HP VMA-series Memory Arrays - Manual (Page 18)

18 AM456-9007B Rev 02 HP VMA SAN Gateway Installation and User Guide
servers to share the high performance flash VMA Arrays. Sharing reduces costs
and allows hosts to cooperate.
The HP VMA Arrays provide high capacity flash storage with RAID protection
using a special flash-optimized algorithm (vRAID). This algorithm minimizes
latency and provides data integrity very efficiently.
HP VMA SAN Gateways support vSHARE, a LUN management solution for SAN
block storage.
• HP VMA SAN Gateways with vSHARE provide for flexible LUN
provisioning, LUN reservations, and full-speed LUNs. Each LUN can use the
full IOPS/bandwidth of the HP VMA Array platform if the other LUNs are
idle.
vSHARE Architecture
A vSHARE system is built for performance and high Reliability, Availability and
Serviceability (RAS). The system fits with standard 19-inch racks in hot/cold isles
and can coexist with other data infrastructure without special facilities. A system
is built with the following primary components:
• vSHARE: vSHARE software provides block storage functionality. It is
deployed on the HP VMA SAN Gateways. This software implements Fibre
Channel and manages LUNs and the initiator-target relationships.
Note: HP only supports the Fiber Channel protocol.
• HP VMA SAN Gateways: Each HP VMA SAN Gateway provides network
connectivity (typically 4 x 8Gb Fibre Channel (FC) or 4 x 10GbE), processing
and DRAM to support the vSHARE function. The typical vSHARE HP VMA
SAN Gateway supports eight processing cores and 12GB of DRAM for
maximum performance of over 400K IOPS at 4kB block size. Up to 32
gateways can be included in a single vSHARE system.
• VMA Arrays: These VMA Arrays contain up to 40TB of raw flash memory
per array and 30TB of usable space. Unlike many other arrays, the flash
memory is RAID protected and hot-swappable to ensure maximum uptime
and very low data loss probabilities.
• HP VMA Memory Modules: The memory modules reside within the VMA
Arrays and provide the flash memory and controllers required for high
performance flash storage. These modules are hot-swappable with minimal
impact on cache performance.
• vCLUSTER Management Software: Clustering with automatic failover of
virtual IP (VIP) addresses, Fibre Channel paths and management software are