Category:

Compute

HP announces OneView integration with vCenter Server

by Philip Sellers February 10, 2014

written by Philip Sellers

oneviewheader

Today at VMware Partner Exchange (PEX), HP announced vCenter Server integration for its HP OneView systems management package. Using REST API calls to HP OneView, the vCenter plugin is now able to initiate actions in HP OneView directly from the vSphere Web Client. HP OneView, introduced last September, is a central platform of the Converged Systems group and it is the glue that takes disparate components and makes them into a cohesive solution. The current version has support for HP BladeSystem, Virtual Connect and Gen8 ProLiant blades and rack-mount systems. Proliant G7 blades are also supported. It has a roadmap for adding support with HP networking and HP storage in the future. HP OneView provides both deployment, management and monitoring capabilities so that administrators can build out solutions and maintain solutions.

HP Grow Cluster - vCenter with OneView

As part of a demo of the integration, HP is showing off the ability to completely automate the build and deployment of ESXi nodes in a new cluster and into existing clusters. By utilizing OneView’s engine, a VMware administrator can kick off the orchestration of a new hardware build directly from vSphere Web Client using a simple “HP Grow Cluster” menu item (pictured above). The menu item kicks off a wizard drive workflow (at right) that calls the tasks in OneView via its REST API. The vCenter plugin allows the administrator to pick a reference server profile, create multiple server profiles from the template and then uses HP Server Provisioning to deploy an ESXi host build plan.

At the core of OneView is the software-defined model of IT – where the underlying hardware is abstracted from the software-based configuration and settings. The reference server profiles define a base level of hardware and combined with settings, including firmware levels, BIOS settings and the ProLiant server model and generation preferences. Once the reference profile is deployed, it becomes a server profile assigned to physical hardware. Like Virtual Connect server profiles, these are portable and can be migrated between physical hardware.

Customers who are familiar with HP’s Insight Control for vCenter will notice many similarities between the OneView integration and the Insight Control integration. The OneView plugin for vCenter shows network diagrams of port mappings and configuration as well as end-to-end storage mapping from the VM to the LUN and storage array. The current iteration of OneView relies on the same Insight Control for vCenter storage plugin. OneView has yet to adopt storage control and management directly into its platform, though it seems safe to expect its coming given HP’s direction.

The majority of this announcement is that VMware administrators can now kick off OneView tasks directly from the vSphere Web Client, monitor and view the progress and completion of the tasks it spawns. OneView is still in early in its life, but the interface is simple and intuitive. Its not overly complex at this time and its build with modern concepts, like search, deeply integrated into the core product. Extensions like the vCenter plugin are great enhancements for administrators who are accustomed to working in a native platform and gain access to the capabilities of OneView directly from a familiar console. This release continues on HP’s track record of delivering usable functionality directly to VMware administrators from vCenter.

The HP team has a video demonstration of the HP Grow Cluster feature in the vCenter Web Client posted at hp.com. It is definitely worth a watch to see the entire process orchestrated with just a few clicks and settings.

February 10, 2014 0 comments

Compute Datacenter Software Storage

HP shows off OneView, a consolidated platform for converged management

by Philip Sellers December 10, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

In September, HP introduced its OneView platform for converged management. When first introduced, many of my fellow bloggers and I saw it as an appropriate replacement for HP System Insight Manager (SIM), but what we found is that OneView aims to go further than SIM was ever capable and with a cleaner and easier to understand UI. With OneView, HP is looking to bring together disparate management into a centralized console which can handle computer, storage and networking in a unified approach.

This week at HP Discover, Tom Joyce, Senior Vice President and GM of Converged Systems talked with our group of bloggers and it was clear that within the HP Converged Systems space, OneView is going to be the common management plane for all of the infrastructure – both servers, storage and networking. It is a major component of the Converged Systems strategy and a component that HP is investing heavily in developing.

Interface & Support

In terms of UI, HP took a ‘radically simple’ approach to the interface. It is a massive contrast to the busy and complex interfaces HP has designed in the past and at first pass more closely resembles a solution like Dell/Quest’s Foglight dashboards. All of this is welcome change. By heavily summarizing data and getting critical alerts and problems in front of an administrator, the systems potential usefulness increases exponentially.

Not neglecting the need for detail, OneView has an integrated search feature throughout the UI meaning that the details needed are a quick search or drilldown away.

