Understanding the HP BladeSystem Matrix technology

Technical white paper

Table of contents

Abstract.............................................................................................................................................. 2 Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 2 Overview: HP BladeSystem Matrix......................................................................................................... 3 How BladeSystem Matrix is used ........................................................................................................... 5

Provisioning workloads in a shared services infrastructure..................................................................... 6 Continuously optimizing the infrastructure with capacity and power management.................................. 12 Protecting continuity of services using high availability and disaster recovery capabilities ....................... 15

Enabling technology .......................................................................................................................... 16 BladeSystem c-Class ....................................................................................................................... 16 Virtual Connect .............................................................................................................................. 16 Storage technologies ...................................................................................................................... 18 The Matrix Operating Environment................................................................................................... 19 Integrating Matrix into customer environments ................................................................................... 19 Security......................................................................................................................................... 23

Purchase and delivery ........................................................................................................................ 24 Summary and conclusion.................................................................................................................... 27 Appendix A: Implementing a private cloud ........................................................................................... 29 Appendix B: Matrix use cases ............................................................................................................. 29

Increasing availability of infrastructure services during planned downtime ............................................ 29 Dynamic infrastructure provisioning from test and development to production........................................ 30 Ongoing optimization and consolidation with energy awareness......................................................... 30

Appendix C: HP Cloud Maps—an example.......................................................................................... 31 Glossary of terms............................................................................................................................... 33 For more information.......................................................................................................................... 35

Abstract This whitepaper describes the HP BladeSystem Matrix solution, with a focus on how the solution delivers shared IT infrastructure services—improving the speed and reliability of service delivery while increasing IT efficiency and lowering associated costs. The paper includes a discussion of key architectural concepts and enabling technologies, as well as a brief overview of the purchase process.

HP BladeSystem Matrix is a complete solution that delivers on HP’s Converged Infrastructure strategy. Based on a shared services model, using pools of compute, storage, and network resources, Matrix is an ideal foundation for private cloud infrastructure. HP has built Matrix on the modular HP BladeSystem architecture, which integrates with partner technologies providing a proven, open platform for delivering IT services. The highly automated Matrix Operating Environment enables you to rapidly provision complex infrastructure services and adjust them to meet changing business demands. When combined with HP Business Technology Optimization software, Matrix extends automated provisioning to applications and includes application lifecycle management. HP has designed the Matrix solution to be easily purchased and quickly deployed, and to integrate seamlessly into your existing environment.

This document is intended for IT architects and directors and other readers who are familiar with current HP BladeSystem offerings and existing server virtualization technology. The content should assist you in understanding how BladeSystem Matrix might benefit your IT environments with more flexible, efficient use of physical and virtual IT resources.

Introduction While many advances have been made in IT infrastructure to improve performance and availability, IT departments still struggle to respond to increasing business demands yet hold the line on costs. The effort to meet these demands has frequently led to “IT sprawl”—a condition in which computing resources proliferate throughout the business, but remain underutilized and too hardwired to redeploy easily when business needs change. Operating and maintaining those resources ties up your IT dollars—personnel costs for server management and administration can be as much as 80% of an IT budget.1 Freeing up time focused on operations makes your staff available to serve more strategic objectives and to drive innovation.

Companies are increasingly employing virtualization and automation to improve the flexibility and use of computing resources. However, these efforts have not yet eliminated the issues of over-provisioning and complexity. Too frequently, IT resources are dedicated to a particular application or business unit and any excess capacity remains unavailable for other uses. A shared services model enables you to address these issues. Your IT staff can consolidate physical and virtual servers, storage, and network assets into pools of virtualized resources. These resource pools can host sets of infrastructure services, which typically map to application services, including complex multi-tier, multi-node applications. IT personnel can flexibly provision and re-provision services, and can confidently optimize the underlying resources for performance, resiliency, and efficiency. Moreover, you can achieve the flexibility and efficiency of a shared services model without giving up needed controls that reside in centers of data center expertise, such as server, network, storage, and facilities administration.

HP is enabling a shared services model---extending to private cloud infrastructures---with our flagship Converged Infrastructure solution: HP BladeSystem Matrix. With BladeSystem Matrix and its management software, you can deliver infrastructure services to customers or business units faster,

1 IDC White Paper Sponsored by HP, Realizing TCO Savings with HP BladeSystem Virtual Connect Flex-10 Technology, Doc #218222, May 2009

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more predictably, more efficiently, and with lowered costs. Matrix enables you to achieve the self-service, on-demand service delivery model that you need to establish a private cloud.

Overview: HP BladeSystem Matrix HP BladeSystem Matrix makes use of industry-standard, modular components, but it is far more than simply a collection of components. In a single Converged Infrastructure platform, Matrix integrates technologies from across the HP enterprise portfolio that have been proven in the marketplace to provide value in demanding datacenter environments. Matrix also incorporates the offerings of leading application, management, network, and storage partners, so that the solution fits seamlessly into diverse customer environments and works with all traditional application workloads.

HP BladeSystem Matrix includes one or more BladeSystem c7000 enclosures, server blades, and shared storage, all sized to your requirements, as well as the Matrix Operating Environment. The Matrix Operating Environment includes an integrated service designer, self-service portal, and auto-provisioning capabilities; the tools to manage and optimize the resource pools; and a recovery management solution. Using included Cloud APIs, you can easily customize the operating environment to your specific requirements, enabling chargeback and billing integration, integration into approval processes, as well as other process automation tasks. Matrix arrives at your site as a factory-integrated solution. Each Matrix solution also includes HP on-site implementation services and demonstrations, enabling you to begin realizing the value of Matrix and the shared services model immediately.

Matrix supports the full range of HP ProLiant and Integrity full-height and half-height server blades. The HP StorageWorks 4400 Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA4400) can be factory integrated (recommended option) or you can connect Matrix to newly purchased or existing HP StorageWorks or supported third-party Fibre Channel (FC) storage area networks (SANs). Physical machine instances achieve maximum flexibility by using boot from SAN. Virtual machine instances are backed by files in the hypervisor file system, which could be on a variety of storage types (local disk, FC SAN, network-attached storage (NAS), HP StorageWorks SAN Virtualization Services Platform (SVSP), and iSCSI).

You can easily incorporate Matrix into your existing data center environment: Virtual Connect modules in the BladeSystem enclosure enable Matrix to connect to any standard Ethernet network or Fibre Channel fabric. The platform is also compatible with a range of operating systems and hypervisors. Figures 1 and 2 provide diagrams of the HP BladeSystem Matrix solution with Virtual Connect FlexFabric and Virtual Connect Flex-10 and Fibre Channel.

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Figure 1. Solution diagram of HP BladeSystem Matrix with Virtual Connect FlexFabric module

Figure 2. Solution diagram of HP BladeSystem Matrix with Virtual Connect Flex-10 and Fibre Channel modules

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The infrastructure orchestration capabilities provided in Matrix (illustrated conceptually in Figure 3) enable provisioning and re-provisioning of the shared pools of servers, storage, power, and network connectivity as needed, based on pre-defined templates. An IT architect or designer uses a graphical designer tool to build and publish infrastructure service templates incorporating physical and virtual servers, storage, networks, and the connections between them. Typically, each template represents the complete infrastructure needed to host a specific application service, such as Microsoft® Exchange, Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), an enterprise resource planning solution, or even a custom application. A catalog of published service templates is then available to users; using a simple self-service portal, users can request an instance of a service template to be automatically provisioned. Through its infrastructure orchestration capabilities, Matrix provides standardization and efficient control of provisioning within a shared infrastructure model. Compared to a manual process that requires coordination among different teams across a data center or IT organization, Matrix enables administrators to provision an entire infrastructure service in just minutes or hours instead of weeks or months. Administrators can also continuously monitor and optimize the infrastructure—for example, by moving workloads or adjusting infrastructure service lease periods—as well as protect service continuity with disaster recovery and automated server failover.

