiency.
Hitachi Dynamic Tiering offers finely tuned performance for Oracle,
automatically keeping the most crucial data on the fastest storage.
14 Product overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
2
Hardware overview
The Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G200, G400, G600, G800 (VSP Gx00
models) and the all-flash Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F400, F600, F800
(VSP Fx00 models) are rack-mountable storage systems that incorporate
state-of-the-art virtualization and advanced data-management and fault-
tolerant technologies.
Hardware overview 15
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Overview of Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00
The architecture of the Hitachi VSP Gx00 models and VSP Fx00 models
accommodates scalability to meet a wide range of capacity and performance
requirements. The storage systems can be configured with the desired
number and types of front-end module features for attachment to a variety of
host processors. All drive and cache upgrades can be performed without
interrupting user access to data, allowing you to hot add components as you
need them for pay-as-you-grow scalability.
The VSP Gx00 models and VSP Fx00 models have dual controllers that
provide the interface to a data host. Each controller contains its own
processor, dual in-line cache memory modules (DIMMs), cache flash memory
(CFM), battery, and fans. Each controller has an Ethernet connection for out-
of-band management using Hitachi Device Manager - Storage Navigator. If
the data path through one controller fails, all drives remain available to data
hosts using a redundant data path through the other controller. The VSP
Gx00 models and VSP Fx00 models allow a defective controller to be
replaced.
VSP Gx00 models support a variety of drives, including HDDs, SSDs, FMDs,
and the second-generation Hitachi Accelerated Flash (HAF) flash module
drives (FMD DC2) that are the foundation of the VSP Fx00 models. The FMD
DC2 drives deliver improved response times, effective flash capacity, and
return on investment. The VSP Gx00 models combine FMD DC2 flash with
inline compression and Hitachi Dynamic Tiering active flash for improved
responsiveness and efficiency, making it simple for customers to move to all-
flash gradually over time. The storage systems allow defective drives to be
hot swapped without interrupting data availability. A hot spare drive can be
configured to replace a failed drive automatically, securing the fault-tolerant
integrity of the logical drive. Self-contained, hardware-based RAID logical
drives provide maximum performance in compact external enclosures.
All models are compatible with most industry-standard, 4-post EIA 19-inch
racks with square mounting holes. The storage system can be factory
configured and shipped in a Hitachi V2 Universal Rack (600 x 1200 mm) or
shipped without a rack for installation into an existing compatible rack. The
Hitachi rack comes with either two or four power distribution units (PDUs),
depending on the PDU model selected.
Installable in the same rack, the service processor (SVP) is a 1U device that
operates independently from the storage system's CPU and operating system.
The SVP provides outofband configuration and management of the storage
system and collects performance data to enable diagnostic testing and
analysis.
16 Hardware overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Hitachi VSP Fx00 models
The Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F400, F600, F800 all-flash arrays bring
together all-flash storage and the simplicity of built-in automation software
with the proven resiliency and performance of Hitachi VSP technology. The
VSP Fx00 models offer 1.4 million IOPS to meet the most demanding
application requirements. The VSP Fx00 models leverage the FMD DC2
second-generation flash-module drives, which deliver twice the capacity per
tray over previous-generation flash module drives, resulting in a smaller data
center footprint and lower maximum performance cost. Fast inline data
compression with an ASIC engine reduces space with no performance
penalty.
The unified VSP Gx00 models provide a two-node "cluster in a box" that is
formed automatically on installation with no external cabling required,
eliminating the complexity and additional costs of attached NAS hosts. A full
SAN, NAS, and cloud-optimized VSP G400, G600, G800 with internal NAS
modules is only 4U high. This space-optimized design retains the unique
field-programmable gate array (FPGA) NAS architecture in a new, compact,
and powerful package. Existing VSP G400, G600, G800 can also be upgraded
to add the NAS modules with no additional rack space required.