With the initial release, HP OneView supports HP BladeSystem deployments with G7 and Gen8 blades and Gen8 rack-mount ProLiants. Like Virtual Connect, OneView creates server profiles which can be applied to individual blades but takes the concept a step further by also offering the ability to set lower-level BIOS settings on a blade that Virtual Connect does not address. While the initial compatibility list is very limited, more components will be added over time, though no one should expect older generations of server since much of the capabilities relies on iLO4 and other recent HP innovations.

Offering Context

Building upon the ‘Sea of Sensors’ concept that it introduced three or four generations of ProLiants ago, HP is driving towards a unified view of the physical environment surrounding its servers in the datacenter. HP’s Gen8 ProLiants introduced new smart power adapters which assist with mapping and locating hardware within smart racks in a datacenter. OneView is capable of building maps of these smart racks and smart power in order to identify where equipment is located, to identify hot spots and heat issues, and beings to aggregate the data obtained by the sea of sensors and offer context to it.

OneView also offers context for the interconnections of infrastructure as well as the physical environment. OneView offers great overviews of connection points between the server, its enclosure, the network sets and interconnects. It is a logical next step to extend this to connected storage and networks in future iterations.

December 10, 2013 0 comments

Compute Datacenter Software Storage

HP Discover Barcelona: What to expect & how to follow online this week

by Philip Sellers December 8, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

I am currently sitting in Myrtle Beach airport waiting for my first of three flights that will ultimate bring me to Barcelona, Spain. I’ll be spending the next week attending HP Discover in Barcelona. It is one of HP’s two major conferences each year and it will be first visit to HP Discover in Europe and on a personal note, my first trip to Europe in thirteen years.

So what to expect from HP Discover?

Some of the usual highlights are expected – the keynote from CEO Meg Whitman to address customers directly and general sessions for HP executives to unpack their vision and product lines for customers and highlight some of the successes the company is achieving. There will be hundreds of breakout sessions for onsite attendees. The Discovery Zone is the place to visit with hundreds of HP’s top technical staff available to answer questions and explain solutions in detail. Unlike other conferences, HP staffs not just marketing folks in the booth, but also engineers and developers. But if you’re not onsite, keep reading – you can still follow the conference.

What else is expected?

Storage: Last year’s HP Discover brought major news with the introduction of the HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 series arrays. These ‘baby’ 3PAR arrays have been a big hit in the mid-market storage marketplace. Their introduction converted me and my employer into HP 3PAR users. I’ll be interested to hear what’s new in 3PAR. In June at Discover, HP announced the 3PAR StoreServ 7450 array – an all flash variant of the already successful 3PAR StoreServ 7400. But HP 3PAR is just part of the HP Storage story – and there will likely be other things going on around software-defined storage during the week.

Systems: HP created the HP Converged Systems group in May. This August, during VMworld, HP held a reception for bloggers and media where we were briefed by the newly formed group and the Converged Systems group is responsible for full system solutions made out of HP intellectual property, similar to VirtualSystem, CloudSystem and AppSystem solutions we’ve seen delivered to date. This will be their first chance to show fruit during the week.

Servers: HP Servers group was also announced in May as HP combined its Business Critical and Industry Standard Server groups. It will also be the first show for this group since their combination this year, since June’s HP Discover happened immediately after the announcement. In previous years, there have been a lot of bleedover between Business Critical and Industry Standard, back and forth. From the industry standard server side, HP ProLiant Gen8 continues to roll out models to complete its refresh cycle and some ProLiants are now in their second revision. HP Discover in June brought the announcement of the HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 which I have since had a chance to review in depth. Excited to see what’s new here…

Mobile: I’m also interested to see what more HP is doing in the mobile space. In the past year, HP has been toying with Android based hardware, Windows 8 based tablets and has other groups working on enterprise mobility solutions. One solution that I saw in June – called HP Anywhere – was in a early beta form. It allowed developers to have a secure platform and SDK for developing rich HTML5 applications for Enterprise. Mobile is a growing space and I am curious what HP has been developing in this space to help enterprise retain control of data, secure and enable users.

But I’m not there – how can I participate?