Figure 3. The BladeSystem Matrix infrastructure orchestration capabilities accelerate creation of a private cloud

How BladeSystem Matrix is used Perhaps the best way to understand the unique value of HP BladeSystem Matrix is to examine how you can deliver and operate infrastructure services using Matrix and the capabilities of the Matrix

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Operating Environment. This section describes how IT staff can provision infrastructure services, optimize the infrastructure resources, and protect continuity of services. (For definitions of many of the terms used in this section, see the Glossary of terms.)

Provisioning workloads in a shared services infrastructure The most powerful attribute of the resources in HP BladeSystem Matrix is the speed and simplicity with which they can be “carved up,” and flexibly configured and reconfigured to match nearly any application’s infrastructure requirements. A single Matrix environment can take the place of multiple different server configurations to satisfy the varied CPU, memory, network, and storage requirements of the business’ applications.

In a traditional IT environment, the deployment of a new application requires the involvement of many people and a high degree of coordination among them. An IT architect might draw up a design specifying the servers, virtual machines, storage, and networks needed to support the application, and the connections between them, adhering to established policies and standards. Based on this design, the different IT staff responsible for servers, storage, virtualization, networking, and facilities would assemble and/or activate the needed resources. This could take multiple weeks and involve repeated communication between the different IT groups.

Making use of role-based infrastructure orchestration software, Matrix enables:

• Administrators to create pools of resources and oversee and control their use. • IT architects to design the infrastructure to support business applications and publish service

templates to drive implementation. • Users of IT services to select from a catalog of service templates and request infrastructure services.

The Matrix software simplifies, streamlines, and coordinates these processes, and automates the provisioning of the infrastructure resources to satisfy approved requests.

Creating resource pools An administrator can use the management console to define pools of server, network, and storage resources, register user accounts and assign resource pools to users (Figure 4). Through the console, the administrator can also define virtual machine images and software deployment jobs.

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Figure 4. Creating server pools

Populating storage pools The Matrix capabilities enable the Matrix administrator (typically a server administrator) to define the storage needs of a physical or virtual server (for example, a boot disk of a specific size, a shared data disk, and a private transaction log disk). A storage administrator can create and publish to a storage catalog. The storage administrator populates a set of storage volumes in the storage catalog to meet the provisioning needs of service templates in Matrix. The storage administrator controls the visibility of the storage volumes and the operations that can be performed. For example, the administrators could allow changes in OS mode or adjustments in LUN (logical unit number) masking for some volumes. The storage administrator can also define tiers of storage, based on performance and availability characteristics, and tag specific storage volumes according to the defined tiers. Matrix also allows the use of tags to identify storage volumes according to intended application—such as “production” or “database”—as well as other user-defined criteria.

When specifying servers’ storage needs in Matrix, the Matrix administrator can request candidate matches from the storage catalog and browse volumes chosen based on size, OS support, specified tags, and other values. The storage catalog also serves as a formal, automated communication mechanism between Matrix administrators and storage administrators. Rather than having to manually communicate storage needs to the storage administrator and later manually enter the information, the server administrator can request candidates through Matrix. If there are no matches, the storage administrator can see the unfilled request and provision appropriate storage (in other words, create the volume, present the volume, and adjust the SAN zoning, if necessary). The storage administrator can then fulfill the request with the provisioned storage, or the newly provisioned storage will display automatically the next time the server administrator requests matches.

When paired with the HP StorageWorks EVA solution, the storage catalog in Matrix can automatically discover existing volumes and enable the storage administrator to import them into the storage catalog and assign authorizations, thus avoiding manual entry. The storage administrator can also load volumes created in other arrays (HP StorageWorks or third-party) into the storage catalog,

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automatically using workflows or manually. In addition, the storage catalog can represent volumes from multiple arrays in the same catalog.

For customers wanting to integrate with their own storage provisioning processes, whether automated or manual, there is command line access to the storage definitions (requests) and the ability to import results back into the Matrix storage definitions.

Designing the infrastructure and creating service templates The architect uses a graphical designer (shown in Figure 5) to plan and design infrastructures to fit the needs of business applications. By dragging and dropping and connecting icons representing the required resources, the architect creates a template, saved as an XML file, for an infrastructure service. The architect can also import and export template files. The architect specifies attributes for the logical resources, such as minimum memory required, IP address allocation, requirements for physical or virtual servers, the amount of storage and storage tier (or other tagged criteria) required, and the software required on the boot disk. The architect saves each service template to a catalog for access only by specified, approved users. The infrastructure orchestration software validates the design and presents information about any issues so that they can be resolved before the template is published.

Figure 5. Creating a template using the graphical designer

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The Matrix designer interface enables the architect to:

• Design for a range of application needs. The infrastructure service templates could be for a simple virtual machine cluster for a web front end, a configuration for a test and development organization, or it could be a complex, multi-tier configuration for an e-shopping application or an enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) implementation.

• Incorporate established IT policies and standards with assurance that they will be followed in the provisioning process.

• Specify costs to support budget tracking and reporting. • Attach custom workflows that automate key pre- and post-provisioning tasks. • Use workflows and processes to enable smooth transitions between roles or teams (Figure 6).

Example workflows: – Open Request For Change (RFC) tickets for requests in ticketing/ change management systems – Pass customer, cost, and lease duration into a chargeback system – Apply patching and compliance policies in configuration management tools – Maintain status in change management systems as new services are created or changed (For a comparison of Matrix the embedded workflow engine and full-featured HP Operations Orchestration software, see HP Operations Manager.)

Figure 6. Adding workflows

The architect can design service templates from scratch, modify previously created templates, or leverage best practice templates. HP Cloud Maps, developed with key independent software vendors (ISVs), include standard templates and other resources to aid in designing and customizing service

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templates for applications such as Microsoft Exchange, Oracle RAC, and SAP NetWeaver, and others (visit www.hp.com/go/cloudmaps).

Included HP Cloud APIs enable the architect to integrate Matrix orchestration with business processes or other IT operations. For example, the architect can link Matrix provisioning to a company chargeback system. In designing a template, the architect can associate a cost with each of the elements of a service; the service template then displays the overall cost of the service. Using the interfaces provide, the architect (or administrator) can easily build the links to enable the chargeback system to capture usage and cost summaries from Matrix at the desired intervals. For details on how this can be accomplished, see HP Cloud Advisor Nigel Cook’s blog posting Integrating BladeSystem Matrix into a Chargeback or Billing system at http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Eye-on-Blades-Blog-Trends-in/Integrating-BladeSystem-Matrix-into-a-Chargeback-or-Billing/ba-p/80389. For more information on Cloud APIs, see the white paper, HP BladeSystem Matrix/Insight Dynamics 6.0 Integration Interfaces, at http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA0-9219ENW.pdf.

Extending provisioning to applications Matrix supports automated installation of application software through integration with optional HP Cloud Service Automation (CSA) for Matrix software. CSA for Matrix (based on HP Server Automation and HP SiteScope) enables the Matrix architect to select both the OS and application software needed for a service (Figure 8) and create a single service template that comprehends both infrastructure and application. Then, when a user requests the service, Matrix and CSA provision the infrastructure including OS (virtual and/or physical) and application software as a single process. CSA for Matrix also enables application life cycle and compliance management as well as agent-less application monitoring.

Figure 8. Selecting software using CSA for Matrix as a source

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Requesting infrastructure and application services An approved user can initiate the creation of a new service from the published templates, which may include infrastructure services or infrastructure and application services. Through the self-service portal, the user can:

• Select a service template from the catalog (example in Figure 7). • Select one or more assigned resource pools. • View associated costs for the service and specify a lease period.

Users are able to browse only the service templates that they are authorized to use based on their function in the organization. For example, members of a test and development team might see a variety of infrastructure services, while members of the finance department would see only services needed to support finance, and human resources (HR) personnel would see only services needed for HR functions. The self-service portal displays all of the user’s service requests, with their status, and provides email notification when a status changes.

Figure 7. Template catalog in self-service portal

Approval and provisioning The Matrix software sends an email notification of pending service requests to the administrator. Through the management console, the administrator can review each request, and approve or deny the request. Approval of a request initiates the provisioning process.

