By Calvin Zito

An often overlooked gem in HP's storage portfolio is HP Data Protector.  I sat down to talk data protection of virtual machines and more specifically of VMware with Billy Naples, the HP Data Protector Product Marketing Manager.  Billy knows data protection and this was a fun discussion for me to have, especially with VMworld next week. 

If you have any issues with the embedded player, click here to listen to the podcast.   

Here are a few links where you can learn more about HP Data Protector:

• HP Data Protector software product page: www.hp.com/go/DataProtector (now, that one is easy to remember)


• Assuring Business Continuity in Virtualised Environments paper (someone is obviously British!)


• Complete Protection for VMware environments with HP Data Protector software webcast (requires registration but it's well worth it - it's 16 minutes)


• HP Data Protector 6.1 software VMware Integration Installation Best Practice technical white paper (Must read if implementing Data Protector with VMware)

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By Calvin Zito  

Next week is VMworld in San Francisco - and as the number one partner of VMworld, HP will have a big presence at the event.  Are you surprised to hear that HP is the number one partner?  Here are a few "fun facts":

• We have more server models certified for VMware than any other vendor
• HP StorageWorks has more certified storage systems on VMware than any other vendor
• HP StorageWorks systems on VMware span SMB to Enterprises and include SAS, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel shared storage technologies.  
• We are also the only VMware certified solution that takes disks or direct attached storage systems in an ESX server and turn them into a virtual SAN with HP LeftHand Virtual SAN Appliance.
• HP and EDS have more VMware certified professionals (VCPs) -768-- than anyone except VMware

I'll be there tweeting and blogging with some other colleagues.  You can follow all of us: @ProLiant,  @BladeNews,  @TSatHP,  @HPITOps, and yours truly, @HPStorageGuy.  We'll be using the hashtag #HPVMW to help you find what we have to say.  Use it your self and join the conversation!

If you are going to be there, drop me a tweet or leave a comment.  To help you find me, here's what my HPstorageGuy polo shirt looks like:

If you can't travel to VMWorld, you can get all of the latest buzz from us at www.hp.com/go/VMworld.

Lastly, here are a few of the HP sessions at VMworld that you might consider that I'll also be attending:

• "Stop Virtualizing Servers, Start Virtualizing Infrastructure", with HP EVP Ann Livermore (Session ID SS5150, Tuesday at 9:30 AM

• "VDI to the edge: deploying virtual desktops to remote and branch offices", with Adam Carter from our HP LeftHand (Session ID SV2493, Wednesday at 4 PM)

• "Conquering Costs and Complexity in a Virtualized Environment: Research and Case Studies" with IDC Research Vice President Michelle Bailey (Session ID VM5401, Wednesday at 10 AM)

Look for a few blog posts from VMworld next week and look me up if your there.

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By Nimish Shelat, Product Manager for HP Storage Essentials Storage Resource Management software

I wrote in July on the developments the storage software group has been doing.  I followed up with how Storage Essentials SRM software can help manage storage in a virtual environment (Link Here).  But I realized I left off some of the fundamentals - I get so caught up in this stuff I forget not everyone lives and breathes it as I do!  So let me back up a bit.

The HP Storage Essentials (SE) software suite is a comprehensive storage resource management (SRM) solution that simplifies management of heterogeneous enterprise storage environment via storage provisioning, metering, and customized reporting, business application and backup monitoring, and end-to-end performance management.

Storage Essentials is a key component of the HP Business Service Automation (BSA) suite, which enables integrated automation of the entire IT service including applications, servers, network, and storage infrastructure.  The integrated suites allow customers to discover and baseline their service infrastructure and manage its operations to enable service performance, availability, and improved IT agility.

Today I want to build on my last post and talk a bit more about delivering on the promise of automation......

We have noticed that in most enterprise customer environments typical IT service involves many components like applications, servers, network, and storage. Each service has multiple configurations and interdependencies and is managed by different teams using disparate management systems.  Customers with such an interconnected IT infrastructure require multiple IT systems and teams to collaborate in a coordinated, process-oriented approach to be effective.

Making a simple task such as provisioning new storage to an application is typically a multi-step process that requires that several teams work together.  I've seen it look like this:

The storage team needs to create new storage volume and assign it to the server

• The server team needs to create the server logical volumes and/or file systems to use the new storage


• And finally the DBA or the application administrator needs to assign the new storage to the appropriate application

In the same way, typical ITIL-defined change processes for storage infrastructure require coordination across multiple systems and teams, like this:

• The storage team scopes the changes to the storage domain-including the host-based storage resources that would be potentially impacted


• The storage team inputs this data into a change management system as a Request for Change


• The Change Advisory Board (or the IT service managers) evaluates service impact of the proposed changes to plan/schedule the change


• Upon approval from the Change Advisory Board, the storage team executes the change


• The storage team updates the change management system with the executed changes


• The IT service manager updates the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) to reflect the new state of the IT service-with the changed infrastructure and its configuration and interrelationships

All of these processes although critical are executed manually today.  This puts a lot of pressure on the customer who must manually integrate the systems and coordinate the end-to-end process.  Automation can help with the challenges associated with such a manual method. 

As I discussed last month, HP's storage automation software suite is designed specifically to streamline these manual process.  The suite is comprised of HP Storage Essentials Storage Resource Management software and the newly released Storage Essentials Performance Edition.  

There's another cool product that further enables end-to-end storage automation--HP Operations Orchestration runbook automation.  These two products offer a tight integration that automates storage provisioning, thereby reducing manual, error-prone IT management processes.  This solution offers many virtualization-centric workflows that integrate server, storage, and network tasks in the virtualized environment. Check it out for yourself here.

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