Hardware overview 17
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Feature VSP G200 VSP G400 VSP G600 VSP G800
Maximum number 264 SFF 480 SFF 720 SFF 1,440 SFF
of hard drives,
including spares 252 LFF 480 LFF 720 LFF 1,440 LFF
Maximum number 264 SSD 480 SSD 720 SSD 1,440 SSD
of flash Drives,
including spares 84 FMD 192 FMD 288 FMD 576 FMD
Raw capacity 3.5-inch drive: 3.5-inch drive: 3.5-inch drive: 3.5-inch drive:
1,512 TB (6 TB) 2,880 TB (6 TB) 4,320 TB (6 TB) 8,640 TB (6 TB)
2.5-inch SSD: 77 2.5-inch SSD: 154 2.5-inch SSD: 230 2.5-inch SSD: 461
TB (400 GB) TB (400 GB) TB (400 GB) TB (400 GB)
Flash drive 6.4 TB FMD 6.4 TB FMD 6.4 TB FMD 6.4 TB FMD
options
3.2 TB FMD 3.2 TB FMD 3.2 TB FMD 3.2 TB FMD
18 Hardware overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Feature VSP G200 VSP G400 VSP G600 VSP G800
Weight with disks 24 SFF disks: 126 187.4 lbs. (85 kg) 187.4 lbs. (85 kg) 187.4 lbs. (85 kg)
installed lbs. (57 kg)
12 LFF disks:
134.5 lbs. (61 kg)
Internal drive 12 LFF or 24 SFF 0 0 0
slots
Host interface Fibre Channel: Fibre Channel: Fibre Channel: Fibre Channel:
types 8Gb/sec, 8Gb/sec, 8Gb/sec, 8Gb/sec,
16Gb/sec 16Gb/sec 16Gb/sec 16Gb/sec
NAS modules
The following table provides an overview of the key specifications for the VSP
Gx00 models with optional NAS modules.
Scalability:
Hardware overview 19
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
IOPS/Throughput VSP G400 VSP G600 VSP G800
Port speed:
Network (10G) 6 6 6
Cluster (10G) 4 4 4
Each is available with 1.6 TB, 3.2 TB, or 6.4 TB flash modules
20 Hardware overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
3
Software overview
This chapter provides an overview of the software components, features, and
benefits available.
Centralized management
Software overview 21
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Hitachi Storage Virtualization Operating System
Hitachi Storage Virtualization Operating System (SVOS) is the standard
operating system for Hitachi VSP G series and VSP F series. An integrated
software system, SVOS works with the virtualization capabilities of Hitachi
VSP and provides the foundation for global storage virtualization. It delivers
software-defined storage by abstracting and managing heterogeneous
storage to provide a unified virtual storage layer, resource pooling, and
automation. SVOS also offers self-optimization, automation, and increased
operational efficiency for improved performance and storage utilization.
22 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Nondisruptive migration
One of the biggest challenges during technology refresh cycles is to eliminate
downtime and service disruption when the data used by the host is copied to
a new volume on the new storage system and the host is reconfigured to
access the new volume. Nondisruptive migration makes it possible to relocate
data from existing storage systems to newer storage systems without
interrupting access by hosts. Data migration is accomplished using the global
storage virtualization technology of VSP G series storage systems. Resources
on the source storage system are virtualized on the target storage system.
From the perspective of the host, I/O requests continue to be serviced by the
source storage system during the migration process.
Source Target
Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V/VM Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000
Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V/VM Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G200, G400,
G600, G800
Software overview 23
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
How nondisruptive migration works
The following workflow summarizes the stages of the migration process.
You must do this using path management software (such as Dynamic Link
Manager), OS native multipath functions, or by changing the zoning
configuration. When you confirm that the switch was successful, the I/O path
is changed.
When you disable the connection between the host and the volume on the
source storage system, the cache is switched to write sync mode. Thereafter,
all read and write requests are handled by the target storage system, and
data is written to both the source and target volumes.
Note: In write sync mode, when the host issues a read request while data is
being written to the source storage system, the read processing does not
start until the write is complete.
24 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
4. Data migration
In this stage, the data is copied to its final destination on the target storage
system.
