Introduction; Hp Xp7 Overview; Hardware Overview - HP XP7 Owner's Manual

1 Introduction

HP XP7 overview

The HP XP7 is a high capacity, high performance disk array that offers a wide range of storage
and data services, software, logical partitioning, and simplified and unified data replication across
heterogeneous disk arrays. Its large scale, enterprise class virtualization layer combined with Smart
Tiers and Thin Provisioning software, delivers virtualization of internal and external storage into
one pool.
Using this system, you can deploy applications within a new framework, leverage and add value
to current investments, and more closely align IT with business objectives. HP XP7 disk arrays
provide the foundation for matching application requirements to different classes of storage and
deliver critical services including:
Business continuity services
Content management services (search, indexing)
Non disruptive data migration
Thin Provisioning
Smart Tiers
High availability
Security services
I/O load balancing
Data classification
File management services
New technological advances improve reliability, serviceability and access to disk drives and other
components when maintenance is needed. Each component contains a set of LEDs that indicate
the operational status of the component. The system includes new and upgraded software features,
including Smart Tiers, and a significantly improved, task oriented version of Remote Web Console
that is designed for ease of use and includes context sensitive online help. The system documentation
has been changed to a task oriented format that is designed to help you find information quickly
and complete tasks easily.

Hardware overview

The HP XP7 disk arrays contain significant new technology that was not available in previous HP
disk arrays. The system can be configured in many ways, starting with a small (one rack) to a large
(six rack) system that includes two controller chassis, up to 2304 HDD drives which include up to
384 solid state drives, and a total of 2048 GB cache. The system provides a highly granular
upgrade path, allowing the addition of disk drives to the drive chassis, and Processors Blades and
other components to the controller chassis in an existing system as storage needs increase. The
controller chassis (or DKU) of the HP XP7 disk array can be combined so that what would previously
have been two separate disk arrays are now a single disk array with homogeneous logic control,
cache, and front end and back end interfaces, all mounted in custom HP 19 inch racks.
A basic HP XP7 disk array is a control rack (Rack- 00) that contains a controller chassis and two
drive chassis (factory designation DKU). The fully configured HP XP7 disk array consists of two
controller chassis and sixteen drive chassis for fully configured system. The controller chassis contains
the control logic, processors, memory, and interfaces to the drive chassis and the host servers. A
drive chassis consists of disks or SSD drives, power supplies, and the interface circuitry connecting
it to the controller chassis. The remaining racks (Rack-01, Rack-02, Rack- 1 0 and Rack- 1 1) contain
from one to three drive chassis.
6 Introduction