To the infrastructure orchestration software, the components of each service template are logical objects. A key capability of the software is allocation—the process of finding the resources that match the logical objects. After a user submits a service request through the self-service portal, the Matrix software validates the needed infrastructure for the service request and performs an allocation. If the

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software can locate the resources that match the template, then the allocation is successful; the software reserves the selected resources and provisioning proceeds.

Matrix performs automated provisioning for both virtual and physical servers, including physical servers and virtual machine configurations, allocating appropriate SAN volumes, OS deployment, and OS customization—and, with CSA for Matrix, application installation. Matrix supports a variety of mechanisms for deploying OS software. The software source can be virtual machine templates or HP server deployment software. When provisioning several virtual machines from the same virtual machine template, Matrix can utilize linked clones, which speeds up the provisioning process and reduces the amount of storage required.

During provisioning, the Matrix orchestration software invokes any associated workflows at their respective execution points. Because the template automates and controls the provisioning, administrators can enforce established standards and avoid variances due to human error.

Managing provisioned services Matrix notifies both the administrator and the user who requested the service when provisioning is complete. The administrator can view status, progress, and details of all completed and executing requests and take action to resolve failed requests. The administrator can also modify service infrastructures as required, for example, migrating workloads between server blades to support proactive maintenance activities in the physical environment.

The provisioned service is available to the user for the duration of the specified lease period. A user can manage provisioned services through the self-service portal—setting the servers to standby to reduce power consumption if a service is not needed temporarily, resuming the service and reactivating the servers when needed again. The user can also easily request a modified service lease period or request additional servers or storage. When a service is no longer needed, the user can delete it to make resources available for other purposes. Administrators can choose one of three options for a service at the end of its lease period: ignore the service lease end and notify the user, suspend the service, or delete the service.

Continuously optimizing the infrastructure with capacity and power management Integrated capacity and power management capabilities keep infrastructure services provisioned in HP BladeSystem Matrix running optimally. Built-in technologies throttle resources when not needed, keeping power consumption in line with actual server utilization. Dynamic power saver features can place power supplies in standby to keep power supply efficiencies above 90% for all normal operating conditions. As energy costs continue to rise, power consumption is an increasingly important consideration when planning for server consolidations or growth.

Ongoing capacity management Matrix enables administrators to quickly rebalance and repurpose physical and virtual servers to address changing business priorities. Using the integrated real-time capacity planning and workload balancing capabilities of Matrix, administrators can easily accommodate the varying resource requirements of an application workload. For example, varying the resources based on time of the month can address dramatic increases in peak use during end-of-month processing or a sales promotion.

The capacity planning capability of Matrix measures the traditional resource metrics of CPU, memory, networking, and disk I/O, as well as power consumption, based on data collected every five minutes for the Matrix server blades. In the management console, administrators can view both current utilization and historical data by the type of resource. When resource utilization is low for a set of

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physical or virtual servers, administrators can evaluate consolidation alternatives using consolidation planning scenarios.

It is helpful to understand the Matrix approach to analyzing capacity requirements, which is more sophisticated than simply determining the maximum memory or CPU utilization. A common practice in capacity planning is to simply take the peak of the various loads and use that to determine the maximum required peak capacity; this is the “sum of peaks” method. Although this will provide a robust solution, this method does not take into account the timing of the peaks of the loads and may end up planning for much more capacity than is actually used. A more efficient planning solution, referred to as the “peak of sums” and easily accomplished with Matrix, takes into account the timing of the maximum utilization peaks in the individual loads. By adding together utilization at each measured interval and then taking the maximum of the resulting time sequence, the “peak of sums” method used by Matrix results in a more accurate measure of the required maximum resource, thus reducing costs.

Consolidation planning with what-if scenarios When planning for consolidation, an IT administrator can simulate the placement of server workloads prior to implementation and compare resources used under multiple scenarios, taking into account future trends. By analyzing these planning scenarios, the administrator can determine optimal workload placement.

With the Matrix scenario editor, the administrator can create a baseline scenario based on an existing solution and then generate the desired number of alternative scenarios for comparison. For each of the alternatives, the administrator can apply what-if actions, for example, automated system consolidation to virtual machines; specify configuration parameters; and include growth projections for CPU, memory, disk I/O, and networking I/O, as well as utilization limits for each of these resources. The capacity planner compares the alternatives and provides a recommended solution, including a 5-star headroom rating and projected utilization. The administrator can then run a comparison report to determine possible outcomes. For example, administrators can compare relative improvement in power consumption from various alternative scenarios, as illustrated in Figure 9. Details of the consolidation scenarios give the administrator additional relevant data upon which to base a decision regarding the best consolidation solution. The administrator can then move the workload(s) to the selected host and free up the server blade for other applications or power it down to save energy.

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Figure 9. Consolidation planning scenario comparison report

Additionally, administrators now have the capability to easily spot the peaks of individual servers and monitor the average utilization across all servers through a peak summary report. The administrator can then view a consolidation candidate report and determine the best candidates for consolidation based on real, historical data. Finally, a cost allocation report presents utilization in percentage format, ready for further cost allocation reporting if desired.

Advanced power management: dynamic power capping The dynamic power capping feature of Matrix safely limits peak power consumption without impacting system performance and without risk of over-subscribing data center branch circuits. This capability is enabled for every ProLiant server blade and blade enclosure. Administrators can set power caps for individual server blades, for groups of blades or for an entire enclosure. Embedded management and power microprocessors on each blade work together both to measure and control power usage. When enforcing the user-defined power cap, the power microprocessor first will lower the CPU P-state. If this does not achieve the required reduction in power, it will continue to reduce CPU clock speed to prevent peak power consumption from exceeding the cap. (HP does not recommend setting a cap that would throttle performance at a single server level, blade group or enclosure level.)

When applied at the enclosure level, dynamic power capping spreads the administrator-defined cap across multiple servers, dynamically adjusting the power caps for individual server blades, based on workload intensity. The feature reduces power caps for server blades running lighter workloads and increases power caps for server blades running more intense workloads. Because workload intensity

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will peak and subside at different times in most environments, the ability to adjust power caps dynamically lets IT administrators set the enclosure-level dynamic power cap below the sum of peak power consumption for each blade without impacting blade performance.

Protecting continuity of services using high availability and disaster recovery capabilities Like all BladeSystem environments, BladeSystem Matrix has redundant components, so the failure of a single component such as a power supply or fan does not impact operations. Matrix protects continuity of services by providing, enabling, or enhancing a range of availability and recovery solutions. For both ProLiant and Integrity platforms, these solutions range from server-aware and application-aware availability to disaster recovery solutions for distances from campus to continental and supporting both physical and virtual server environments.

A simple but powerful feature of Matrix is server failover: if a server fails, the application can restart on a spare server and thus be running again in about the time it takes to power on another server blade, boot the OS (which resides on shared storage), and start the application service. Failover can take place within an enclosure, within a data center, or between data centers. Failover requires no special software to be run on the servers. It can draw from a pool of spare servers, so the total number of spare servers can be less than the number of protected operational servers.

For those environments where business-critical and mission-critical availability and recovery are required, Matrix integrates with “application-aware” solutions to provide a faster and more granular level of solution recovery. These solutions typically have more awareness of the state of an application, as well as system status, and can provide availability and recovery scenarios where the application can be brought up within seconds, rather than hours. For Integrity servers, the HP Serviceguard family of products (available through an upgrade) provides the level of mission critical availability that customers require in these environments. (For more information on HP Serviceguard solutions, visit www.hp.com/go/serviceguard.)

Built-in disaster recovery Disaster recovery (DR) is licensed for every ProLiant server blade in BladeSystem Matrix and can be enabled when combined with HP StorageWorks EVA or HP StorageWorks XP disk arrays with Continuous Access. The DR function provides for automated disaster recovery to a recovery site and failback, enabling transfer of workloads that run on physical servers or in virtual machines, or transfer from physical to virtual. The location of the recovery site can range from a metropolitan (up to 200 km) to a continental (beyond 200 km) distance from the data center. The Continuous Access capabilities ensure proper transition of application data to the recovery location, restoration of storage access, and execution of the overall transition in minutes, not days.

