Virtual Storage Platform is the brand name for a Hitachi Data Systems

Hitachi Data Systems

Hitachi Data Systems is a company providing mid-range and high-end storage systems, software and services. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. and part of the Hitachi Information Systems & Telecommunications Division....

 line of enterprise storage

Enterprise storage

In computing, an enterprise storage is the computer storage designed for large-scale, high-technology environments of the modern enterprises. When comparing to the consumer storage, it has higher scalability, higher reliability, better fault tolerance, and much higher initial price.From the...

 systems.

History

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, also known as VSP was first introduced in September, 2010. This storage platform builds on the design of Universal Storage Platform

Universal Storage Platform

Universal Storage Platform is the brand name for an Hitachi Data Systems line of enterprise storage arrays-History :The Hitachi Universal Storage Platform, also known as the USP was first introduced in 2004....

 V, originally released in 2007.

Architecture

At the heart of the system is the HiStar E-Network, a fifth-generation network crossbar switch matrix. This storage platform is made up of different technologies than USP and USP V. The connectivity to back-end disks is via 6Gb/s SAS

Serial Attached SCSI

Serial Attached SCSI is a computer bus used to move data to and from computer storage devices such as hard drives and tape drives. SAS depends on a point-to-point serial protocol that replaces the parallel SCSI bus technology that first appeared in the mid 1980s in data centers and workstations,...

 links instead of 4Gb/s Fibre Channel loop. The internal processors are now Intel multi-core processors, and in addition to 3.5-inch drives support has been added for 2.5 inch small-form factor HDDs. The VSP supports SSD

Solid-state drive

A solid-state drive , sometimes called a solid-state disk or electronic disk, is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data with the intention of providing access in the same manner of a traditional block i/o hard disk drive...

, SAS

Serial Attached SCSI

Serial Attached SCSI is a computer bus used to move data to and from computer storage devices such as hard drives and tape drives. SAS depends on a point-to-point serial protocol that replaces the parallel SCSI bus technology that first appeared in the mid 1980s in data centers and workstations,...

 and SATA

Serial ATA

Serial ATA is a computer bus interface for connecting host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives and optical drives...

 drives.

Notable features include:

• The ability to scale in 3 dimensions (3D Scaling
  3D Scaling
  A 3D scaling storage architecture provides the ability to scale up for improved performance, scale out to improve capacity and deliver increased aggregate throughput and scale deep to connect and manage external multi-vendor storage platforms...
  
  ) which allows for infrastructure growth on three axes.
  • Scale up to meet increasing demands by dynamically adding processors, connectivity and capacity in a single unit. This enables tuning the configuration for optimal performance for both open systems and mainframe environments.
  • Scale out to meet demands by dynamically combining multiple units into a single logical system with shared resources. Support increased needs in virtualized server environments and ensure safe multitenancy and quality of service through partitioning of cache and ports.
  • Scale deep to extend the advanced functions of Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform to multivendor storage through virtualization. Offload less-critical data to external tiers in order to optimize the availability of the tier one resources.
• Supports automated storage tiering, known as Dynamic Tiering, to automate the movement of data between tiers to optimize performance.
• Front to back cooling airflow for more efficient cooling
• Improved capacity per square foot and lower power consumption compared to the USP V.
• Enables virtualization
  Storage Virtualization
  Storage virtualization or storage virtualisation is a concept and term used within computer science. Specifically, storage systems may use virtualization concepts as a tool to enable better functionality and more advanced features within the storage system.Broadly speaking, a 'storage system' is...
  
   of external SAN storage from Hitachi and other vendors into one pool
• Supports online local and distance replication
  Replication (computer science)
  Replication is the process of sharing information so as to ensure consistency between redundant resources, such as software or hardware components, to improve reliability, fault-tolerance, or accessibility. It could be data replication if the same data is stored on multiple storage devices, or...
  
   and migration
  Data migration
  Data migration is the process of transferring data between storage types, formats, or computer systems. Data migration is usually performed programmatically to achieve an automated migration, freeing up human resources from tedious tasks...
  
   of data nondisruptively internally and between heterogeneous storage, without interrupting application I/O through use of products such as Tiered Storage Manager, ShadowImage, TrueCopy and Universal Replicator.
• Single image global cache accessible across all virtual storage directors for maximum performance.
• Automated wide-striping of data, which allows pool balancing and lets volume grow or shrink dynamically.
• The system can scale between one and six 19-inch rack cabinets. It can hold a maximum of 2,048 SAS high-density 2.5-inch drives for 1.2 petabytes of capacity, or 1,280 3.5-inch SATA drives for a maximum capacity of 2.5 petabytes.
• Supports thin provisioning
  Thin Provisioning
  Thin provisioning is the act of using virtualization technology to give the appearance of more physical resource than is actually available. If you always have enough resource to simultaneously support all of the virtualized resources then you are not thin provisioned...
  
   and storage reclamation on internal and external virtualized storage
• Provides encryption, WORM and data shredding services, data resilience and business continuity services and content management services.

Specifications

Virtual Storage Platform Specifications

• Frames (19-inch racks
  Rack unit
  A rack unit or U is a unit of measure used to describe the height of equipment intended for mounting in a 19-inch rack or a 23-inch rack...
  