Software overview 25
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
simplified operations in distributed environments. Efficient and scalable
active-active design gives you continuous application availability for both
traditional and cloud storage. Active-active stretched clusters over local and
metro distances allow application access to replicated data from the shortest
path, for the highest performance. Global-active device works seamlessly
with other advanced capabilities of SVOS to simplify and improve disaster
recovery operations and dramatically reduce return-to-operations time,
enabling customers to meet strict service-level agreements for zero or near-
zero recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO).
Clustered failover:
You do not need to perform storage system tasks such as suspension or
resynchronization of a global-active device pair due to a host failure.
26 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
GAD pair volumes are monitored by a quorum disk (preferably located at a
third site). The quorum disk acts as a heartbeat for the GAD pair, with the
primary and secondary storage systems accessing the quorum disk
periodically to check on the other storage system. In the event of a
communication or hardware failure, the quorum disk determines which
storage system is still accessible, allowing operations to continue without
interruption.
Software overview 27
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Global-active device requires three storage systems: primary, secondary, and
an external system used for the quorum disk. The configuration can be set up
across three, two, or one site.
28 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
secondary site, the GAD+UR configuration enables you to continue operations
using the UR secondary site (at metro distance).
For more information about GAD 3DC delta resync operations, see:
Global-Active Device User Guide for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G
Series
Hitachi Universal Replicator User Guide
Hitachi Command Suite User Guide
Hitachi Command Suite Replication Manager User Guide
To use ALUA to set the preferred and nonpreferred paths for GAD pairs in a
cross-path configuration, you first enable the ALUA mode on the storage
system, which sets all paths as preferred paths, and then you set the
asymmetric access status of the cross path as a nonpreferred path. For
details and instructions, see the Global-Active Device User Guide for Hitachi
Virtual Storage Platform G Series.
Accelerated compression
The accelerated compression feature of Dynamic Provisioning delivers a data
compression capability that enables you to realize more virtual capacity in a
parity group than the actual usable capacity, providing improved storage
optimization.
Software overview 29
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Accelerated compression is enabled at the parity-group level on FMD DC2
flash module drives. You can enable or disable accelerated compression from
launch points in the management software to Hitachi Device Manager -
Storage Navigator or by using command control interface (CCI). Accelerated
compression is supported on VSP Gx00 or Fx00 models with SVOS 6.4 or
later.
Centralized management
The Hitachi approach to software-defined solutions enables you to effectively
manage your IT infrastructure to align storage resources to rapidly changing
business demands, achieve superior returns on infrastructure investments,
and minimize operational costs. Hitachi's suite of management software
delivers higher storage availability, mobility, and optimization for key
business applications, automating storage management operations with
integrated best practices to accelerate new resource deployments. Using
Hitachi's storage management software, administrators are able to manage
30 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
more storage capacity with less effort and ensure service levels for business-
critical applications are met while increasing utilization and performance of
virtualized storage assets.
Management software for Hitachi VSP Gx00 and Fx00 models includes:
Hitachi Storage Advisor (HSA)
Hitachi Command Suite (HCS)
Hitachi Infrastructure Analytics Advisor (HIAA)
Hitachi Data Center Analytics (HDCA)
Hitachi Data Instance Director (HDID)
Hitachi Automation Director (HAD)
Software overview 31
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Simplified user experience for managing infrastructure resources. Provides
visual aids to easily view and interpret key management information, such
as used and available capacity, and guide features to help quickly
determine appropriate next steps for a given management task.
Recommended system configurations to speed initial storage system setup
and accelerate new infrastructure resource deployments.
Integrated configuration workflows with Hitachi recommended practices to
streamline storage provisioning and data protection tasks.
Common, centralized management for supported storage systems.
A REST-based API to provide full management programmability and control
in addition to unified file-based management support.
Storage Advisor enables automated SAN zoning during volume attach and
detach. Optional auto-zoning eliminates the need for repetitive zoning
tasks to be performed on the switch.
The base HCS product consists of Hitachi Device Manager, which provides
centralized management of multiple Hitachi storage systems. By providing a
single console for managing complex storage environments, Device Manager
software unifies and simplifies storage management. Featuring an intuitive
GUI, Device Manager supports multiple management views for primary and
secondary storage, including physical, logical, host, and NAS and virtual
server for provisioning and storage pooling.