I know most people who read Techazine will not be on-site at HP Discover Barcelona. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t participate. Here are some opportunities for the next week for your to participate online:

HP Storage Press Event – Monday, 9am EST – http://hpstorage.me/1buyzV4 – Register online and attend for free to watch the announcements from HP Storage live.
HP Discover Opening Keynote featuring Meg Whitman, CEO, and Bill Veghte, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Group – Tuesday, 8am EST – http://bit.ly/1bQrhNz
HP Discover General Session featuring George Kadifa, Executive Vice President, HP Software; Mike Nefkens, Executive Vice President, Enterprise Services; and Dion Weisler, Executive Vice President, Printing and Personal Systems – Wednesday, 8am EST – http://bit.ly/1aLQfr9
Live and on-demand videos all throughout the week on a variety of topics – http://bit.ly/1fa5lf3
On Twitter, follow hashtag #HPDiscover
Follow @HPStorageGuy – Calvin Zito’s HP Discover Barca Bloggers list on Twitter – https://twitter.com/HPStorageGuy/lists/discover-barca-bloggers and talk with us – ask questions and interact.

Hope to hear from you!

December 8, 2013 0 comments

Compute Datacenter Storage

HP bundling StoreVirtual VSA with new ProLiant purchases

by Philip Sellers December 6, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

HP is bringing software defined storage to the masses by bundling the StoreVirtual VSA (virtual storage appliance) with the purchase of new ProLiant hardware. The new offer, announced November 12, is available with 10 models of ProLiant and includes a 1TB entitlement for StoreVirtual VSA. That license can be combined on up to 3 nodes for a total capacity of 3TB of total storage in a free software SAN. And although the license is limited to 3 nodes within the StoreVirtual cluster, the storage can be made accessible to any connected servers in the site.

The new offer is attractive for small office or enterprise remote office deployments where typically only a few servers are deployed. HP is targeting the SMB market with the new offer in an attempt to gain market for the StoreVirtual software defined storage line of products according to Dale Degen, category manager for Software Defined Storage at HP.

“I’m pretty excited because this will expand the scope of who has been exposed to this concept,” Degen said during a call this week.

Chock full of features

The free 1TB licenses are no gimmick. The licenses include the full package of StoreVirtual capabilities, excluding Adaptive Optimization. Those capabilities include large enterprise features like asynchronous replication, snapshots, thin provisioning, network RAID and storage clustering. The only thing not included with the 1TB license is HP’s Adaptive Optimization feature for sub-LUN tiering and support. Users who want support for the StoreVirtual can upgrade to a retail copy of StoreVirtual, with pricing beginning at $3,000 list for 3 nodes of 4TB each and includes 3 years of support. Although the free licenses are limited to 3 node clusters, customers are free to create multiple clusters and the StoreVirtual Centralized Management Console manages multiple storage clusters easily, which is a great benefit to larger companies who may have StoreVirtual storage at both primary and remote sites.

The free licenses are easy to obtain, according to Degen. Any of the eligable ProLiant servers shipping after November 1 include a sticker with a key that can be used to unlock the license from the HP website. Customers can take their keys and and fulfill the request, download the VSA software package and retrieve the licenses.

From personal experience, the deployment process of the StoreVirtual VSA is very easy. Users can obtain the ‘Zero to VSA’ toolkit, as Degen called it, from the HP website which offers a streamlined deployment process for the VSA. In my lab environment, the manual deployment steps took about 10 minutes – mostly pointing the wizard to your vSphere or Hyper-V environment and then letting it push out the appliance. Deegan also said that the Zero to VSA toolkit includes a CLI environment which could let power users automate the deployment in enterprise environments.

SMB users: what is StoreVirtual and what’s a VSA?

Many SMB users may not have heard of HP StoreVirtual and may be wondering what it is all about. At a high level, StoreVirtual takes the local storage inside of a server and uses software to pool the storage and offering it up as an iSCSI based SAN. Multiple servers deployed with StoreVirtual also pool together and replicate among each other to create a RAIN (redundant array of independent nodes) configuration. Like RAID, RAIN is the concept of stripes or mirrors for the data between nodes. StoreVirtual is a software-only solution, although HP also sells hardware solutions created around StoreVirtual software. Originally created by Lefthand Networks, the StoreVirtual continues to run the Lefthand OS on bare metal installs and inside of the VSA or virtual storage appliance. Lefthand OS, formerly known as SAN/iQ, is currently at verison 11 and is a very mature product in a market full of new solutions.

StoreVirtual’s feature set is also on par with much larger enterprise storage platforms, but by utilizing existing storage or servers, it offers a much lower price point for many customers looking for SAN storage. Virtualization and particuarlly vSphere have pushed many SMB users to look towards SAN solutions to accommodate virtual workloads and provide highly available storage.