  ) - Integrated Control Chassis/Disk Chassis Frame (2) and up to 4 optional Disk Chassis Frames
• HiStar-E Network - Number of grid switches 4 pair (8)
• Aggregate bandwidth (GB/sec) - 192
• Aggregate IOPS - 5,600,000
• Cache
  Cache
  In computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...
  
   Memory
  • Number of data cache adapters (DCA) 2-16
  • Module capacity 2-8GB
  • Maximum cache memory 1,024GB
• Control Memory
  • Number of control memory modules 2-8
  • Module capacity 2-4GB
  • Maximum control memory 32GB
• Front End Directors
  Front end processor
  A front end processor , or a communications processor, is a small-sized computer which interfaces to the host computer a number of networks, such as SNA, or a number of peripheral devices, such as terminals, disk units, printers and tape units. Data is transferred between the host computer and the...
  
   (Connectivity)
  • Number of Directors 2-24
  • Fibre Channel
    Fibre Channel
    Fibre Channel, or FC, is a gigabit-speed network technology primarily used for storage networking. Fibre Channel is standardized in the T11 Technical Committee of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards , an American National Standards Institute –accredited standards...
    
     host ports per Director - 8 or 16
  • Fibre Channel port performance - 2, 4, 8 Gb/sec
  • Maximum Fibre Channel host ports - 192
  • Virtual host ports - 1,024 per physical port
  • Maximum IBM FICON
    FICON
    FICON is the IBM proprietary name for the ANSI FC-SB-3 Single-Byte Command Code Sets-3 Mapping Protocol for Fibre Channel protocol. It is a FC layer 4 protocol used to map both IBM’s antecedent channel-to-control-unit cabling infrastructure and protocol onto standard FC services and infrastructure...
    
     host ports - 192
  • Maximum IBM FCoE
    Fibre Channel over Ethernet
    Fibre Channel over Ethernet is an encapsulation of Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks. This allows Fibre Channel to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks while preserving the Fibre Channel protocol...
    
     host ports - 96
• Logical Devices (LUNs) — Maximum Supported
  • Open systems 65,536
  • IBM z/OS 65,536
• Disks
  • Type: Flash 200GB (2.5"), 400GB (3.5")
  • Type: SAS 146, 300, 600GB (2.5")
  • Type: SATA II 2TB
  • Number of disks per system (max) 2.5" - 2,048; 3.5" - 1,280
  • Number spare disks
    Hot spare
    A hot spare or hot standby is used as a failover mechanism to provide reliability in system configurations. The hot spare is active and connected as part of a working system. When a key component fails, the hot spare is switched into operation...
    
    per system (min-max) 1-256
  • Maximum Internal Raw Capacity - (2TB disks) 2.52PB
  • RAID 1, 5, 6 support
  • Maximum internal and external capacity 255PB
  • Max. Usable Internal capacity RAID-5 (7D+1P)
    • OPEN-V 2,080.8TB
    • z/OS 3390M 2,192.2TB
  • Max. Usable Internal Capacity RAID-6 (6D+2P)
    • OPEN-V 1,879TB
    • z/OS 3390M 1,779.7TB
  • Max. Usable Internal Capacity RAID-1+0 (2D+2D)
    • OPEN-V 1,256.6TB
    • z/OS 3390M 1,190.2TB
• Virtual Storage Machines 32 max
• Back End Directors 2-8
• Operating System Support
  • Mainframe
    • IBM: z/OS, z/OS.e, OS/390, z/VM, VM/ESA, zVSE, VSE/ESA, MVS/XA, MVS/ESA, TPF, Linux for IBM S/390 and zSeries;
  • Open systems
    • HP: HP-UX, Tru64 UNIX, Open VMS
    • IBM: AIX
    • Microsoft: Windows Server 2000, 2003, 2008
    • Novell: NetWare, SUSE Linux
    • Red Hat: Enterprise Linux
    • Oracle: Solaris
    • VMware: ESX Server

Storage Management

Hitachi Command Suite (formerly Hitachi Storage Command Suite) delivers management along three dimensions in support of the system as it does for all of the company's systems. 3D management simplifies operations and lowers costs along three distinct dimensions:

• Manage up to scale with the largest infrastructure deployments
• Manage out with breadth to manage storage, servers and the IT infrastructure
• Manage deep with the integration required to manage the multivendor resources of today’s complex data centers

Command Suite provides integrated storage resource management, tiered storage and business continuity software solutions allowing customers to align their storage with application requirements based upon metrics including Quality-of-Service, Service Level Objectives, Recovery Time Objectives and Recovery Point Objectives. Hitachi Command Suite employs a use case-driven, step-by-step wizard-based approach that allows administrators to perform tasks such as new volume provisioning, configuration of external storage, and creation/expansion of storage pools easily on the fly.

Hitachi Command Suite is composed of the following software
products:

• Hitachi Basic Operating System
  • Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning
  • Hitachi Device Manager
  • Hitachi Dynamic Link Manager Advanced
• Hitachi Basic Operating System V
  • Hitachi Universal Volume Manager
• Hitachi Dynamic Tiering
• Hitachi Command Director
• Hitachi Storage Capacity Reporter, powered by APTARE
• Hitachi Tiered Storage Manager
• Hitachi Tuning Manager
• Hitachi Virtual Server Reporter, powered by APTARE

Hitachi Command Suite also supports Open Standards management interfaces such as SNMP and SMI-S.