Note: Key functions of Storage Navigator have been integrated into HCS to
enable a unified interface for storage management.
32 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Hitachi Dynamic Link Manager: Supports the use of multiple paths
between resources such as hosts and storage for path failover and load
balancing.
Hitachi Global Link Manager: Supports management of multipath
management software between resources, such as hosts and storage.
Hitachi Automation Director: Provides tools to automate and simplify
the end-to-end storage provisioning process for storage and data center
administrators.
Software overview 33
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Simplified storage provisioning for rapid deployment
The common management framework consolidates storage provisioning for
both structured and unstructured data:
Centrally configure storage pools for block, file, and object consumers
Centrally manage data security, mobility, performance, and replication
Simplified provisioning with contextual workflows
Reduce operational expenses; manage more with less effort
Dynamic Tiering places the host volume's data across multiple tiers of
storage. There can be up to three tiers (high-, medium-, and low-speed
layers). Dynamic Tiering determines tier usage based on data access levels.
It automatically allocates pages with high I/O load to the upper tier, which
contains higher speed drives, and pages with low I/O load to the lower tier,
which contains lower speed drives.
HDT tracks page usage within each tier over a configured time period. At the
end of each time period, pages that have been accessed very frequently
might be moved from a slower media to high-performance flash media.
34 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Dynamic Tiering and active flash offer the following benefits:
Improved performance
Optimizes data placement automatically for performance using an I/O
rate-based heat index
Gives SSD-class performance to information stored largely on less
expensive tiers by automatically moving the most accessed data to the
highest (SSD) tier
Supports the highest efficiency and throughput through granular page-
based data movement
Uses wide striping across the entire pool
For applications that have high I/O to particular pages, active flash
improves HDT performance by automatically moving the most frequently
accessed data in real time.
Efficient administration
Simplifies management of up to three storage tiers as a single volume
Automatically moves the most active data to the highest performing tier
Automatically adjusts to dynamic workloads and capacity requirements
Moves pages up and down for optimal placement
Significantly reduces administration time
Business continuity
Improves system performance by spreading I/O request workload across
available paths to ensure that no single path is overworked or
underutilized
Software overview 35
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Provides a high level of data availability through automatic path failover
and failback, ensuring continuous access to application data, improved
application performance, and reduced risk of financial loss due to failures
of critical applications
Improves availability and data access on storage systems in SAN
environments, with path failover and I/O balancing over multiple HBAs
With its health-check facility, monitors online path status at specified
intervals, and places a failed path offline when an error is detected
Thin provisioning
Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning provides the storage system with thin
provisioning services. Thin provisioning gives applications access to virtual
storage capacity. Applications that access virtual, thin provisioned volumes
are automatically allocated physical disk space by the storage system as they
write data. Thin provisioning allows volumes to use only the amount of
physical space required and no more.
All thin provisioned volumes share a common pool of physical disk capacity.
Unused capacity in the pool is available to any application using thin
provisioned volumes. This eliminates the waste of over-allocated and
underutilized storage.
36 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Improved performance
Dynamic Provisioning improves performance by avoiding contention and
performance bottlenecks. By evenly spreading out hundreds of users I/O
patterns over all available spindles, Dynamic Provisioning optimizes
aggregate throughput, generally delivering the best performance.
The ability to define a volume as larger than a physical disk allows you to
plan for future storage needs during initial installation. You can purchase only
the physical disk capacity for your current needs, adding physical storage
incrementally over time.
Data replication
Software overview 37
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Replication Manager offers the following benefits:
38 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
as multitarget configurations and cascade configurations can be viewed as
lists.
Performance management
Hitachi Tuning Manager is a path-aware storage resource management
application that maps, monitors, and analyzes storage network resources
from the application to the storage device. It provides the end-to-end
visibility required to isolate and diagnose performance bottlenecks with a
focus on business applications, such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server,
Microsoft Exchange, and IBM DB2. The following figure shows the Tuning
Manager interface.
