• StorMagic SvSAN with HPE ProLiant MicroServer Solution Brief

StorMagic SvSAN with HPE ProLiant MicroServer Solution Brief

Published On: 15th November 202210.9 min readTags: , , ,

Edge Data Protection with HPE and StorMagic

Combine HPE ProLiant MicroServer and StorMagic SvSAN for a robust, all-in-one architecture specifically suited for implementing applications at the edge

Introduction

The necessity for near real-time processing in essential applications is driving a push to deploy compute power where it’s most valuable: at the edge. On-premises edge computing also requires high availability and disaster recovery at a reasonable price. By integrating the power of the HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus platform with the ease and dependability of StorMagic SvSAN, edge models can be swiftly deployed and maintained locally or remotely, with virtually instant self-heal capabilities. This joint solution is edge ready and edge optimized.

When deployed with StorMagic SvSAN, HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus servers are a robust, all-in-one architecture specifically suited for implementing applications at the edge. StorMagic’s lightweight software can be loaded on the HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus, making it easy to run applications with SAN functionality anywhere while reducing workloads for IT teams.

The HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus server is designed for sites that require high availability (HA) infrastructure outside the data center. It can be deployed in practically any location, even a server closet or other places without server racks. It provides a fully functional, integrated platform for running applications, including HA clustering, rolling software upgrades, and integrated data security while utilizing an exceedingly small footprint. General-purpose, industrial, and the Internet of Things (IoT) applications can benefit from its form factor and connectivity. The compact form consumes little power and is simple to install and scale while providing the reliability required for edge computing. The HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus portfolio can be combined with SvSAN to provide an innovative, high-performance solution for numerous organizations in various industries. The power and security of StorMagic SvSAN on HPE servers provides a superior solution for the edge.

Download the SvSAN with HPE ProLiant MicroServer solution brief:

StorMagic SvSAN with HPE ProLiant MicroServer Solution Brief

A partnership trusted around the world

StorMagic® is an active member of the HPE Partner Ready for Technology Partner Program in the server and integrated system categories. This solution brief focuses on two HPE ProLiant server models that SvSAN has been tested and verified on: the HPE ProLiant MicroServer for small office deployment and the HPE ProLiant MicroServer and VMware® Virtualization solution. SvSAN is compatible with HPE servers, with hundreds of
organizations placing their trust in HPE hardware and StorMagic software. There are multiple reference architectures available that combine the power and security of HPE servers with SvSAN across HPE ProLiant and HPE Edgeline platforms. Read more about the combination of SvSAN and HPE servers from the HPE Edgeline solution brief and the HPE ProLiant solution brief.

Industry-leading innovation, performance, and reliability

HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus delivers an affordable, compact yet powerful edge-optimized server that can be customized for edge, hybrid cloud, or even workloads demanding data-center-like performance. It is the most compact HPE ProLiant MicroServer launched so far, which can be placed flat or vertically depending on the location and space requirements.

The latest Intel Xeon E and Pentium processors are supported to deliver compute performance and security, and remote management with silicon root of trust from HPE iLO. Other enhancements such as 4 x 1GbE onboard NICs and USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A, make the HPE ProLiant MicroServer an extremely affordable and capable server, whether it is used as a general-purpose server, NAS, or even as a virtualization server.

Simplifying storage at the edge

SvSAN is a virtual SAN that makes the complex world of virtualized storage simple. Perfect for edge computing environments and small data centers, the technology is based on software-defined storage that helps eliminate the need for physical SANs. SvSAN is designed to be very simple to install and manage, whether deployed as part of a hyperconverged solution or as a storage-only target for any HPE server. SvSAN has extremely low hardware requirements, centralized management and deployment, and an incredibly lightweight witness that tolerates low-bandwidth and high-latency links while being separate from the server cluster. The witness allows for highly available genuine 2-node clusters or 3-node clusters that can withstand an offline server due to either failure or maintenance.

SvSAN is licensed based on the usable virtual storage appliance (VSA) capacity. License tiers are set at 2TB, 6TB, 12TB, 24TB, 48TB and unlimited TB. SvSAN is available as a perpetual or subscription license. After a single payment, perpetual SvSAN licenses can be used forever, with ongoing costs only for support renewal payments. Subscription SvSAN licenses are paid for upfront for a specific time period, one year for example, and then renewed as required. Pricing is based on a single SvSAN license – the number of nodes in the cluster defines how many licenses are required. The features necessary for highly available shared storage are included in a SvSAN license. Also, there are two performance and security-enhancing add-ons available: SvSAN’s caching and data encryption features.

