Get Virtual Guarantee Internal White Paper The HP 3PAR Get Virtual Guarantee Program Help your customers increase server virtualization efficiency with HP 3PAR Storage HP Restricted. For HP and Channel Partner Internal Use only
Table of contents Introduction 3 Benefits of increasing VM density 3 Defining VM density and its challenges 4 How HP 3PAR Storage eliminates barriers to increased VM density 4 Program eligibility 5 Validation of increased VM density 6 Conclusion 7
Introduction The HP 3PAR Get Virtual Guarantee (GVG) program is intended for enterprise and service provider customers who have large virtualization deployments with traditional, legacy storage, including mid-range or monolithic, dual-controller arrays. Traditional storage was not built for virtualized or cloud computing environments, and therefore is not optimized to manage the increased workloads associated with placing more virtual machines (VMs) on their physical servers. It is common that storage performance becomes the limiting factor in the ability to scale VMware environments by increasing the number of VMs that can be supported on each physical host also known as VM density. This is because storage is typically the scarcest of the four resources required to serve VM workload (the others being CPU, memory, and network bandwidth). In other words, customers may have plenty of free CPU, memory, and network resources available, but if their storage array is not capable of supporting the increased workload that results from increasing VM density, a bottleneck occurs that presents a barrier to scaling the VMware deployment. HP 3PAR Storage Systems are next-generation, tier 1 storage arrays built for virtualization and the cloud. The HP 3PAR P10000 Storage System holds a world record-setting measurement of 450, 212 SPC-1 IOPS. 1 All HP 3PAR arrays feature unique architectural advantages that enable them to handle the unpredictable workloads characteristic of virtualized environments. The GVG program is designed to guarantee that HP customers with legacy storage arrays can double their VM density by swapping out their existing storage and replacing it with an HP 3PAR Storage System. Deploying HP 3PAR Storage removes the performance bottlenecks and architectural limitations of legacy storage arrays so that customers can increase VM density without deploying additional physical servers or sacrificing reliability. Benefits of increasing VM density The goal of the GVG program is to achieve numerous customer benefits by driving greater VM density on their existing physical servers. Why is VM density so important to customers? Because increasing VM density dramatically lowers virtual infrastructure acquisition and operational costs including storage, servers, software, and management. The following excerpt from Taneja Group sums it up: VM density will determine in large part the total cost of any infrastructure, because it determines how many physical machines must be maintained, and how many separate hypervisors must be supported, with attendant management software and other licensing costs. As we reported in 2009, a VM density advantage of 1.5:1 can yield a cost of acquisition savings of up to 29 percent for a typical virtual infrastructure. Depending on environment size, that savings may range from several thousand dollars to several hundreds of thousands of dollars. The cost benefits from increasing VM density can be seen in many different areas, including: Reduced server CAPEX costs from greater CPU/memory utilization Reduced OPEX costs from lower power consumption and cooling Reduced licensing costs from software that is licensed by hardware (i.e. Windows Server, SQL Server) Reduced administration of server hardware and hypervisor software Greater scalability and therefore better yield on CAPEX investments These cost benefits can be recognized across many dimensions touched by the virtual infrastructure. In order to achieve these benefits, the storage supporting the virtual infrastructure must be capable of delivering the necessary performance to enable VM scalability, without adding extra physical servers. HP 3PAR Storage is the best storage platform in the industry for achieving this. 1 According to SPC-1 results available at: www.storageperformance.org. 3
Defining VM density and its challenges When we talk about VM density as it relates to the GVG program, we are specifically referring to the workload that VMs generate on the host servers (i.e. VM workload density). A workload is measured in IOPS and can be defined as the amount of host resources that the OS and applications in a VM consume from that host. In other words, the workload is not related to the amount of resources that have been assigned to a VM, but to the demands that they actually make on the host. With the GVG program, we are focusing on the HP 3PAR array s ability to support a minimum 2x increase in VM density, compared to the VM density supported by the customer s traditional legacy storage array. The reason it s important to measure VM density in workloads/iops, as opposed to number of VMs is because not all VMs are created equal or place the same resource demands on the host. Therefore measuring in IOPS gives us an apples-to-apples VM comparison and a more accurate picture of true VM density. When resources are assigned to a VM, the hypervisor tricks the VM into thinking that the full physical resources assigned to the VM are physically available at all times. In reality, the hypervisor is only providing resources to the VM on an as-needed basis, as the host must share its physical resources across all the VMs that are running on it. VM density therefore becomes a function of how much of a host s resources can be consumed in a balanced manner to meet the needs of all the VM workloads that are running on it. The challenge is that typically resources are not balanced adequately to deliver maximum performance because most virtualization deployments lack the ability to deliver enough storage performance to match the