HP has announced several enhancements to its HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage family to help customers get more out of both new and existing arrays by taking better advantage of SSDs. These enhancements are a combination of free software upgrades that unlock more performance within 3PAR arrays with intelligent flash management and performance tuning, along with analytics that provide actionable insight into data use patterns to determine where and how much flash to introduce into a system.
HP has announced several enhancements to its HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage family to help customers get more out of both new and existing arrays by taking better advantage of SSDs. These enhancements are a combination of free software upgrades that unlock more performance within 3PAR arrays with intelligent flash management and performance tuning, along with analytics that provide actionable insight into data use patterns to determine where and how much flash to introduce into a system.
Thin Dedupe for SSD
HP has added thin deduplication support across all SSD tiers on all new and existing HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 and 10000 models. Thin deduplication for SSDs essentially improves the effective utilization of flash netting capacity efficiency. 3PAR offloads this work to the ASIC to ensure data integrity while minimizing the performance hit to the flash tiers.
Adaptive Flash Cache/Express Writes
HP has released Adaptive Flash Cache and Express Writes technology for 3PAR. Adaptive Flash Cache accelerates random reads especially by extending the storage system cache by using SSD capacity and can be applied selectively or across the array. SSDs can be dedicated to this role, or segmented for use in both typical tiering duty and as part of the cache extension. This feature means cold reads find their way into the cache more quickly, potentially doubling random read rates from disk and reducing read latency by up to 70%. The total amount of flash cache varies by 3PAR system, ranging from 768GB in the 7200 to 8TB in the 10800. The 3PAR OS allows concurrent use of Adaptive Flash Cache and Adaptive Optimization sub-LUN tiering, enabling cost savings and higher performance across the array.
To help address write latency, Express Writes introduces efficiencies designed for database workloads that better handle transactional logs. The feature is global to the system with no changes required on the host and shows an average write latency reduction of 10%. Existing HDD-based 3PAR systems can add a small number of SSDs to give their arrays a vastly improved performance profile with these new features without making any other changes or large investments in new hardware.
Flash Advisor
To help customers understand their workloads and where or how much flash could benefit them, HP has released the 3PAR Flash Advisor. Flash Advisor is a built-in toolset that delivers actionable insight about HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems in order to optimize current and future flash investments. Flash Advisor features include several reports and analysis options:
- Lower costs by analyzing application data and selectively applying inline 3PAR Thin Deduplication with Inline Selective Deduplication to optimize performance and efficiency.
- Increase usable space—online and non-disruptively—by reclaiming flash capacity associated with duplicate data within existing thin or fully provisioned volumes with HP 3PAR Dynamic Optimization.
- Accelerate read-intensive applications by analyzing read and write ratios per storage volume and identifying suitable volumes to use with HP 3PAR Adaptive Flash Cache.
- Right-size investments by determining the precise amount of flash required to support “hot” data when using HP 3PAR Adaptive Optimization for sub-LUN tiering.
SAP HANA
The HP 3PAR StoreServ 7450 all-flash array has been certified for SAP HANA TDI, allowing a four-node SAP HANA scale-up server environment to be configured with 60% less space and power than a competitive alternative. All HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage models are certified with SAP HANA TDI including the HP 3PAR StoreServ 7200 All-flash Starter Kit and the HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 configuration.
Availability and pricing
HP 3PAR Flash Advisor, Thin Deduplication, Adaptive Flash Cache, and Express Writes are now available at no charge to existing customers with HP 3PAR Operating System Suite version 3.2.1. MU1.
HP 3PAR Dynamic Optimization is licensable software and is available now as part of the HP 3PAR Data Optimization Software Suite.
HP 3PAR StoreServ 7200 All-Flash Starter Kit is available now starting at $35,000.
