Data Storage Process; Virtual Array - HP StorageWorks 7110 - Virtual Array Service Manual

Data Storage Process

Virtual Array

38 Product Overview
The term "Virtual Array" refers to the way the array manages the disks as a
pool of data storage blocks instead of whole physical disks. Like other
virtualization within computer systems, this virtualization greatly simplifies the
management of the array. Internally, the array uses sophisticated data
structures to manage the logical-to-physical address translation. These data
structures, often referred to as the "maps", are key to the operation of the array.
See Figure 12.
Administrators' manage the capacity of the array using Redundancy Groups
and LUNs. Each disk belongs to a predefined Redundancy Group, and a LUN
is created from the capacity of a Redundancy Group. This is similar to
traditional arrays. The virtualization eliminates the need to manage the lower
level details. Redundancy Groups can be constructed from any number or
capacity of supported disks. Any number of disks can be added to a
Redundancy Group at any time. LUNs can be of any size up to the available
capacity of a RAID Group, or created and deleted without the knowledge of
the underlying physical disk layout. The VA 7100 supports up to 128 LUNs;
the VA 7400/7410 support up to 1024 LUNs.