Software overview 39
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Tuning Manager offers the following benefits:
Simplifies performance reporting and management of your storage
environment
Improves service quality with accurate performance reporting
Increases application availability through rapid problem identification and
isolation
Reduces storage costs with proper forecasting and planning of required
storage resources
Incorporates a REST-based API for extraction of performance and capacity
data
Data mobility
Hitachi Tiered Storage Manager provides the unique ability to migrate
volumes between heterogeneous tiers of storage, without affecting
application access to data. The software supports up to 64 simultaneous
migrations, using 64 processor threads, and it offers a single interface for all
data movement between storage virtualized by thestorage system.
The following figure shows the Mobility tab of HCS, which is used to access
Hitachi Tiered Storage Manager.
40 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Tiered Storage Manager offers the following benefits:
Matches application price, performance, and availability needs to storage
attributes
Controls the automated behavior of Dynamic Tiering through the use of
standard and custom policies and profiles. You can also proactively create
and pool different classes of storage for maximum efficiency and long-term
performance
Manages storage resources according to the needs of specific business
applications, while supporting the ability to migrate data nondisruptively
Product overview
With Infrastructure Analytics Advisor, you can define and monitor storage
service level objectives (SLOs) for resource performance. You can identify
and analyze historical performance trends to optimize storage system
performance and plan for capacity growth.
Software overview 41
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
The system administrator uses Hitachi Infrastructure Analytics Advisor (HIAA)
to manage and monitor the IT infrastructure based on SLOs, which match the
service-implementation guidelines that are negotiated under a service level
agreement (SLA) with consumers.
Operational recovery
42 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
This integration provides the ability to create fast, frequent copies of
production data, with no impact on the performance of the production
system. Very aggressive recovery point objectives (RPO) can be easily
achieved for Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server on Microsoft
Windows platforms, for Oracle database environments on Linux, AIX, and
Solaris, and for SAP HANA environments. HDID is integrated with Hitachi
Virtual Infrastructure Integrator (V2I) to provide storage-based protection
of VMware vSphere environments. Other applications can also be
integrated using the simple scripting interface.
These snapshots and clones can be mounted and unmounted automatically
as part of an HDID policy workflow. They can facilitate access to a current
copy of production data for secondary purposes such as test and
development, or backup to a target device such as a purpose-built backup
appliance (PBBA) or tape. HDID administrators can also view and restore
storage-based snapshots created in VMware environments by Hitachi
Virtual Infrastructure Integrator.
Host-based operational recovery
HDID includes several storage-agnostic technologies for protection of
application and file system data. Continuous data protection (CDP) and live
backup support Windows environments, with application-specific support
for Exchange and SQL Server. Batch mode backup is supported on
Windows, Linux and IBM AIX systems.
Disaster recovery
Long-term retention
With HDID, moving Microsoft Exchange and Windows file data to Hitachi
Content Platform (HCP) for archiving enables your administrators to reduce
the amount of data in their production systems and meet corporate and
regulatory data retention requirements.
Leave the archived file on the source system, delete it or leave a stub file as
a pointer. HDID archives files as individual objects that can be easily viewed,
Software overview 43
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
retrieved or audited with standard HCP tools. No special software is needed
to unpack or decode the archived files.
Unified management
One of the many benefits of Hitachi Data Instance Director is its single-
footprint platform. It enables you to layer, combine and orchestrate backup,
CDP, snapshots, replication and archive to achieve the specific service levels
of data recovery and retention each application requires.
44 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
A REST API for application integration.
The ability to create infrastructure groups based on customer needs and
environment.
Figure 1 Select a service on the Services tab to review details and create a
request for provisioning.
Hitachi Automation Director offers the following benefits:
Provisioning is simplified through use of service templates that can
automate workflow, resulting in additional OPEX savings.
Service customization can be performed by skilled storage administrators,
increasing the efficiency of resource usage and reducing human error.
Simplified infrastructure management, including classification of storage
systems and high-level grouping of resources, significantly improves
storage management and provides efficient utilization of resources.
The ability to customize pre-defined service templates, by using the
Service Builder tool, to address an organization's changing needs.
The REST API facilitates integration of Automation Director with relevant IT
automation processes.
