About virtualizing and unvirtualizing volumes – HP XP P9000 Command View Advanced Edition Software Licenses User Manual

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About virtualizing and unvirtualizing volumes

Virtualizing volumes is the process of mapping external storage system volumes to an internal storage
system.

Virtualized volumes allows for centralized management of volumes from multiple external storage
systems, in addition to the volumes from the single storage system being managed with HP
StorageWorks P9000 Command View Advanced Edition Suite.

The volumes in the external storage system (registered and referred to as

external volumes

) can

be managed in the same way as the volumes in the internal storage system (registered and referred
to as

internal volumes

). Volume virtualization provides the capability to optimize storage services

to applications by facilitating movement of data between tiers and migration of data between different
generations of technology.

When external storage is managed by an internal storage system, external volumes will be listed in
the External Storage folder of the internal storage system.

External volumes can be used for various purposes, including:

•

External volumes can be allocated to hosts the same as internal volumes are.

•

Important data on internal volumes can be backed up to external volumes.

•

Infrequently accessed data on internal volumes can be moved to external volumes for archiving.

There are two procedures for virtualizing volumes:

•

Virtualizing volumes of a registered storage system:
Registered storage systems and their resources, such as volumes and parity groups, can be mon-
itored and managed by Command View AE Suite. Choose from a list of existing unallocated
volumes in the external storage system to be virtualized. Or specify the number of volumes and
volume capacity to search for volumes that meet the criteria.

•

Discovering and virtualizing volumes of an unregistered storage system:
Unregistered storage systems, such as third-party storage systems, can be discovered and the ex-
ternal storage volumes managed by Command View AE Suite. Use the port scan and volume
discovery functionality to discover the external storage system and available volumes. You can
virtualize volumes in the external storage system as volumes in the internal storage system and
manage them using Command View AE Suite.

When you want to complete a data migration or discard devices, you must cancel the virtualization.
When you unvirtualize volumes, the virtualized volumes are unmapped from the specified external
storage.

•

If you are unvirtualizing volumes from a registered storage system, the volumes are automatically
unallocated. You also have the options to delete the volumes or host group.

•

If you are unvirtualizing volumes from an unregistered storage system, the volumes are only un-
mapped. Other management tasks are not available.