HP BladeSystem Matrix allows a dynamic recovery model for VMware environments, which enables recovery to either a physical or a virtual resource based on what is available at the recovery site. By using the dynamic recovery capability, the administrator does not have to lock-in a recovery target in advance. An administrator can set a VMware ESX guest environment as the primary recovery destination for a workload running on a physical blade. Should the VMware VM host be unavailable at the time of recovery, the same workload can recover to an available physical blade. The physical to virtual recovery scenario can provide cost savings by enabling consolidation of multiple physical workloads to a single VM host with multiple guests. The flexibility of automated recovery of a given workload to either a virtual or a physical environment greatly improves the likelihood of a complete DR recovery even in the case of unexpected resource issues at the recovery site.

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Enabling technology

BladeSystem c-Class In designing the HP BladeSystem architecture, HP worked very closely with our customers to understand their requirements and challenges in managing their data centers. The resulting BladeSystem c-Class design incorporates modular and flexible compute, network, and storage resources to provide a general-purpose infrastructure that can accommodate continually changing business needs. As such, BladeSystem c-Class provides an ideal starting point for the BladeSystem Matrix solution.

Key components of this architecture include:

• Embedded management: Included are Onboard Administrator management controllers at the enclosure level and Integrated Lights Out (iLO) intelligent management processors on every server blade. – Onboard Administrator and iLO provide intelligence throughout the infrastructure to monitor

power and thermal conditions, ensure correct hardware configurations, simplify enclosure setup, and simplify network configuration.

– The Onboard Administrator controller communicates with the iLO management processors on each server blade and collects and manages system parameters related to thermal and power status, system configuration, and managed network configuration. The iLO for BladeSystem processor provides complete remote server virtual presence, including graphical remote console, virtual media, and more.

• Shared cooling and power: HP consolidated power and cooling resources to conserve power and provide efficient cooling, while efficiently sharing and managing the resources within the enclosure. HP uses the term “Thermal Logic” to refer to the mechanical features and control capabilities throughout the BladeSystem c-Class that enable IT administrators to optimize their power and thermal environments. – High-performance, high-efficiency Active Cool fans provide redundant cooling across each

enclosure. The Onboard Administrator controls these hot-pluggable fans so that cooling capacity can be ramped up or down based on the needs of the entire system.

– Onboard Administrator allocates power to the device bays based on the specific configuration of each blade in the enclosure. The Onboard Administrator discovers each blade as it is inserted into the enclosure and allocates power accordingly, based on actual measured power requirements.

• Virtualized connectivity: HP Virtual Connect technology provides a way to virtualize the server I/O connections to Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks through the option of configuring Matrix with either two pairs of redundant Virtual Connect Flex-10/Virtual Connect Fibre Channel modules or a pair of Virtual Connect FlexFabric modules.

For additional background on HP BladeSystem, technologies see the following technology briefs: HP BladeSystem c-Class architecture and Technologies in HP ProLiant c-Class server blades at http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/c-class-tech-function.html.

Virtual Connect Virtual Connect is an essential foundation element in BladeSystem Matrix. Inherent in Matrix functionality and the powerful automation capabilities of its operations is the ability to move workloads from one server to another without human intervention or coordination. Virtual Connect enables this.

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Most LAN and SAN networks rely on the unique addresses of NICs and host bus adapters (HBAs) within each server. Replacement of a server necessitates changes to the MAC addresses and WWNs associated with network adapters and HBAs on the server and adjustments in the LANs and SANs attached to those servers. As a result, even routine server changes are often subject to delays for coordination among IT operations groups.

Virtual Connect brings all of the necessary capabilities into the domain of the system administrator. Virtual Connect adds an abstraction layer between the servers and the networks. It assigns and holds all MAC addresses and WWNs at the server bay, instead of on the servers themselves. At the addition of a new server, its NICs inherit their assigned MAC addresses and the HBAs inherit their WWNs. Similarly, upon removal of a server, its replacement inherits the same addresses so that the LANs and SANs do not see server changes and do not require updating for them. Using the local Virtual Connect Manager, or the data-center-wide HP Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager software, the system administrator can provision and pre-assign all of the LANs and SANs that the server pool might ever need (from those pre-defined by the network and storage administrators)—even before any servers are installed. SAN and LAN administrators retain sufficient control over their domains but are freed from interruptions for routine server maintenance.

Through an extension of the same mechanism, Virtual Connect establishes server connection profiles for each server, and an administrator can move these profiles from one server bay to another with a single mouse click, within seconds. When these capabilities combine with boot from SAN and the Virtual Connect management tools, administrators can move application workloads from one server to another very quickly, securely, and automatically and with their storage and network configurations intact. The application users are unaware of the change, as the OS image and data reside on shared storage accessible from a pool of servers. Figure 10 compares HP Virtual Connect to the traditional network model.

Figure 10. Comparison of HP Virtual Connect to traditional model

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Virtual Connect Flex-10 technology further simplifies server edge connectivity by increasing bandwidth and greatly reducing the amount of equipment needed. It eliminates up to 75% of the interconnect modules and 100% of the NIC mezzanine cards needed to connect to an Ethernet

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network.2 It does this by allocating the bandwidth of a single 10Gb network port into four independent FlexNIC server connections. Administrators can dynamically adjust the bandwidth for each FlexNIC connection in increments of 100Mb between 100Mb and 10Gb. The result is network capacity applied where applications need it rather than oversubscribed everywhere.

HP FlexFabric, built on Virtual Connect and HP Networking innovation, enables fully virtualized network connections and capacity from the edge to the core. This enables IT to deliver “network-as-a service,” wire connections once, and move applications freely across or between servers or even across or between data centers. HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric modules enable Matrix to connect to any Fibre Channel, Ethernet, and iSCSI network with a single device. By eliminating the need for multiple interconnects, Virtual Connect FlexFabric modules reduce network equipment needs up to 95% and the power needed to drive them by 40%.3

HP Virtual Connect architecture uses industry standard Ethernet and Fibre Channel for simple integration with familiar brands, such as Brocade, Cisco, and HP Networking. The Virtual Connect architecture is built into every HP BladeSystem enclosure taking advantage of the high performance interconnect channels, integrated I/O connections, Onboard Administrator communication and control channels, and modular interconnect bays delivered as standard with HP BladeSystem. (More information on HP Virtual Connect technology is available at www.hp.com/go/virtualconnect.)

HP is committed to serving the diverse needs of modern data centers without imposing a specific operating model, proprietary architecture, or network fabric. HP is continuing to build out the Converged Infrastructure vision with the addition of storage network protocols to its Virtual Connect Flex-10 technology. This combines the capabilities of Virtual Connect and Flex-10 with Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE), Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and accelerated iSCSI technologies to enable BladeSystem customers to use a single Virtual Connect server connection to access storage and server networks.

Ultimately, the HP goal is to allow IT to plug new systems into a Converged Infrastructure that will automatically discover capacity, add it to resource pools, and put it to work to support the needs of business applications. For more information on HP FlexFabric, see www.hp.com/go/flexfabric.

Storage technologies Key to the flexibility of the Matrix solution is having the OS image and data reside on shared storage. Logical servers can then migrate from one physical server to another and retain their personality, and continue to provide application support after reboot. For physical servers, Matrix supports pre-provisioned Fibre Channel storage. Matrix can connect to your existing SAN or you can order Matrix with a factory integrated HP StorageWorks array such as the EVA4400 storage solution. For virtual severs, Matrix supports VMware and Hyper-V virtual machines whose boot and data storage are files within the hypervisor file system. That file system could be on local disk, FC SAN, HP StorageWorks SVSP, and iSCSI. For iSCSI SAN storage solutions, HP recommends the HP StorageWorks P4300 G2 and P4500 G2.