Software overview 45
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
46 Software overview
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
4
Software management examples
This chapter provides examples of how to use the management software for
the Hitachi VSP storage systems to increase operational efficiency, optimize
availability, and meet critical business requirements.
Solution
Hitachi Command Suite (HCS) software consolidates block and file storage
arrays to unify the management of all types of data, and provides a single,
integrated view for all customers.
HCS natively discovers Hitachi storage systems, Hitachi NAS systems, and
Hitachi Data Ingestor file appliance-based systems, displaying the correlation
of File Module system drives with back-end physical volumes and File Module
storage pools.
Solution
Use Hitachi Command Suite Analytics to monitor performance and meet
storage service-level needs.
To help banks determine how well their online banking service is
performing, they must know the current level of performance and
benchmark it against an industry best practice. Storage downtime affects
system availability for online transactions. One of the best ways to avoid
bottlenecks is through regular monitoring, system feedback, and on-
demand customizable reporting based on parameters defined by users.
The parameters can be based on storage or files, such as EVS, FS, and
VVOL utilization, and on capacity reporting, such as on tiers, users, and
groups. Instead of reacting to bottlenecks after they occur, administrators
can get alerts from HCS Analytics about potential bottlenecks before they
Management software
To ensure business application performance and predictive growth, Hitachi
Command Suite Analytics provides all the necessary capabilities to find
storage resource trouble spots, identify the actual affected storage resources,
and help determine the root cause of problems.
Banks must optimize the cost of maintaining data gathered from numerous
mortgage applications. While users can tolerate slightly slower response
times that are required for transactional systems, they are quickly frustrated
by consistently slow responses. In a fast-paced business, older and closed
mortgage applications lose business relevance quickly, so it does not make
sense to store them on fast storage. A lower tier of storage can be used to
achieve effective, long-term archiving of inactive data (such as closed or
inactive mortgage applications that companies maintain largely in response
to legal requirements).
Solution
A Hitachi Dynamic Tiering (HDT) pool is added to a storage system to support
mortgage applications. Using Hitachi Command Suite Mobility, a custom
policy is applied to the volumes in the HDT pool that supports the mortgage
applications.
Solution
Hitachi Automation Director automates manual storage provisioning
processes and provides application-based provisioning services that require
minimal user input and that intelligently leverage infrastructure resources.
Hitachi Automation Director provides the following solutions to alleviate the
pain points that customers experience in the current environment:
Implements intelligent automation workflows to streamline the storage
provisioning process.
Provides a catalog of predefined service templates and plugin components
that incorporate Hitachi best practices in storage provisioning and that
minimize human error.
Provides customizable storage service templates requiring minimal input
that administrative users can use to increase operational efficiency.
Optimizes storage configurations for common business applications such
as Oracle, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server and hypervisors
such as Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware.
Analyzes current storage pool capacity utilization and performance to
automatically determine the optimized location for new storage capacity
requests and to make storage provisioning more cost-efficient.
Management software
Hitachi Automation Director offers a web-based portal and includes a catalog
of predefined workflows that are based on best practices for various
applications. These workflows take into account infrastructure requirements
for specific applications, including the appropriate storage tier. Capturing the
provisioning process with predefined requirements in the workflow, a storage
administrator can repeatedly provision infrastructure with simple requests.
The simple truth is that backup is broken in certain highly important areas,
including critical 24x7 applications with large databases.
The business demands that critical data is protected with little or no data loss
and with minimal or no performance or availability impact while the data
protection occurs.
Solution
Hitachi Thin Image (HTI) provides fast copies of the production data and
Hitachi Universal Replicator (HUR) ensures that there is an asynchronous
copy of the data on another storage system in a distant location. Hitachi Data
Instance Director (HDID) orchestrates the HTI and HUR data protection
activities through a business-objective-driven, whiteboard-like graphical
The HDID policy is defined in terms of recovery point objectives (RPO) and
retention so that new application-aware snapshots are taken to meet each
RPO and deleted after the retention period.
Management software
Hitachi Data Instance Director (HDID) combines modern data protection with
business-defined copy data management, simplifying the creation and
management of complex data protection and retention workflows.