The VSA (virtual storage appliance) concept is an outgrowth of the Lefthand OS within a virtual machine. Like installing Lefthand OS on bare metal hardware, the VSA uses onboard, local storage under the ESXi or Hyper-V hypervisor and creates pools on this storage so that it can be served up for any number of uses on the network, but many times that use case is to store virtual machines. While the VSA can present storage back to its local virtual host machines, it can also be used by any other server or virtual host with connectivity to its SAN network.

Sounds great, how to I get it?

For all the latest information about the offer, about StoreVirtual VSA and about how to take advantage, go to the HP website at http://hp.com/go/FreeVSA.

December 6, 2013 0 comments

Compute Datacenter Home Lab

Review: HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 has big biz features in a small biz box

by Philip Sellers November 17, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

Its been two months since my HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 arrived and I’ve had an opportunity to run it in a couple different configurations. Out of the box, Windows Server Essentials 2012 came pre-installed on my eval unit and on first boot, configuration kicked off to setup and configure an Active Directory domain and setup all the basics of a small office deployment.

Procs & RAM

First, I am really glad that HP chose to move to Intel processors for the Gen8 model of the MicroServer. Their AMD processors in the G7 model was probably the only reason that I did not purchase one of those units before. For some reason, I along with many other administrators just have a disposition towards Intel processors instead of AMD. When speaking with Shad Madina, Group Manager for Portfolio Planning and Solutions at HP, he also shared that HP found the AMD processors to be a sticking point with domestic buyers, although the AMD processors seemed to be well accepted in Europe.

The processors in the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 are more along the lines of desktop processors rather than the normal Xeon processors normally found in servers. The lower end server features Intel Celeron processors and the higher end Gen8 model features a Pentium processor. Both models feature dual core models but unfortunately there is not even an option for a quad-core model at this time. As I covered earlier, the Gen8 model raises the RAM limit to 16GB which helps to accommodate a wider range of opportunities in the market, including small virtualization farms.

Hide and go RAID

I knew from the spec sheets that the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 included a SATA RAID controller in the unit, however, during boot and the initial OS load, I noticed that it did not mention anything about Smart Array or offer a management interface to access and provision RAID sets like the larger Proliants do. This is simply because the embedded SATA controller is turned on by default and the RAID SATA controller is not enabled. A quick trip through the BIOS turned up the option to enable the Dynamic SATA controller and after a reboot and POST, I was able to login to Intelligent Provisioning and create RAID sets from the drives I had installed.

When I spoke with Madina, he was quick to point out that HP purposefully decided when designing the MicroServer to have a different set of trade-offs than were normal. The normal trade-offs were basic functionality, like RAID, cut for the sake of saving money. With the MicroServer, one of the trade-offs is the lack of hot-swappable hard drives and bays. This is a bit of a bummer but its a small price to pay when HP didn’t want to compromise other basic necessities.

Noise, or lack thereof

HP touts the quietness of the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 saying that it is quieter than a laptop. This is certainly the case. Today, when I walked into my office, I actually had to check and ensure that it was on and running because I could not hear any noise coming from the unit. Now, this is after the MicroServer has been on and settled down. At boot, like its big-brothers, the Proliant MicroServer sound like a jet ready for take off – but after POST completes and the system begins booting, things quiet down to a negligible level.

My first week with the MicroServer was a slightly different story, however. When I first received the unit and powered it up, I thought it was fairly noisy, especially for someone touted to be under 20db of noise. But, my first week’s experience was a fluke of some kind – because once I shut it down to explore inside and then booted it again, the noisiness was nowhere to be found.

I will go on to say, that after testing the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 and comparing it with my home-built server, I prefer the MicroServer hand-down and big reason is how much quieter this unit is than my server.

Virtualization friendly

After a month of exploring the MicroServer while running Windows Server Essentials 2012, I reinstalled the server to run ESXi and this is how I plan to keep the system running in the future. The demo unit I received came with the maximum 16GB of RAM loaded. This is a very welcome configuration for running a lab ESXi install. I was able to install the HP OEM version of ESXi onto the MicroServer which included additional agents inside the OS.

ESXi installs flawlessly onto the MicroServer Gen8. There were no special drivers or hoops to jump through to make it work on this hardware.