SvSAN’s data encryption feature enables organizations to encrypt the data mirrored by SvSAN. This allows vulnerable edge sites and the data they hold to be protected. It is FIPS 140-2 compliant, helps eliminate the need for expensive OS or hypervisor-level solutions, and is compatible with any Key Management Service (KMS) that uses Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP), including StorMagic’s key manager, SvKMS™.

More details about SvSAN’s features, capabilities, and requirements can be found in the product data sheet and technical overview white paper.

StorMagic SvSAN min. hardware requirements:

Component Requirement
Servers 2 servers required

  • 3 optional for high availability during offline upgrades, maintenance, etc
CPU 1 x virtual CPU core1

  • 2 GHz or higher reserved
Memory 1 GB RAM2
Disk 2 x virtual storage devices used by VSA

  • 1 x 512 Mb boot device
  • 1 x 20 Gb journal disk
Network 1 x 1GbE

  • Multiple interfaces required for resiliency
  • 10GbE supported
  • Jumbo frames supported
1 When using SvSAN’s data encryption feature to encrypt data, more than two virtual CPUs are recommended.
2 Additional RAM may be required when caching is enabled.

SvSAN features:

  • Data is written to two SvSAN VSA nodes to ensure service uptime.
  • Write operations only complete once acknowledged on both SvSAN VSAs.
  • In the event of a failure, applications are failed over to other available resources.

  • Separate nodes geographically to provide an added layer of resiliency
  • Different racks, separate rooms or buildings, or even across an entire city
  • Read more about the stretch cluster feature in the dedicated white paper.

  • Transparently and non-disruptively migrate volumes from one storage location to another
  • Simple and mirrored volumes can be migrated between storage pools on the same SvSAN VSA node or to another SvSAN VSA node entirely
  • Read more about the volume migration feature in the dedicated white paper.

  • Automates the recovery process of an SvSAN VSA node following a server failure or replacement
  • SvSAN VSA configuration changes are tracked and stored on another SvSAN VSA in the cluster
  • Mirror targets are rebuilt and resynchronized, enabling a quick return to optimal service
  • Simple targets can be automatically recreated, ready for data recovery from backup

  • Accelerating VMware I/O operations by offloading them to SvSAN
  • Supports the Write Same and Atomic Test & Set (ATS) primitives

  • Monitor and manage SvSAN from a single location with multiple options including WebGUI
  • Seamless integration with vCenter Web Client enabling alerts to be forwarded and captured on one screen
  • Email alert notifications using SMTP, and SNMP integration with support for v2 and v3

  • Easily deploy containers at the edge with persistent, highly available storage
  • No additional costs to deploy containers in an SvSAN cluster
  • One platform at the edge for VMs, containers, or both
  • Read more about the CSI driver in the dedicated white paper.

  • Deploy and upgrade VSAs through a single wizard either immediately or in a staged approach for out-of-hours activity
  • SvSAN handles dependencies and performs a health check ensuring there is no impact to environments

  • Provides granular, historical I/O transaction, throughput and latency statistics for each volume
  • Simple, intuitive graphical presentation with minimum, maximum, and average values for daily, monthly, yearly time periods
  • Data can be exported to CSV for further analysis

  • Acts as a quorum or tiebreaker and assists cluster leadership elections to prevent “split-brain”
  • Hundreds of locations can share a single witness and it tolerates low bandwidth, high latency WAN links
  • Supported configurations include local witness, remote shared witness or no witness
  • Read more about the witness feature in the dedicated white paper.

  • Deployments over many locations can be handled by generating a custom PowerShell script

  • Simplifies the process of upgrading multiple VSAs with full control over date/time and how many/which clusters to upgrade
  • Upgrades can be carried out on one or more SvSAN VSAs simultaneously, ensuring storage remains online throughout
  • Automated process stages the firmware, checks cluster health, then proceeds with upgrading each VSA in turn
  • Read more about this feature in this blog article

  • Install SvSAN on servers without hardware RAID controllers, such as the Lenovo SE350 and HPE Edgeline EL8000
  • Configure as RAID 0 (striping) or RAID 10 as required
  • Read more about this feature in this blog article

Predictive Storage Caching add-on:

Explore features included in the Predictive Storage Caching add-on.