You can use different methods to back up data across multiple sites, as
described in the following table and figure.
Method Description
Identical snapshots and clones Provide identical RPO and data retention
regardless of location. Keeping identical backups
provides identical recovery options and
Unique snapshots and clones Provide flexible RPO and data retention based on
differing business requirements between normal
operation and a site failover. Keeping
independent backups enables shorter RPOs and
lower retention to be set on the local site for
quick recovery, while protecting data longer on
the remote site.
All reports are included in the Reports dock, and are available when you
select any storage system object in the storage systems hierarchy. Predefined
reports differ based on your selection of the storage system object. An
interactive chart and filtering resources enable you to view every detail in any
report. You can also filter reports to display the most relevant data, and can
print, create a PDF, and export a report to a CSV file.
If, for example, you want to see a pattern for a storage node between two
time periods, you can compare the reports on Storage IOPS to display in one
view. Each graph line is color-coded and you can zoom in reports to get a
better view.
You can also compare how one metric affects the other metrics. For example,
you can create an ad-hoc report that compares IOPS with Response Time.
This most commonly used report shows whether an increasing load on the
system (IOPS) affects the performance (response time).
Custom reports
If the predefined charts and ad-hoc are not sufficient, you can create custom
reports by building your own query. The Custom Reports feature is based on
the Data Center Analytics query language. This regex-based expressive query
language retrieves and filters the data in the Data Center Analytics database.
The Data Center Analytics query language allows complex analysis on the
data in real time with constant run-time. The syntax makes it possible to
traverse relations, identify the patterns in the data, and establish a
comparison between metrics of a single component or multiple nodes.
The Data Center Analytics UI helps you build your custom query in the
following three ways:
Write the query directly using Data Center Analytics query language.
The most significant metric to watch out for while monitoring the online
transactions is the I/O rate. The application will be able to process large
number of transactions when the I/O rates are higher. To maintain good
response times in an OLTP environment which mostly generates random
access I/O, the read I/O response times should be higher. For response time
centric applications, such as OLTP applications, you must maintain low
utilization values to ensure CPU availability and low Q-depth values to ensure
no wait time.
The use case flow for troubleshooting high response times for an OLTP
application using advanced analytics and troubleshooting features of
Infrastructure Analytics Advisor is described as follows:
You can view the threshold violations using the Dashboard tab and Events
tab. You can configure the system to send email notifications when the
threshold values are exceeded. You can also use the search feature in the
Analytics tab to find the target resources for performance analysis.
You can identify and analyze the component causing the bottleneck in any of
the following views:
E2E view
You can change the base point of analysis to narrow down the topology
associated with the affected volumes. Select the affected volume, right-
click, and then select Change Base Point. The parity group is identified as
the component causing the performance bottleneck.
Table 1 Manuals for VSP Gx00 models and VSP Fx00 models
Subject of
Documents
guide
General Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models,
reference MK-94HM8013 (this guide)
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Release Notes, RN-8303xx-Mxxx
Documentation 69
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Subject of
Documents
guide
Hitachi Storage Provider for VMware vCenter (Block VASA Provider) Deployment
Guide, MK-90ADPTR010
Global-Active Device User Guide for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G Series,
MK-92RD8072
70 Documentation
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Subject of
Documents
guide
Subject of
Documents
guide
Documentation 71
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Subject of
Documents
guide
Hitachi Command Suite Dynamic Link Manager (for AIX)) User Guide,
MK-92DLM111
Hitachi Command Suite Dynamic Link Manager (for Linux)) User Guide,
MK-92DLM113
Hitachi Command Suite Dynamic Link Manager (for Solaris) User Guide,
MK-92DLM114
Hitachi Command Suite Dynamic Link Manager (for Windows) User Guide,
MK-92DLM129
Hitachi Command Suite Dynamic Link Manager (for VMware)) User Guide,
MK-92DLM130
72 Documentation
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Subject of
Documents
guide
Subject of
Documents
guide
Documentation 73
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
74 Documentation
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Product Overview for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Gx00 and Fx00 Models
Hitachi Data Systems
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MK-94HM8013-02