Even though the MicroServer Gen8 received a RAM limit boot, I wish still it had gone higher or that it accepted 4 x 8GB DIMM instead of two. 32GB of RAM and even better 64GB would greatly broaden the virtualization use cases for many customers. Still, 16GB is sufficient for many test and lab environments to be able to test many solutions.

Remote Management, sort-of

One of the nice surprises in the unit is the inclusion of a full iLO4 chip on the motherboard. This replaces the optional remote management card which came with the G7 models of MicroServer. The iLO4 is much more capable and potentially useful than the previous remote management cards, however the one let-down was the unit comes with iLO Standard only, which does not support virtual media and remote console, except during boot. To get the additional features, an iLO Essentials or iLO Advanced license is needed.

HP has introduced iLO Essentials licensing and targets it directly at SMB users who want remote management. iLO Essentials license includes fully functional remote console, virtual media and email alerts for $129. Its a small tax to get basic remote management functionality and its better than the requirement to purchase iLO Advanced license for $299, since most small businesses would not use the additional features that iLO Advanced brings. iLO Advanced brings features like recording remote console sessions, authentication from directory services, multi-user remote console (for collaboration) and advanced alerting options. (For a full comparison of licensing levels and features included, see this PDF from HP).

iLO Standard is not useless, however. There is a lot that iLO does with no additional license — agent-less hardware management, remote support, remote power buttons, and the embedded health systems. The onboard system integrates with HP’s Insight Online service to allow administrators to manage and view all their systems and health through a central portal for free.

But, I will say I expected remote console and virtual media to be included, so it was let-down here. However, here is a pro-tip for you – make sure to check secondary markets (eBay) for these licenses. It may be possible to pickup iLO Advanced license for less than you can buy the iLO Essentials license.

PS1810-8G Switch

I am really happy with the PS1810-8G switch. I like the way that it compliments the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 and its space saving for my home lab. 8 ports accommodates three home servers easily and allows for some room to grow. The VLAN support helps partition traffic among my servers so that I can segment video traffic away from web and management traffic and then keep my normal browsing, Netflix and home operations separate from my lab environment.

Pricing

Pricing for the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 starts at just $449 with an Intel Celeron G1610T processor and 2GB of RAM. The higher end server is priced at $529 and comes with an Intel Pentium G2020T processor and 2GB of RAM. Bundles are available with the PS1810-8G switch and are priced at $634 and $714 respectively directly from HP.

Verdict

I would score the HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 a solid 8.5 out of 10. On the plus side, it is quiet, power-efficient and well suited for out-of-datacenter uses that most businesses have. I think there are so many remote-office and branch-office uses for the server beyond just the small and medium business markets.

On the downsides, I wish the processors were quad-core instead of dual-core. I also wish the RAM could be expanded beyond 16GB. But the downsides really stop there. Dual gigabit NICs are very capable and if you required more, there is a PCI expansion slot that could accommodate up to an additional 4 ports. The PCI slot could also be used for HBA or other peripherals as required.

The pricing of the systems also puts this in a sweet spot for many small businesses who don’t have dedicated IT budgets. I’ve worked with a lot of small business and for entry level servers, its a hard sell with a $1,200 to $1,500 server. The MicroServer represents a very compelling additional option for a lot of use cases.

I’m very impressed with the system overall. I think its a fantastic choice for a lot of small business and remote office use cases. I’m impressed enough that I plan to buy a second unit for home to use as a lab system in the near future. I’ll discuss why I’d choose this over a whitebox build in a later post another day.

Now, go win one…

Its your turn now to win a bundle just like my eval bundle for your home or small office or your remote office needs. Its very easy to win – just head over to our Giveaway page for all the details on the contest and you could be a winner. And keep in mind, there are two other bloggers giving away the same bundle the same time as Techazine – make sure to go and enter there too.

Disclaimer: HP provided me with both the HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 and the HP PS1810-8G for review at no charge. The opinions and views of the hardware written here are entirely my own and HP had no say in what I choose to write. The hardware came with no strings attached.

November 17, 2013 61 comments

Compute Datacenter Networking

HP’s PS1810-8G is a perfect compliment to the MicroServer

by Philip Sellers November 17, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

ReviewMicroserver

c03738934

When I unboxed my MicroServer several weeks ago, I was surprised to find an unexpected second box inside. The surprise turns out to be an HP PS1810 8-port gigabit switch to compliment my Proliant MicroServer. The PS1810-8G is specifically manufactured to sit perfectly on top of the Proliant MicroServer Gen8. Its the epitome of “made for each other.” Its kind of like butter and popcorn.