For VMware environments, Matrix also supports hypervisor file systems on NAS and virtual machines using Raw Device Mapping (RDM) to access a FC LUN directly. RDM is a key enabler to allow a logical server to move from a physical environment to a virtual one yet still access the same boot and data volumes.

For Integrity Virtual Machine environments, Matrix supports the use of SLVM (Shared Logical Volume Manager) volumes or physical FC disks.

The HP Storage Provisioning Manager provides the means for a storage administrator to publish a catalog of storage volumes that can be consumed as needed. This further streamlines the provisioning

2 Based on HP analysis of networking equipment (adapters and enclosure interconnects) 3 Based on HP analysis of networking equipment (adapters and enclosure interconnects)

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process by allowing the storage administrator to create the volumes and do SAN zoning in advance. This in turn enables the automatic fulfillment of server administrator storage requests, rather than the storage administrator having to intervene manually each time provisioning requires storage. The storage administrator retains control of the storage catalog, storage-related processes, and permissions.

The Matrix Operating Environment The Matrix Operating Environment provides an integrated toolkit that enables the capabilities described in How BladeSystem Matrix is used:

• Visual design and automated provisioning of infrastructure services • Infrastructure optimization through advanced capacity and power management and consolidation

planning • Protection of service continuity with integrated recovery management

The Matrix Operating Environment is powered by Insight Dynamics and gives IT staff a full view and easy access to all functions to manage your Matrix infrastructure. Figure 11 shows the home page.

Figure 11. Home page for the Matrix Operating Environment, powered by Insight Dynamics

The Matrix Operating Environment integrates with HP Insight Management and enables administrators to manage HP BladeSystem c-Class blades, standalone physical servers, virtual machine hosts and guests on ProLiant and Integrity servers as well as physical hardware partitions on Integrity servers, all from a single management console. The Matrix Operating Environment also enables management of both physical blade servers and virtual machines as logical servers so they can be moved and migrated easily within a Matrix environment. It delivers a full range of deployment, management, capacity planning, migration, and movement capabilities.

Integrating Matrix into customer environments The HP BladeSystem Matrix Operating Environment integrates with HP and third-party management software to ensure effective management of your entire IT environment. In addition, because it is a standards-based solution, BladeSystem Matrix integrates with your existing networks, SANs, applications, operating systems, and hypervisors.

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Integration with HP Business Technology Optimization software The Matrix Operating Environment combines with HP Business Technology Optimization (BTO) software to enable management of the broader IT environment.

HP Cloud Service Automation for Matrix and Cloud Services Enablement Integration with Cloud Service Automation (CSA) for Matrix enables seamless deployment and monitoring of applications as well as complete lifecycle management for physical and virtual servers and applications – from establishing baseline to provisioning, patching, configuration management and compliance assurance. For more information on CSA for Matrix, visit www.hp.com/go/csa4matrix.

HP CSA for Matrix and the HP Aggregation Platform for Software as a Service (AP4SaaS) combine to form the HP Cloud Services Enablement for Infrastructure as a Service (HP CSE for IaaS) solution. HP CSE for IaaS is a pre-integrated, end-to-end solution for communications service providers (CSPs) enabling them to create a complete compute services-on-demand offering for their small and medium business customers. HP AP4SaaS takes advantage of the design, provisioning, and infrastructure management capabilities of Matrix and CSA for Matrix to quickly create and deliver products and manage the architecture for a range of “as a service” offerings. For more information on HP CSE for IaaS, see http://h20208.www2.hp.com/cms/solutions/cloud-services-enablement.jsp?jumpid=ex_r2140_w1/en/large/eb/cms_cse_pr20100630.

HP Operations Orchestration Matrix includes an embedded workflow automation engine powered by HP Operations Orchestration software. This enables integration with customer IT processes and extensible automation using customer workflows. Table 1 provides a comparison of Matrix infrastructure orchestration and HP Operations Orchestration software.

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Table 1. Comparison of HP BladeSystem Matrix embedded Operations Orchestration features and full-featured HP Operations Orchestration

Matrix – embedded Operations Orchestration features

Full-featured HP Operations Orchestration

Purpose Automate pre/post Matrix orchestrated provisioning tasks (such as open/close ticket, add to/remove from load balancer)

Integrates with HP and third-party systems management tools in support of Matrix orchestration processes such as ticketing*

Automate routine IT operational tasks such as repetitive maintenance, change execution and incident resolution

Integrates with HP and third-party systems management tools in support of processes such as ticketing and monitoring

Supported Devices

Only Matrix managed devices: HP BladeSystem servers and x86-based and Integrity virtual machines

HP and third-party servers, network, storage, and client devices

Included Workflows and Integrations

Pre-defined workflows and operations that support Matrix capabilities and protocols

Integration to HP management tools*

Operations Orchestration Studio to edit or create new workflows*

3,000+ workflows, operations and integrations for most industry-leading operating systems, databases, applications, and IT systems management tools

Workflow Execution

Automatically triggered by Matrix orchestration actions (no user intervention)

Runs with or without user intervention, in response to an event, ad-hoc, or at pre-scheduled intervals

Scale and User Licenses Included

One instance of embedded HP Operations Orchestration

One author license for workflow creation

Supports multiple clustered instances

Requires purchase of licenses for number of authors and users needed

Reporting None Full reporting capabilities

*Additional HP or third-party licenses and/or services required HP Service Manager Using the embedded workflow automation features, the Matrix architect can link its orchestration capabilities with HP Service Manager to incorporate service requests and approvals into existing change management processes.

HP Universal CMDB HP Universal Configuration Management Database (UCMDB) provides a consolidated repository of physical and virtual infrastructures and services. HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping (DDM) automates the population of the UCMDB and maps the relationship of these logical elements to the overall business services they support. A DDM integration module is available to import configuration data discovered by HP Insight Management into the UCMDB. The data includes relationships such as enclosure-to-blade, management-processor-to-server, and VM-host-to-VM-guest. The module also captures detailed inventory information such as serial numbers and driver and firmware versions.

Other HP Software leverages this data discovery and mapping: HP Service Manager for incident management, HP Operations Center for consolidated event and performance management, HP Release Manager for impact analysis, and HP Asset Manager for better financial management and license compliance. Using the native capabilities of HP UCMDB, you can proactively model the service impact of proposed changes and track configuration changes to all infrastructures, including virtual elements.

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HP Operations Manager HP Operations Manager is a consolidated event and performance management console that correlates heterogeneous infrastructure, network, and user experience events across the entire IT infrastructure. HP Operations Center integration modules for HP Insight Management Agents make detailed hardware management information available through Operations Manager. HP Operations Manager automatically collects and decodes detailed hardware pre-failure and failure information from servers running the HP Insight Management Agent. This integration enables IT administrators minimize or avoid many incidents that could result in user experience issues by correlating HP infrastructure with the availability of business service-levels and obtaining in-depth data for more accurate root cause analysis and faster problem resolution.

Integration with IT and business operations HP Cloud APIs enable Matrix integration with IT and business processes. Examples include linking into billing or chargeback systems as described in Designing the infrastructure and creating templates, and customizing the self-service portal to reflect company branding and standards. APIs also enable integration of Insight Management to comprehend Matrix in third-party enterprise management systems like those from Computer Associates and Tivoli.

Support for most common operating systems and hypervisors Matrix supports these native server operating systems: Microsoft Windows® Server, HP-UX, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES).

Matrix supports VMware ESX and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V hypervisors, as well as Integrity Virtual Machines.

For the latest and most complete information on BladeSystem Matrix compatibility, see www.hp.com/go/matrixcompatibility.

Integrated virtualization management The Matrix Operating Environment incorporates virtualization management built on years of experience with HP Integrity systems combined with expertise in integrated management with key virtualization partners, VMware and Microsoft. It gives IT administrators a unified method to manage both VMware ESX and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtualization technologies, through API integration with tools such as VMware vCenter, vSphere, and vMotion, and with Microsoft System Center. The combined HP and partner capabilities provide robust lifecycle management of virtual environments, including automated deployment, migration, capacity and power management, health monitoring, and disaster recovery. For example, when Insight Management receives a ProLiant pre-failure hardware alert, it works with VMware vCenter to initiate the movement of all the virtual machines on that server before the failure occurs.

