EVA to HP 3PAR StoreServ online import

[#1]

By Calvin Zito, @HPStorageGuy  

One of the videos I tried to have done before Discover but wasn't able to is a demo of new software capability - EVA to 3PAR Online Import.  Today, I have that video for you.  But let's start with some background information. 

What is it?

EVA to 3PAR Online Import manages the migration of data from a source EVA storage system to a destination 3PAR storage system. Using EVA to 3PAR Online Import, you can migrate EVA virtual disks and host configuration information to a 3PAR destination storage system without changing host configurations or interrupting data access.

EVA to 3PAR Online Import coordinates the movement of data from the source while servicing I/O requests from the hosts. During the data migration, host I/O is serviced from the destination 3PAR storage system. The host/virtual disk presentation implemented on the EVA is maintained on the 3PAR destination.

How does it work?

From the migration guide, here's a bit of a description on how the online data migration works.

1. The host is connected (zoned) to the source EVA storage system where its volumes reside.
2. A destination 3PAR storage system is connected (zoned) to the source EVA. The 3PAR storage system is configured as a new host on the source EVA. All of the volumes exported to the original host are exported to the 3PAR.
3. The 3PAR storage system "admits" these volumes, which creates a set of peer volumes that are fully backed by the data on the EVA.
4. The host is connected (zoned) to the destination 3PAR storage system. The admitted volumes on the 3PAR are now exported (presented) to the host.
5. The host performs the appropriate SCSI rescan/multipathing reconfiguration to detect the exported volumes from the 3PAR storage system. The exported volumes are detected as additional paths to existing EVA LUNs.
6. Once the host detects the paths to the 3PAR storage system, the host connections to the EVA can be unzoned. The host retains access to all its data through the 3PAR connections, which are now the only paths to the host data.
7. The 3PAR storage system begins copying data from the EVA to local storage on the 3PAR storage system. During this process, the 3PAR continues to mirror writes to the EVA, so the EVA retains a consistent copy of the data on the volumes being migrated. Once the 3PAR storage system has copied all the data on a volume to local storage, it stops mirroring writes to the EVA for that volume. The volume is now a normal local volume on the 3PAR storage system.
8. When all of the host volumes have been copied to the 3PAR storage system, the migration is complete. The exports from the EVA to the 3PAR storage system and the host can now be removed.
9. If no additional migrations are to be performed, the zoning between the source EVA and the destination 3PAR storage system can now be removed.

I will note there are three types of imports the software manages:

1. Online: I described the steps above and show in this in video.  This is for non-Windows host or a virtual disk presented to a non-Windows host. During online migration, all presentation relationships between hosts and virtual disks being migrated are maintained. Host I/O to the data is not disrupted during an online migration. When a VMware host is migrated, the Online procedure is always used.
2. Offline: when migrating one or more unpresented virtual disks. During offline migration, only the selected virtual disks are migrated. No hosts are migrated in this situation.
3. Minimally disruptive: Selected when migrating a Windows host or a virtual disk presented to a Windows host. The host DSM used to access the storage system must be reconfigured from the EVA DSM to a DSM that will communicate with the destination 3PAR storage system. Host I/O is interrupted only during the time it takes to reconfigure the host.

What are the requirements?

There are a few requirements that are listed in the migration guide (a link is at the end of the blog post) but let me call out a few of them:

• Source EVA storage system must be running a supported firmware level. See the SPOCK website for supported firmware versions.
• Source EVA storage systems must be managed by Command View 10.2.
• The destination 3PAR storage system must have a Peer Motion license installed.
• The destination 3PAR storage system must be at InForm OS level 3.1.2. or later.
• Source EVA storage systems must have external, not internal, FC switches.

There are more so be sure to read the migration guide.

So without further ado, here's the demo video showing an online migration - it's about 10 minutes long and I recommend you watch it full screen in either 720 or 1080HD mode (or maybe you can get your local movie theatre so play it on the big screen because it's a very high quality recording!).

Want to learn more?

I have a few things where you can dive deeper on this. 

• I've mentioned (and quoted from) the EVA to 3PAR Online Import Migration Guide - you can download the PDF and get tons more detail than I'm able to give here.
• Leah Schoeb, an analyst with the Evaluator Group, has a paper she's written titled HP EVA to 3PAR Online Import for EVA-to-3PAR StoreServ Migration.  Leah's paper evaluates the software and discusses a couple of different migrations. 
• If you'd rather get help in moving to HP 3PAR, my colleagues in HP Services (technology services) have a blog post "How to accelerate your move to HP 3PAR StoreServ" that is worth a read. 
• We had a lot of very significant announcements from HP Discover - I love the controversy the term "polymorphic" has created.  Frankly, I think it's spot on in describing our Converged Storage strategy.  If you want to catch up on everything we announced, we have an hp.com portal or you can check out all of my HP Discover related blog posts.

[#2]

Calvin - Thanks for the video demo of this functionality.  We've had our HP partner in and HP sales engineers try and explain this, but it makes a lot of sense when you see a demo.  I'd love to see something more in-depth about how HP achieves the online migration with zero downtime for VMware.

[#3]

Thanks Philip - I'll see if the team can help me do a demo specific to VMware or at least explain what is happening under the covers.  Great idea!

[#4]

Very good explanation and video! A video or demo saying more then 1000 words... ;-)

[#5]

Thanks Mark - glad you found the video demo helpful.  So do you want more +1000 word videos? 

[#6]

If the source EVA is not being managed by Command View 10.2 and the client does not have a valid software support contract are they then forced to purchase an upgrade/new LTU before they can use Online Import, or does the 3PAR Software Suite  provide a temp licence of CV 10.2 for the duration of the data migration?

[#7]

@jgillespie Technically, you should be under a service contract to get the software updates.  However, my understanding is that the software is available in the Software Depot and there's no enforcement to ensure you have a service contract.  But I didn't tell you. 

[#8]

Hi Calvin... i know that now is still not supported, do you know when EVA4000/6000/8000/6100/4100/8100 will be supported?? I am specially interested in the 6100/8000 models since i have to migrate those EVAs to a 3PAR V400. It was supposed to be available 60 days after General Availability, but still nothing. There will be a new Command View version to support them??

[#9]

PabloR, added suport for fw 6.250, so any eva runing it is supported for online inport