But don’t mistake this as style over substance – the PS1810-8G is a very capable switch in its own right. With 16Gbps of throughout, this unit features 8 RJ45 Gigabit copper Ethernet ports. It is web managed and supports VLANs, link aggregation trunking, Spanning Tree (STP), flow control and can be optionally powered by an upstream PoE switch. The wide feature set ensures that the switch can be used as part of a growing infrastructure or fit into an existing infrastructure seamlessly. While many small businesses rely on unmanaged switches for their needs, there is an increasing need for advanced features as systems converge.

The PS1810-8G also includes a number of green features, including Energy Efficient Ethernet settings. Administrators can configure low-power idle on ports, auto port power down and cable length detection all to save power. It can be configured to turn off LED lights on ports based on a specific schedule. All of these features are intended to save power, but I’m not sure how much impact it really makes over the course of a year.

Based out of the 3COM lineage, the PS1810-8G uses a web management interface which is intuitive and easy to use. The web management interface makes a lot of sense for a small business who probably has very little in-house networking expertise, but the PS1810-8G will provide any IT pro with the necessary features to get the job done. The PS1810-8G switch also includes an automatic Proliant discovery interface which senses and registers Proliant servers onto a page so that the admin can quick-launch into the iLO interface. This provides the end-user and end-administrator with a quick management interface to see all the Proliants connected – not just MicroServers. While the discovery is nifty, its not a very deep integration at this point, but it does show potential. In addition to the Proliant server discovery, the switch also features Link Layer Discover Protocol (LLDP). This discovered my third party remote management interface on a whitebox server.

In terms of security, by default, management is only enabled for HTTP and not HTTPS. Options are available within the switch to upload a custom certificate or generate a self-signed certificate and enable HTTPS. There is also only a single password for the switch and it is not a username and password combination – just a single password.

All in all, this is a solid home office or small office switch. 8 ports will accommodate a number of offices and use cases. The switch comes with many of the necessary enterprise features that would come in handy in a small office. Priced at $185 direct from HP and generally available for around $160 elsewhere, the PS1810-8G is an affordable managed switch option.

Screenshot gallery

November 17, 2013 0 comments

Compute Datacenter Storage

How the HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 came to life

by Philip Sellers November 7, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

ReviewMicroserver

I’m a big fan of product history, how products develop and come to life. This is the story of how the HP Proliant MicroServers came to be. I spoke with Shad Madina, Group Manager, Portfolio Planning and Solutions at HP and he offered a bit of insight on how HP developed its MicroServer.

Why a MicroServer

When the folks at HP began looking at the market, it saw a large amount of growth in the small to medium business market and that sparked the question – how does HP target this fast growing segment? According to Madina, HP staff began researching small and medium businesses and found that most of the server options they had within their price range were stripped down versions of larger servers, which often removed great functionality for the sake of price. HP also found that the majority of small businesses bought their technology through channel partners or as a bundled solution along with software and services while looking to solve a particular problem.

In addition to buying habits, HP also found that most small and medium businesses placed these servers under a desk or on a tabletop and that they were not found in a datacenter or server room. This made traditional servers an imperfect fit because of the noise and heat they produce was not well suited for where they were being placed.

So HP began developing a new server with different trade-offs. They wanted to create a server that would meet small and medium business needs without compromising function. The new server would need to be quieter than a normal server, be channel friendly, and be power and heat conscious.

Meet the MicroServer

c03690405 With this information, HP introduced the first Proliant MicroServers in 2010. Equipped with AMD Athalon N36L, N40L, and N54L processors as options, each unit could add up to 8TB of storage (4 x 2TB drives) and 8GB of DDR3 ECC RAM. It included 6 USB 2.0 ports, 1 eSATA port and 1 Gigabit Ethernet portand an optional remote management card akin to iLO. The first MicroServer was quiet, touting less than 21db of noise emitted and it ran on standard 110 power.

While the units met all of HP’s objectives, they were not a huge hit in the US. They proved to be much more successful in Europe but the decision to equip them with AMD processors was often a sticking point for domestic customers.

HP learned a number of lessons from customers with the first models of MicroServer. Customers found use cases beyond HP’s original intentions, with many IT professionals choosing to use the MicroServer as a virtualization hardware for small deployments or home labs.