Compatible with existing networks Matrix connects seamlessly to existing Ethernet networks. Because Virtual Connect is a layer-2 bridge, not a switch, it integrates smoothly with any existing network. HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 and FlexFabric interoperate with any industry standard Ethernet switch while providing 4-to-1 network hardware consolidation of the server NICs and interconnect modules.

Compatible with existing SANs The HP Virtual Connect 8Gb Fibre Channel and FlexFabric interconnects are fully compatible with all standard Fibre Channel switches. The shared storage for logical server boot and data disks can be any pre-presented Fibre Channel LUN, although there are additional capabilities with HP StorageWorks solutions, such as validation of the storage definitions and the ability to import discovered volumes into the storage catalog.

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HP Cloud Maps to build service catalogs HP has collaborated with key industry-vertical and infrastructure software partners to deliver Cloud Maps for HP BladeSystem Matrix. A Cloud Map is a navigational tool that fast tracks service catalog development. Cloud Maps contain engineering components such as best practice reference architecture templates, workflows, sizers, and deployment scripts, along with supporting white papers that assist with customization. These components drop into the Matrix designer interface to provide a starting point for creating customer-ready infrastructure services. IT architects can customize these Cloud Maps to meet their specific infrastructure requirements, and then “proof” them in test and development environments before releasing them for production use.

HP Cloud Maps available for Matrix as of the publication of this paper include:

• Microsoft Exchange 2010 • Microsoft Exchange 2007 3000 User • Microsoft Exchange 2007 4000 User • Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 • Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 • Oracle Real Application Clusters 11g • Oracle Single Instance Database 11g • Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise HCM • SAP NetWeaver 7.0 • SAP Business Objects Enterprise • SAP Enterprise BI Server Environment • Red Hat JBoss • Citrix XenApp

Additional Cloud Maps for Symantec, F5 Networks, and new applications from VMware as well as Cloud Maps for Matrix with HP-UX will be available soon. For access to the most up-to-date Cloud Map resources available for download, visit www.hp.com/go/cloudmaps.

Security With the powerful capabilities to manipulate IT resources that BladeSystem Matrix provides, appropriate levels of security are imperative. The BladeSystem Matrix solution provides a consistent and integrated security management framework that can be flexibly configured to satisfy local site security policies, utilizing security mechanisms in individual components and security services across the integrated solution. Matrix supports numerous security mechanisms, including identification and authentication, access control, authorization and auditing, as well as use of secure practices such as secure communication protocols. The security provided by the BladeSystem Matrix solution includes mechanisms to:

• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of management communications. • Log all actions that manipulate server instances in HP Systems Insight Manager and other audit log

files. • Provide separation of duties and role-based access control for provisioning and management.

Matrix provides a great deal of flexibility for dividing administrative operations. It achieves this through restricting login access and authorizations. Matrix uses the core authentication services provided by HP SIM, leveraging the underlying Windows infrastructure, including the Active Directory infrastructure if available. The Matrix solution provides authorization mechanisms that simplify the

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configuration and ongoing management of privileges for the various levels of users. For example, administrators can specify different levels of access to the Matrix infrastructure orchestration capabilities, administrators and users, based on their individual needs. The authorization mechanism provides the specified user with the ability to perform actions for which the individual has privileges and the graphical user interface will only display the tasks authorized for the current user. Similarly, the integrated HP Storage Provisioning Manager solution enables a storage administrator to control the visibility of pre-provisioned Fibre Channel LUNs in the storage catalog, as well as controlling which storage operations a given server administrator (or Active Directory group) can perform.

HP SIM also provides an audit facility that logs entries for tasks performed by all users, including executed tasks, authorization modifications, and user login and logout. Among the methods Matrix employs to ensure secure management communications are use of the SSL (Secure Socket Layer) transport protocol and the SSH (Secure Shell) network protocol, and HTTPS (HTTP Secure) for web-based communications. For a detailed discussion of security in Matrix, see the HP Converged Infrastructure Solution Security for HP BladeSystem Matrix white paper, http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA2-8444ENW.pdf.

Purchase and delivery Purchasing BladeSystem Matrix begins with ordering a Starter Kit (Table 2), which includes the infrastructure needed for a fully working environment:

• A fully-redundant c7000 enclosure • Virtual Connect modules • Software to enable all of the advanced Matrix functionality for an enclosure fully loaded with

ProLiant or Integrity server blades • Hardware and software support • Implementation services

Table 2. HP BladeSystem Matrix Starter Kits

Matrix with Virtual Connect Flex-10 & FC

Matrix with HP-UX & Virtual Connect Flex-10 & FC

Matrix with Virtual Connect FlexFabric

Virtual Connect modules

Virtual Connect Flex-10 & Virtual Connect 8Gb Fibre Channel

Virtual Connect Flex-10 & Virtual Connect 8Gb Fibre Channel

Virtual Connect FlexFabric

Software licenses Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager for the enclosure

Insight Dynamics for up to 16 ProLiant server blades

HP-UX VSE-OE for up to 8 Integrity server blades

Insight Dynamics for up to 16 ProLiant server blades

Support 3-year, 24x7 4-hour response hardware support

3-year, 24x7 software support and updates*

Blades supported ProLiant or Integrity Integrity or ProLiant ProLiant

*Performing upgrade to Matrix environment requires purchase of a separate service

Customers wanting to minimize their equipment can order the Matrix Starter Kit with Virtual Connect FlexFabric modules. This enables you to combine Ethernet and storage networks onto one converged fabric within the BladeSystem enclosure and eliminate the need for Fibre Channel HBAs and interconnect modules. As of this writing, the Starter Kit with Virtual Connect FlexFabric modules supports ProLiant blade servers only. For traditional server edge implementations having separate networks for Ethernet and storage, the Matrix Starter Kit with Virtual Connect Flex-10 and 8Gb FC

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modules and the Matrix Starter Kit with HP-UX are available. In all configurations, Matrix connects directly to any industry standard Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks.

The Matrix Starter Kit with HP-UX is optimized for use with Integrity server blades, but the Matrix order can include ProLiant server blades as well. This Starter Kit includes eight per-socket HP-UX 11i v3 VSE-Operating Environment (VSE-OE) licenses; VSE-OE includes Insight Dynamics-VSE for Integrity. In conjunction with the Starter Kit order, you specify the number and type of server blades needed and order additional management software licenses for any ProLiant blades specified.

Similarly, the original Matrix Starter Kit with Virtual Connect Flex-10 and Virtual Connect FC is optimized for use with ProLiant server blades, but it can also include Integrity server blades. This Starter Kit includes Insight Dynamics licenses for 16 ProLiant server blades. When ordering, you specify the number and type of server blades and order additional management software licenses for any Integrity blades ordered.

HP now offers the ProLiant DL360 G7 as the recommended option for a central management server (CMS). Using this rack-mount server rather than one of the server blades allows you to use all available and licensed enclosure blade bays for managing target blades and workloads. Though the DL360 G7 is the recommended default CMS option, you can substitute any other server of your choice provided the server matches the Insight Software CMS requirements.

Storage options from HP include the HP StorageWorks EVA4400, EVA6400, EVA8400 & XP FC arrays. Matrix now supports use of iSCSI SAN storage, such as HP StorageWorks P4300/P4500 G2 SAN solutions, as VM data stores for VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V on ProLiant server blades. (Matrix does not support iSCSI SAN solutions for physical boot or provisioning outside of the above-mentioned VM data store environments.) Matrix also supports third-party Fibre Channel SANs; for details on the SANs supported, see http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/matrix/compatibility.html.

The Matrix Starter Kit comes with an onsite implementation service that will ensure the integration of the Starter Kit, as well any Expansion Kits purchased with the Starter Kit, into your environment (power, network cabling).