  • Beneficial to sequential read workloads – populates memory with data prior to being requested
  • Boosts performance by reducing I/O requests going to disk, instead serving data from low latency memory
  • Read more about SvSAN’s caching features in the dedicated white paper.

  • Utilizes SSDs to improve the performance of all write operations by lowering latencies and increasing the effective IOPS, resulting in faster response times, especially for random write workloads.
  • All write I/O’s are directed to the SSD allowing completion to be immediately acknowledged back to the server, at a later time the data is written from SSD to the hard disk.
  • Read more about SvSAN’s caching features in the dedicated white paper.

  • Allows data to permanently reside in memory, ensuring that data is always available in the highest performing, lowest latency cache tier, useful for frequently repeated operations such as booting virtual machines.
  • Intelligent caching algorithms identify ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ data, elevating the ‘hot’ data to the highest performing, lowest latency storage tier (SSD or memory).
  • Read more about SvSAN’s caching features in the dedicated white paper.

Data Encryption add-on:

Explore features included in the Data Encryption add-on.

  • Encrypts data before it is written to disk with a FIPS 140-2 compliant algorithm
  • Use any KMIP compliant Key Management Server, any x86 server and storage type and encrypt all data or just selected volumes
  • No need for specialist hardware, eliminates the need for OS or hypervisor-level encryption
  • Read more about SvSAN’s data encryption feature in the dedicated white paper.

More information and next steps

Additional information is available for HPE servers on the HPE website, including individual data sheets for each server model. Likewise, StorMagic has a library of documentation on SvSAN, including installation guides, white papers, and data sheets.

StorMagic is an official HPE partner in the server and integrated system categories. StorMagic’s software has been tested and verified with HPE technologies. Contact your local HPE partner or HPE representative, or speak to the team at StorMagic, who are ready to provide information and assistance on the partnership and its possibilities. Simply email [email protected] to reach out.

HPE Silver Technology Partner - Server Tested

Commonly seen deployments

The following server specs are the most frequently deployed when using SvSAN with the HPE ProLiant MicroServer. They have been comprehensively tested and certified with SvSAN. However, SvSAN is compatible with all HPE servers, meaning there is a huge range of possibilities for any organization and environment. Additional solution bundles can be found on the HPE website.

HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus for small office deployment solution HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus and VMware Virtualization solution
  • HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus + InstantOn AP22
  • Xeon E-2224 4-core
  • 7 x 16 GB DIMM
  • 4 x 1 TB SATA HDD; Windows 2019 Standard
  • 1 HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus and E-2224 S100i 4LFF-NHP 180W External PS server
  • 4 HPE 1TB SATA 6G Business Critical 7.2K LFF RW 1-year Warranty Multi Vendor HDD
  • 1 HPE MicroServer Gen10 Plus and HPE iLO Enablement Kit
  • 1 HPE Smart Array E208i-p SR Gen10 (8 Internal Lanes/No Cache) 12G SAS PCIe Plug-in controller
  • 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (16-core) Standard Reseller Option Kit English SW
  • 1 3-year HPE Pointnext Tech Care Basic MicroServer Gen10 Plus service
  • 1 Aruba InstantOn AP11 (US) 2×2 11ac Wave 2 Indoor Access Point
  • Ideal for up to 5 vCPUs
  • Xeon E-2224 4-core
  • 2 x 16 GB DIMM
  • 4 x 1 TB SATA HDD
  • VMware vSphere® Essentials Kit
  • 1 HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus and E-2224 S100i 4LFF-NHP 180W External PS server
  • 4 HPE 1TB SATA 6G Business Critical 7.2K LFF RW 1-year Warranty Multi Vendor HDD
  • 1 HPE MicroServer Gen10 Plus and HPE iLO Enablement Kit
  • 1 HPE Smart Array E208i-p SR Gen10 (8 Internal Lanes/No Cache) 12G SAS PCIe Plug-in controller
  • 1 HPE 16GB (1x16GB) Dual Rank x8 DDR4-2666 CAS-19-19-19 Unbuffered Standard Memory Kit
  • 1 VMware vSphere Essentials 3yr E-LTU
  • 1 3-year HPE Pointnext Tech Care Basic MicroServer Gen10 Plus service

Deploying SvSAN on HPE ProLiant MicroServers

Download the SvSAN with HPE ProLiant MicroServer solution brief:

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