Meet the Gen8 MicroServer

This past summer, HP introduced the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 to the public. The new model integrated a number of lessons learned from the previous models. For the new generation, HP moved to Intel processors, choosing a dual-core Celeron processor for the low-end and a Core i3 processor for the higher end model. The standard RAM configuration is 2GB with a higher RAM limit at 16GB to better accommodate the virtualization use cases and needs for more RAM in database or other uses. The Gen8 MicroServer also include dual Gigabit network adapters onboard with one expansion PCI slot. The new model still comes with 4 drive bays, but now supports 3TB SATA drives for up to 12TB of total storage. With these changes, HP is betting on better results domestically by accommodating more uses it’s customers found with the previous generation.

HP added an on-board iLO port as standard configuration on each unit. Unlike the optional remote management card, the iLO would be the same iLO 4 that HP features across the entire Proliant Gen8 line. They also introduced a licensing level called iLO Essentials for $149 which gives MicroServer and small to medium business customers core iLO functionality they want without the increased cost of iLO Advanced licensing. iLO Essentials includes remote console, virtual media and email notifications from the system. iLO4 is also the underlying technology which allows the MicroServer Gen8 to connect with Insight Online, HP’s cloud support service, and enables HP Insight Remote Support.

HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 on display at HP Discover 2013. In the foreground, there are 3 color options available for the door, including the standard silver found on all Proliant Gen8 models.

The entire Proliant Gen8 line has a prominent design feel featuring aluminum bezels on each model that cover the drive slots and indicators. That design was carried over to the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 model with HP going further by introducing optional colored bezels for the MicroServer. While intended for simple design flare, customers found the colored bezels were useful in the field for standardizing and identifying hardware for particular use cases. Madina said that one customer uses the bezel to “color code based on the task to allow uniform identification” by color.

November 7, 2013 1 comment

Compute Datacenter

Seven opportunities to win an HP Microserver and PS1810-8G switch (updated x5)

by Philip Sellers October 28, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

ReviewMicroserver

This week kicks off the first two of seven opportunities to win your own HP Microserver and an HP PS1810-8G. Over the next month, seven different bloggers and sites will be giving away a combination HP Microserver and companion switch. I have been blogging about the pair of HP products for the last several weeks. I’ll be posting my final review in a couple weeks, but its not too early to get in on the giveaways that my peers are starting. Each site will have their own content with its own rules for entry. I’ll keep this page updated as we go with links to each giveaway.

Updated x4 >> Delighted Robot (Jake Ludington’s) giveaway is live. Techazine.com’s giveaway is also live. And for readers in LA/Orange County area, TechBizTalk has a third chance to win!

Upcoming Giveaway Schedule

October 27th – November 3rd

Geekzone – Contest details
BladeWatch

November 3rd – November 17th

Neowin – Contest Details
1CloudRoad – Contest Details

November 17th – December 1st

Techazine – Contest Details
Delighted Robot – Contest Details
TechBizTalk – Contest Details (for readers in LA/Orange County area)

A gratuitous gallery of HP Microserver awesomeness

October 28, 2013 1 comment

Compute Datacenter Home Tech Storage

Introducing the mystery product – an HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8

by Philip Sellers September 26, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

ReviewMicroserver

I teased you earlier that I had a special product coming to review and, today, I’m glad to announce that my HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 has arrived. Since I had other things going on yesterday evening, I didn’t even get to unbox it, but it will be soon. So, you may be wondering – what is the Proliant MicroServer?

HP introduced the Proliant MicroServer line in 2010 as a general computing server platform aimed squarely at the micro to small business and home office markets. In June, the company released the Gen8 model which features a nice facelift and changes under the hood.

Like all of the Proliant Gen8 hardware, the MicroServer got a little bling treatment with an aluminum grille/door – making it a very sleek-looking unit. While the previous version looked like a generic half-sized tower, the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 is almost a perfect 9″ cube. It is equipped with either a Celeron G1610T or Pentium G2020T processor and can scale up to 12TB of storage and 16GB of RAM. Preconfigured models come with 2GB of RAM.

The Proliant Microserver Gen8 features a tool-less chassis, four cold-swap drive bays, a DVD drive, several USB ports inside, on the front and on the back of the server. Even though the form factor deviates from the norm, the inside of the Microserver is still very serviceable, upgradable and accessible.