You can scale the capacity of the Matrix infrastructure by ordering one or more Expansion Kits (Figure 12), either with the initial Matrix purchase or as needs grow. Matrix Expansion Kits purchased after the initial BladeSystem Matrix Starter Kit order include the BladeSystem Matrix Expansion Kit Integration Implementation Service. Each implementation service will integrate up to four Matrix Expansion Kits into an existing Matrix customer environment.

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Figure 12. Purchasing BladeSystem Matrix

All HP BladeSystem Matrix Starter and Expansion Kit orders include factory services to:

• Configure, rack, and cable the infrastructure. • Verify and update firmware for the entire solution being purchased (the BladeSystem Matrix kits

and the supported blades and options purchased with those kits) to the latest current BladeSystem Matrix firmware release set.

• Coordinate hand-off to Technology Services (TS) or an authorized partner.

An assigned TS or partner project manager manages pre-engagement and assigns a team of engineers to perform the implementation service at your site. Implementation services include integrating the hardware to the customer environment; installation and configuration of the central management server and other required software; and BladeSystem Matrix solution orientation. Figure 13 provides an overview of the implementation process.

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Figure 13. Overview of implementation process

For details on ordering a Matrix solution and related services, see the Quick Specs at http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13297_div/13297_div.html.

Summary and conclusion IT is moving away from a product-centric approach to an application-centric shared-services model. The HP Converged Infrastructure strategy helps you realign traditional technology silos of server, storage, and network resources into pools of virtualized and integrated assets that can be shared by many applications, optimized, and managed as a service. HP is delivering a Converged Infrastructure solution—and an ideal foundation for a private cloud—today with HP BladeSystem Matrix.

BladeSystem Matrix makes use of the best of HP enterprise technologies, integrated and delivered to you as a complete Converged Infrastructure platform. With integrated Insight Management, Matrix provisions infrastructure services, from simple to complex, automatically, making them available to your business in minutes or hours rather than weeks or months. With its one-touch, self-service provisioning of infrastructure—extending to applications through integration with Cloud Service Automation for Matrix—Matrix fast tracks the creation of a private cloud. At the same time, Matrix

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incorporates established IT and business processes, enables IT personnel to maintain appropriate controls, and enforces IT standards. With built-in capacity planning, power management, workload balancing and disaster recovery capabilities in Matrix, IT staff can confidently optimize infrastructure resources and protect continuity of services.

HP BladeSystem Matrix accelerates delivery of IT services, simplifies ongoing infrastructure management, and enables IT departments to respond flexibly and efficiently to dynamic business conditions.

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Appendix A: Implementing a private cloud As IT departments witness their business units attempting to fulfill their IT requirements by going straight to the public cloud, they are seeking ways to regain control. They want to put in place private cloud solutions that match the perceived speed, flexibility, and affordability of the public cloud yet provide better security and integration into the enterprise. To achieve this, the basic requirements that the private cloud must satisfy include the following:

• Self service delivery on demand—a business unit should be able to view a selection of standardized services and initiate deployment as needed.

• Single governance & security model—to minimize business risk. • Automated metering & chargeback—a business unit must be able to see the costs for the services. • Instant scalability with mission critical availability—services must be able to scale as business needs

grow. • Optimization for business applications—an area where a private cloud could excel over public

cloud offerings. • Openness and extensibility—to achieve integration with the enterprise.

Implementing a private cloud can be a complex and daunting task. HP has built BladeSystem Matrix to simplify and accelerate just such a task. As discussed in this paper, the capabilities of Matrix—with its tool for designing standardized services, self-service portal, automated provisioning, and shared resource pools that can be dynamically scaled—enable you to move quickly to a private cloud model in which users can provision services in minutes. Its integrated management tools help you optimize resources and deliver on the requirements for security and service availability. Embedded workflows and included Cloud APIs enable you to connect your private cloud to your chargeback system and incorporate other established business and IT processes. Integration with HP CSA for Matrix allows you to design application services that fit your business.

HP Cloud Maps provide a wealth of resources to get you started in implementing your private cloud. For customers wanting additional assistance, HP has introduced Cloud Consulting Services, including the HP CloudStart4 solution designed to achieve a private cloud solution in less than 30 days after hardware installation and start-up. (See http://h20219.www2.hp.com/services/us/en/consolidated/cloud-overview.html.)

Appendix B: Matrix use cases

Increasing availability of infrastructure services during planned downtime This use case illustrates how an organization can increase availability of infrastructure services during planned or unplanned downtime by freely moving workloads between servers in Matrix. In this case, one of the Matrix servers, a ProLiant BL465c server blade running a mail and messaging application, needs a memory upgrade.

Through the Matrix Operating Environment the server administrator:

• Obtains system information for the server blade and observes the current utilization of the server blade. By performing the move while the system load is low, the administrator minimizes impact on users of the application.

4 As of the publication of this paper, HP CloudStart is available in the Asia Pacific region with a global roll-out anticipated by

the end of 2010.

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• Evaluates and selects a suitable target to accept the workload. The Matrix software displays available server blades. In this case, a BL465c and a BL460c are available. The BL460c has more headroom (indicated with a 5-star rating), but the BL465c has a 4-star headroom rating and is the same type of server blade on which the mail application is currently running.

• Initiates the move operation. The software deactivates the original server and moves its profile to the selected target blade. Within a few minutes, the mail and messaging workload is activated on the new server.

• Monitors the progress of the operation in real time. The administrator has the option to proceed with other work, as no user interaction is required.

With the workload moved to the new server, the mail and messaging service remains available to users with virtually no interruption. The administrator can commence the maintenance on the original server blade. Once the hardware maintenance is complete and the administrator identifies an appropriate time, a similar process can be used to move the workload to the upgraded server.

For a step-by-step guide and demo video for this use case, see http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/matrix/guides.html#ha.

Dynamic infrastructure provisioning from test and development to production Using Matrix, administrators can create a multi-tier test and development infrastructure using physical servers and virtual servers. In this scenario, a team is responsible for developing and testing multiple versions of a supply chain database application service. This example includes an IT architect designing and publishing the service template, a member of the test team creating the service using the self-service portal, an administrator approving the pending request, and automated provisioning and management of the service.

Matrix can also be used to rapidly activate and deactivate test and development environments, to repurpose infrastructure quickly without reinstallation. Sharing and pooling resources improves utilization and reduces cost. The team can create a logical server for each application test environment, provision each logical server once, and then, as priorities change, deactivate logical servers not being used. A deactivated logical server does not consume server resources such as CPU, memory, or power, but its profile, including associated SAN storage, is retained so that it can be quickly reactivated in about the same time as it takes to boot the operating system.

For step-by-step guides and recorded demos documenting these two scenarios, see http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/matrix/guides.html#di.

Ongoing optimization and consolidation with energy awareness The real-time capacity planning capability of Matrix enables rapid rebalancing and repurposing of physical and virtual servers to address changing business priorities. As resource requirements of application workloads lessen, an administrator can dynamically consolidate these workloads onto fewer virtual machine hosts to allow for better utilization of the existing server blade hardware. Any physical server blade no longer needed after the consolidation can either be temporarily powered off to save energy costs, or quickly and easily repurposed.

Two use cases illustrating this scenario are documented in step-by-step guides and demo videos, one using VMware ESX virtual machines, and another using Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines. See http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/matrix/guides.html#cc.

Matrix real-time capacity planning capabilities also enable consolidation of workloads in an energy-efficient manner. The use of capacity planning scenarios and scenario comparison reports makes it

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easy to compare energy consumption of different data center configurations, enabling better use of power, cooling and space resources. For details on this use case, see the step-by-step guide and recorded demo at http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/matrix/guides.html#ea.