CPU, memory, and networking resources to support its workloads. And if any one of these resources is in short supply, this limits the ability for hosts to support additional VMs. How HP 3PAR Storage eliminates barriers to increased VM density The HP 3PAR architecture includes a number of features that drive higher levels of performance and reliability across a VMware vsphere deployment. The performance of HP 3PAR Storage Systems, combined with the platform s unique architectural advantages and integration with the VMware vstorage APIs, deliver the storage performance necessary to increase VM density per physical server by at least twofold, as compared to VMware deployments that use legacy storage arrays. The unique architectural features behind this capability include the following: Wide striping to distribute each virtual volume across all drives and other resources of the array. This applies to both VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) and Raw Device Mapping (RDM) volumes, including those which use HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software. Wide striping allows even small volumes to gain the performance benefits of many drives and provides for consistent levels of performance, even at increased levels of capacity utilization. Wide striping distributes each storage volume across all array resources to deliver consistently high performance levels regardless of capacity utilization levels. Since a VMware vsphere server can host many different VMs each with its own I/O patterns, I/O in virtualized environments is generally random in nature. Random I/O means that servers derive less benefit from storage caching than servers in environments with more predictable access patterns. This forces servers in virtualized environments to make more requests to access disks which limits the ability of the storage to deliver high performance. However, by distributing each storage volume across a wide number of disks, also known as wide striping, HP 3PAR Storage is capable of delivering much higher storage performance levels than other platforms. Wide striping spreads even modestly sized volumes across all drives in the HP 3PAR Storage System, resulting in unmatched I/O performance, even when caching is minimally effective. For even faster performance, SSD devices can be utilized in conjunction with the 3PAR Storage Systems and HP 3PAR Adaptive Optimization Software for autonomic tiering that optimizes both cost and performance. Mesh-Active clustering of controllers to ensure that all array resources are available to all volumes at all times providing the host with symmetric, active-active access to all volumes. Unlike traditional arrays, where controllers have preferred drives and access to foreign drives within the array is expensive, with HP 3PAR arrays, the high-performance Mesh-Active backplane enables each volume to have uniformly high-performance access to all resources within the array regardless of which controller nodes are used to access the data. Mixed workload support that enables different types of applications (involving both transaction-based and throughputintensive workloads) to run without contention on a single HP 3PAR array. Mixed workload support is especially important in consolidated and virtualized environments, where the same array must support a wide mix of application types across the cluster. 4
Persistent cache, a feature that provides resiliency in the event of a node failure by using the high-performance Mesh-Active backplane to quickly re-mirror write-back cache to other nodes in the system. In the event of a node failure, persistent cache enables the HP 3PAR array to maintain the substantial performance benefits of write-back caching without risk of data loss or latency penalties. This feature allows always on application and virtual server environments to gracefully handle an unplanned controller failure without the substantial performance penalties associated with traditional arrays and write-through mode. In addition to using storage for files and similar data, VMware vsphere implements aggressive memory management techniques that rely on storage, including higher rates of paging and swapping to/from disk than are typical of contemporary, non-virtualized servers. Because of this, the amount of memory that can be installed in physical servers often limits the number of VMs that can be placed on each server. HP 3PAR clients have found that the improved swap file performance delivered by HP 3PAR Storage allows a twofold to fourfold increase in the number of VMs per physical server without installing any additional server memory thus helping alleviate server memory constraints. Program eligibility To be eligible for the HP 3PAR Get Virtual Guarantee program, customers need to meet some basic requirements to ensure that their VMware environment is capable of doubling in capacity. These requirements are necessary to ensure that the customer s existing virtualization environment has sufficient CPU, memory, and networking resources to support the doubling of VM density. To determine eligibility, customers must provide historical performance statistics as well as details on their current legacy storage array to HP for review. Customer s information may be gathered either by: (1) HP Sales or Partner running the HP Ninja Virtual assessment tool in the customer s environment, to gather the required data, or (2) customer recording the required data in the GVG Manual Assessment Worksheet, according to the GVG Assessment Instructions.. Following are the GVG customer qualification criteria. The performance statistics gathered from vcenter Server should be averaged over a minimum seven day time period. 1. VMware vcenter Server report showing less than 50 percent average CPU usage across all the hosts connected to the legacy storage array This ensures that sufficient CPU resources exist. 