HP LeftHand Virtual SAN Appliance Software -
Overview & Features

Overview

Most virtualized server environments require shared storage for high availability, as well as application data, and storage solutions should be as highly available as the VMs. With a comprehensive feature set, LeftHand VSA is optimized for virtual environments and is a flexible shared storage solution that scales as needed. The ability to use existing server, DAS and SAN hardware within your environment greatly increases storage utilization, and reduces costs associated with dedicated external storage. Built-in high availability and disaster recovery features enhance server virtualization capabilities to deliver better business continuity. Straightforward and simple administration is provided by a management console that allows the administrator to manage all LeftHand SAN nodes, physical and virtual, regardless of their physical location.

What's new

• Application Managed Snapshots for ESX/ESXi and Hyper-V: Take application consistent snapshots of VMs from the storage system
• Storage Replication Adaptor for VMware Site Recovery Manager 5: HP SRA/SRM integration with VMware streamlines and automates Disaster Recovery with LeftHand VSA and ESXi
• Peer Motion data mobility with Cluster Swap: Move or upgrade LeftHand clusters with just a few clicks, no maintenance windows & no downtime required. Migrate data online between tiers non-disruptively
• High Availability Virtualization Solution includes VMware vSphere 5 Essentials Plus, three copies of LeftHand VSA software and 1 year or 3 years of 9x5 support
• Spanish Language Localization

Features

• Transform the internal storage of your ESX/ESXi and Hyper-V servers into fully featured shared storage for applications and virtual environments. HP LeftHand VSA delivers the scalability and high-availability of the P4000 LeftHand arrays to the S of the SMB.
• You have just consolidated your servers by virtualizing your environment, but many of your servers still have a useful life. Use the LeftHand VSA to convert your server resources into a new tier of storage, or even storage for your testing sandbox.
• LeftHand VSA can be used with SSD drives in your ProLiant servers and blades to provide a high performance tier for your storage environment. Data volumes that reside on SSD nodes can be migrated to and from both physical and virtual P4000 LeftHand clusters, online.
• HP P4500 Virtualization SAN and Multi-site SAN each include VSA licenses at no extra charge. Now you can provide the dedicated performance required for your main site, and provide fully featured shared storage and disaster recovery for your smaller sites.
• Start small and grow big: Avoid up front storage costs by using VSA on existing disk storage today then move to a physical P4000 LeftHand SAN as your storage needs evolve. LeftHand VSA seamlessly migrates all data to any P4000 LeftHand SAN with Peer Motion functionality.

• Scale-out storage clustering allows the consolidation of multiple virtual storage nodes into pools of shared storage. All available capacity and performance is aggregated and available to every volume in the cluster. As storage needs increase LeftHand VSA can scale-out while remaining online.
• Network RAID stripes and protects multiple copies of data across a cluster of storage nodes, eliminating any single point of failure in the LeftHand VSA SAN. Applications have continuous data availability in the event of a disk, controller, storage node, power, network, or site failure.
• Multi-site SAN availability gives the LeftHand VSA the ability to assign storage nodes in the cluster to different sites (racks, rooms, buildings, and cities) and provide seamless application high availability with transparent failover/failback across sites?all automatically.
• Reservationless snapshots and thin provisioning allocate space only as data is written without requiring pre-allocation of storage, raising the overall utilization and efficiency of HP LeftHand SANs. Snapshots create thinly provisioned, instant point-in-time backups of data on a per-volume basis.
• Lefthand VSA is tightly integrated with storage management functions of VMware and Microsoft applications. For instance, the P4000 LeftHand Remote Copy feature enables centralized backup and disaster recovery on a per-volume basis and leverages application integrated snapshots for faster recovery.

• Zero to VSA Automated Installation: Simple and quick wizard driven installation. Scriptable installs allow automated repeatable deployment of VSA configurations.
• Installs easily on any ESX/ESXi or Hyper-V server: This includes over 100 HP ProLiant rack and server blades.
• No external SAN required: Creates shared storage out of internal or external disk capacity (DAS, SAN; FC or iSCSI).
• All LeftHand VSA nodes in your environment, onsite or across multiple sites, are managed from the Centralized Management Console (CMC) for simple, easy-to-manage storage. Features a built-in best practice analyzer and simple update process.
• Try it for free: You can download a full-functional copy of VSA and get some hands-on time to see how easy it is to use.