Appendix C: HP Cloud Maps—an example This example shows how a typical enterprise can make use of HP Cloud Maps for BladeSystem Matrix to create a catalog of templates for provisioning infrastructure services. This example, based on industry best practices, describes the design of a complex multi-tier service running Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 for 500 mailboxes. The resources for this service include:

• Physical servers for Exchange mailbox servers • Virtual machines for Exchange hub servers • Public network connections • Private heartbeat connection for the cluster nodes • Storage resources

The HP Cloud Map for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007—3000 user (see http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/us/en/partners/cloudmaps-microsoft.html) includes a template, workflow, and scripts, as well as white papers describing how to use and customize the template and workflow and including links to a sizing tool and other resources. The import function of the Matrix designer interface enables the architect to accelerate the design process by starting with the provided Matrix template for Exchange (Figure A-1). To derive customized requirements for a highly available and high performance service to support 500 mailboxes, the architect uses the HP Sizing and Configuration Tool for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

Using the configuration and sizing tool, the architect generates a recommended configuration using the following requirements:

• Number of Mailboxes: 500 • Mailbox Size: 500MB • Workload Definition: medium • Preferred Server, Platform: Blade – BL Series • Processor: Intel • Server: ProLiant BL460c Server • Storage Architecture, select SAN Storage – Fibre Channel • Array Choices: StorageWorks EVA4400 • High Availability: Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR)

The architect updates the imported base template for the Exchange service using the configuration details provided by the sizing tool, including the number of storage groups, the size of the storage group for the database and its transaction log, and the recommended RAID level. The architect names and saves the newly customized template. Following similar steps, the architect can create a catalog of templates from which users can provision the infrastructure services needed.

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Figure A-1. HP Cloud Map reference architecture infrastructure template for Microsoft Exchange service

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Glossary of terms Allocation—The process of assigning server, storage, and network resources to a service request based on the criteria defined in the service template, the resource pools assigned to the user, and the current reservations or allocations of resources completed by the Matrix infrastructure orchestration software. Approval—Action by an administrator for a service request submitted by a self-service user, required before the provisioning of the service can commence. API—Application programming interface. Central management server (CMS)—A system in the management domain that hosts and executes the HP Systems Insight Manager software. All central operations such as discovery, monitoring, provisioning, capacity planning, and recovery management within the framework of HP Systems Insight Manager are initiated from this system. Cloud APIs---A set of web service interfaces provided by HP to permit customers, partners, and integrators to integrate Matrix infrastructure orchestration capabilities into their business and IT operations processes or to combine with their own offerings to provide new capabilities. HP has submitted these interfaces to the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) Cloud Management Working Group in support of an industry open standard cloud services API. See also API. Cloud Map—An HP navigational tool for use in creating service catalogs. HP Cloud Maps contain engineering components such as best practice reference architecture templates, workflows, sizers, and deployment scripts, as well as supporting white papers to assist with customization. Cloud Service Automation for Matrix—Optional HP Business Technology Optimization software, based on HP Server Automation and HP SiteScope, that enables seamless infrastructure and application deployment and provides application monitoring and lifecycle management for physical and virtual servers and applications. Continuous access—Array-based applications that provide synchronous or asynchronous data replication over distance between HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Arrays and between StorageWorks XP Disk Arrays. FlexFabric—HP virtualized, high-performance, low-latency network architecture for Converged Infrastructure. HP FlexFabric consolidates Ethernet and storage network protocols into a single fabric. Infrastructure orchestration—The set of processes, enabled by Matrix software, for designing, provisioning, and managing infrastructure services. The software includes an embedded workflow automation engine powered by HP Operations Orchestration software. The infrastructure orchestration software of Matrix defines and enables three distinct roles:

Architect—Uses the infrastructure orchestration graphical design tool to develop, test, and publish service templates that capture the requirements to provision infrastructure services. The architect specifies attributes for the logical resources, may author and attach workflows to automate additional IT tasks during provisioning or ongoing management of the service infrastructure, and may make use of HP Cloud APIs to integrate business processes. See also Cloud APIs, service template, workflow. Administrator—Uses the infrastructure orchestration console to create pools of servers and storage, to manage the available networks and software inventory, to approve user requests, and to modify user service infrastructures. The administrator may also perform manual tasks within a semi-automated operation. See also resource pools. User—Uses the infrastructure orchestration self-service portal to request infrastructure services by selecting a service template, selecting one or more assigned resource pools to use, and specifying a lease period for the start and end of the overall service. During the lease period the user can update the service. See also lease period, service request.

Infrastructure service—A running configuration of infrastructure resources that supports a business application such as a multi-tier web application. Infrastructure resources include server blades, virtual machines, SAN disks, networks, and IP addresses. It is also referred to as a service or service instance. Matrix provides lifecycle management of a service, including start and end controls, ability to extend service period and accompanying resource allocation, or adding server or storage resources per template definition. Lease period—The duration, or lifetime, of an infrastructure service. The user sets or changes the lease period. Logical server—A management abstraction defined by a server profile that describes the system resources needed for a given operating system (OS), application, and workload to operate. For example, a profile includes resource specifications such as processors and memory, and unique identifiers such as Media Access Control (MAC) addresses and World-Wide Names (WWNs). A logical server profile can be created for a physical server or a virtual machine and moved across physical or virtual machines. Logical servers allow administrators to manage physical and virtual machines using the same management construct. (For more information on logical servers, see Introducing logical servers: Making data center infrastructures more adaptive, http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01402013/c01402013.pdf.) Matrix Operating Environment—A shared services management platform powered by HP Insight Dynamics that that automates infrastructure lifecycle management. It enables optimization of server, storage and network resources in compliance with core business, security, and regulatory policies. Primary site—The site where all logical servers being managed by Matrix recovery management are activated. See also recovery management. Private cloud—“A style of computing where scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to internal customers using Internet technologies.”5 Provisioning—The process within Matrix of creating an infrastructure service from a template. The Matrix software searches its inventory before allocating the infrastructure resources to all logical resource definitions in the template. Recovery management—Function of Matrix software for ProLiant servers that provides automated disaster recovery of physical and virtual logical server environments, enabling the transfer, or fail over, of workloads to a recovery site. Recovery management integrates the replication capabilities of HP storage environments. Recovery management identifies recovery groups, a pairing of one or more logical servers and a single Storage Replication Group. During a site failover, recovery groups are failed over from the primary site to the recovery site in a pre-established order. See also primary site, recovery site. Recovery management for HP-UX-based Integrity servers is available through an upgrade to HP Serviceguard disaster recovery solutions. Recovery site—The site to which all recovery groups are failed over during disaster recovery. See also recovery management. Resource pools—A group of physical and virtual infrastructure resources. An administrator controls resource utilization by allowing users access to one or more resource pools. Server group—Defined in a service template, a set of one or more servers with the same role that can be treated as a tier, enabling the construction of a multi-tier infrastructure service. Service request—Online submission by a user through the self-service portal to initiate provisioning and ongoing changes to the infrastructure. Users can monitor and cancel requests. Requests can be approved, rejected, canceled, or continued by administrators. Service template—A design blueprint that specifies the requirements for an infrastructure service in terms of server groups, networks, and storage, and contains customization points that use workflows during the execution of a request. A template may also include the application for the service. See also infrastructure service. Workflow—A set of actions that execute customer-specific IT tasks. Workflows can define integration with IT processes, including approvals, manual OS deployment, manual storage provisioning, and sending notifications. Making use of the workflow automation engine embedded

5 Thomas J. Bittman, Gartner, Inc. Q&A: The Many Aspects of Private Cloud Computing, October 22, 2009.

in Matrix (powered by HP Operations Orchestration software), architects can associate workflows with service templates, to be executed before and/or after provisioning based on the associated templates. Examples include workflows to update a configuration management database (CMDB) or open a change request in a ticketing system at precise points within the provisioning or other infrastructure service lifecycle workflow.

For more information For more information on HP BladeSystem Matrix see:

www.hp.com/go/matrix

www.hp.com/go/matrixdemos

www.hp.com/go/cloudmaps

www.hp.com/go/insightsoftware

www.hp.com/go/convergedinfrastructure

www.hp.com/go/csa4matrix

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4AA0-5550ENW, Created February 2010, Updated October 2010