2. VMware vcenter Server report showing less than 50 percent average physical memory usage across all the hosts connected to the legacy storage array Available memory is often a limiting factor to the number of VMs that can be created on a host. This ensures that sufficient physical memory resources exist. 3. VMware vcenter Server report showing average IOPS usage across all hosts connected to the legacy storage array To validate that the HP 3PAR array can double VM workload density, we must get a baseline of the customer s current storage array performance, measured in IOPS. 4. VMware vcenter Server report showing average total guest latency To check the health of the customer s current storage infrastructure. This will help pinpoint whether an I/O bottleneck currently exists and where it exists in the I/O path from the host to the storage array. 5. Information about the legacy array being replaced This includes the manufacturer and model, connectivity interface and speed (iscsi/nfs/fc), number and types of disks, and whether any wide-striping or I/O acceleration technologies are in use. Note the double VM density guarantee is not based on the number of VMs in a customer s current VMware environment, but as discussed previously, is focused on their VM workloads. The goal of the program is to provide customers with the capability to double their VM workload density by utilizing the full IOPS potential of their storage array. Therefore, if a customer has 500 VMs in use today with average disk throughput of 10,000 IOPS, the double density guarantee would ensure utilizing 20,000 IOPS or greater. Depending on the workloads generated by those additional virtual machines, this could be less than or greater than an additional 500 VMs. 5
Validation of increased VM density Per the terms and conditions of the program, customers have 60 days after the installation of their HP 3PAR Storage System to prove that they did not achieve the 2x increase in VM density. The 2x VM density shall be validated based on the average IOPS measurement of the legacy storage array as compared to the HP 3PAR storage array. Customer validation after installation and migration of the 3PAR array is not required by HP. Customers may choose to perform their own validation to ensure that they can achieve double the IOPS of their legacy storage array using the following methods: 1. The customer can perform their own load testing to ensure that the HP 3PAR array is capable of supporting at least double the VM workload in IOPS of their legacy array. Customer can quickly see first-hand that the new HP 3PAR array is capable of the IOPS needed to double their VM workload density. However, customer will need to understand how to do this using storage benchmarking and load generation tools. 2. Customer can increase their existing VM workload density so that it is double what they had on their legacy storage by adding additional VMs and/or increasing VM workloads of existing VMs in their environment. This allows the customer to naturally grow their environment to the point that they achieve double VM workload density. However, most customers grow their virtual environments slowly and completing this in 60 days is not realistic in most cases. As part of the validation process, the customer needs to provide a Virtualization Deployment Report for its legacy storage system, prepared immediately prior to installation of the HP 3PAR System, and a second report prepared after installation of the HP 3PAR System, once their environment has grown, or workloads have been artificially generated. Both reports should be generated using VMware vcenter Server. Failure to notify HP within 60 days of installation of their HP 3PAR array relieves HP of any obligation under this guarantee. 6
Conclusion The purpose of the HP 3PAR Get Virtual Guarantee program is to highlight the benefits of HP 3PAR Storage, which removes the conventional storage bottlenecks and limitations many customers encounter, and which prevent them from scaling up their VMware environments. We have seen this occur time and time again that when customers upgrade to HP 3PAR arrays they are able to increase VM workload density and overcome storage constraints. This program serves as a way to market these benefits to customers by putting a performance guarantee behind the unique benefits that HP 3PAR arrays deliver. While this program is similar in nature to the Get Thin Guarantee in some respects, with GVG we are measuring the performance capacity (IOPS) instead of space capacity (GB/TB) of the array. This program is the first of its kind in the industry, and is designed to also help educate customers about the role of storage in virtualization deployments and VM workload density, and the cost and performance benefits that can be realized with HP 3PAR arrays. With the launch of the Get Virtual Guarantee Program, we also released a Taneja Group Solution Profile Doubling VM Density with HP 3PAR Storage which you can provide to customers to back this claim. A companion lab validation technical paper, will be released around Q4 FY12. For this paper and all GVG documents and tools, please see the Get Virtual Guarantee page on the WW Sales Portal, or refer to the Get Virtual Guarantee page on the HP Partner Portal. Most importantly, the Get Virtual Guarantee program serves as a conversation starter, so even if customers do not end up participating in the program, communicating the HP 3PAR value propositions and unique differentiators highlighted by this program should serve as a highly effective means to instill customer confidence, drive sales, and reinforce HP 3PAR s strong position in the storage marketplace. To access all the Get Virtual Guarantee Program sales tools and collateral, visit the Get Virtual Guarantee page on the WW Sales Portal, or the HP Partner Portal. Get connected hp.com/go/getconnected Get the insider view on tech trends, alerts, and HP solutions for better business outcomes Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Windows is a U.S. registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. 4AA3-9961ENW, Created April 2012; Updated September 2012, Rev. 1