HP Storage Essentials Provisioning Manager -
Overview & Features

Overview

HP Provisioning Manager extends HP Storage Essentials Suite with device-specific and guided path provisioning of direct attached storage (DAS) and storage area network (SAN) resources. By providing a single, intelligent interface from which you can provision heterogeneous storage systems and fabric switches, HP Provisioning Manager accelerates and error-proofs your ability to allocate storage in support of business initiatives.

HP Provisioning Manager provides a centralized interface for allocating and managing the pools, volumes, LUNs, zones, and zone sets in your SAN, helping to reduce the inefficiencies and errors that often occur when using device-specific tools. Individual fabric switches and storage systems can be provisioned “in context” directly from the topology, or from anywhere else in the Storage Essentials Suite where the devices appear. The plug-in's Path Provisioning feature takes advantage of the suite’s auto-discovery, dependency management, and capacity management capabilities to offer templates and SmartGuides™ that escort you step-by-step through provisioning operations. Using the built-in job queue and scheduler, you can quickly create hundreds of provisioning jobs, and set them up to run during off-hours to minimize business impact.

Features

Innovative, easy-to-use 5-pane interface directs you through the selection of storage systems, host HBAs, volumes, LUNs, and zones

Pre-defined templates turn appropriate panes on and off depending upon whether you need to provision only volumes, LUNs, zones, or any combination of the three

Common database of SAN configuration, dependency, and capacity information and knowledge of host, switch, and storage system connectivity leveraged to populate panes. For example, when a storage system is selected:

• Host pane is updated to show all servers reachable by the selected storage system
• Volume pane updated to show all mapped, unmapped, masked, and not masked volumes and free extents for the selected storage system
• LUN pane updated to show all LUNs and corresponding ports already created for the selected storage system
• Zone pane updated to show all zones containing one or more of the storage system’s ports

Limits and enforces choices at each step along the provisioning path:

• Storage System – show all storage systems, or only systems with available raw capacity, unmapped capacity, or a specific tier classification (Ultra High Availability, High Availability, IDE-Based Storage)
• Host – enforce single path selection (select one HBA port on a server) or multipath (select more than one HBA port on a server)
• Volume – show all volumes, hide volumes that are already mapped volumes, and concatenate or stripe metavolumes
• LUN – automatically assign volume to storage system port based on fewest number of LUNs already assigned to that port or directly linked port; verify that storage system ports do not connect to the same switch for multipath configurations
• Zone – automatically create new zone if no existing zone contains ONLY the HBA port and storage system port selected, or AT LEAST the HBA port and storage system port selected

• Schedule jobs to run during off-hours, without having to wait for commands or scripts to finish
• View existing provisioning jobs and job details
• Copy existing provisioning jobs to quickly create new ones

• Provision zones, zone sets, zone aliases, pools, volumes, LUNs, and LUN maskings "in context" from anywhere storage systems and fabric switches appear
• Wizards for step-by-step provisioning of individual fabric switches and storage systems

• Control which administrators are authorized to provision SAN resources from a central point by leveraging suite's Users and Roles definitions
• Restrict which resources can be provisioned by authorized administrators by adding and removing resources using the suite's Organizations definitions

• Provisioning actions trigger events, SNMP traps, and policies for notification and post-processing
• Actions for sending email or running custom scripts or programs

• Date and time stamped audit entries are recorded for every provisioning activity to centrally manage SAN changes

• No agent is required for switch and storage system provisioning
• Leverages the common suite agent to perform HBA binding

• All provisioning capabilities delivered through standard Web browser for fast, convenient provisioning from any location on the network
• Eliminate cost and overhead of installing and maintaining thick desktop clients