And one of my favorite things with the MicroServer is, just like all other Proliant servers, it includes iLO – or Integrated Lights Out management for those who may not be as familiar with HP. iLO is HP’s flavor of an IP management interface (IPMI) and its a solid implementation for remote management for a server.

I’m very curious how this little guy compares to the ML, DL and BL Proliant models that I run in the datacenter. I’m curious to know if the iLO is as robust or scaled back, how the unit performs and how easily I will be able to integrate this into my ESX home lab.

A picture’s worth a thousand words…

I got my first look and feel at HP Discover earlier this year and I’ve posted a few photos below that I took of the show floor to whet your appetite. Don’t forget, one of these could be yours, too. More to come…

Disclaimer: HP provided me with the HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 and also sponsored my trip to HP Discover this year. The opinions and views of the hardware written here are entirely my own and have not been influenced or outlined by HP. While they provided me with opportunities, those opportunities came with no strings attached.

September 26, 2013 4 comments

Compute Datacenter Storage Trends

HP shares Big Data directions

by Philip Sellers September 16, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

bigdatalarge A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend a Big Data briefing from HP Chief Technologist for Data Management, Greg Battas. Battas is part of the newly formed Converged Systems group in HP. He was a pioneer of Very Large Databases (VLDBs) and analytics in the telecom industry who has worked in business intelligence and analytics for a couple decades. He speaks internationally on topics of data integration and holds several patents in the areas of Relations Database, parallel query optimization and real time infrastructure architectures.

Coming from a mid market company, Big Data seems like a problem that doesn’t affect me. Its a concept I have a difficult time wrapping my head around, and for that reason, I’ve not written about it in the past. But it seems that Big Data is more than just a buzzword of the year and there is a lot of innovation occurring around Big Data in attempts to solve customer problems with these datasets.

So, what is Big Data? Wikipedia seems to sum it up best by saying “Big data is the term for a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications.” That helps.

So within the realm of Big Data, you begin to think about supercomputers, hyper-scale arrays of servers and new innovations like in-memory databases. So where is this going and what’s happening in Big Data today?

Direction: Consolidation of Clusters

Big Data Architectures in the past were based around very simple servers with direct attached storage. It leads to a first Hadoop cluster, then a second, third and fourth. A lot of the thought in Big Data was movement away from proprietary storage and databases with parallel programming and distributed file systems like Google File System on standard hardware. Common wisdom dictates that big data depends on massive IO to read huge amounts of data from disk and to optimize this you move compute closer to the data to reduce overhead. There are certain operations that benefit from being pushed down to the same location as the data.

In reality, what has been learned from Big Data workloads is that only a portion of the processing can be close to the data. Keeping data and compute local to one another is actually difficult and does not always result in optimal performance because the data may not be in the appropriate form for processing and may need to be shuffled or reduced. In addition, its observed that the majority of CPU power is still needed for analytics and aggregation. And when most work is done in-memory, the storage really doesn’t apply. This becomes particularly important with NVRAM and other persistent RAM technologies in the future. What all this allows is for the consolidation and re-tasking of clusters to meet multiple needs.

Direction: Software Defined Storage

Big Data workloads, particularly the largest datasets in the world, are running on distributed file systems on industry standard server hardware. These are parallel file systems rather than traditional storage arrays or databases. Hadoop Distributed File System is becoming a very common interface across multiple platforms and deployments and vendors are adopting HDFS and integrating it under their technologies. Today, there is a mix of proprietary and open source technologies.

HP is observing a lot of vendors running their proprietary systems on top of the HDFS, or a very similar parallel filesystem. HP’s internal blueprint with HAVEn is much the same. HAVEn has the unstructured data of Autonomy, the structured analytics of Vertica and running it on top of the HDFS. In addition to storage, the HDFS allows for data to be passed from one tool to another.

Direction: NoSQL is being adopted by a lot of software partners

The first wave of Big Data was around Batch where Hadoop was used for analytics and ETL offloading. It was often coupled with a company’s SQL databases. There is a growing interest in NoSQL products from independent software vendors because of a large dependence on the traditional database vendors. ISVs are seeing a large portion of their total sales being directed back to a database vendor at the close of a sale, so many are beginning to move their commercial products onto NoSQL products that do not require the large costs. It isn’t without challenges, since there is no longer a SQL interface or transaction management to move onto a NoSQL product that no longer requires the large costs of traditional databases. But there are several with active projects porting their products onto a NoSQL product like Hbase.

Direction: Shift to optimized hardware

With a specialized workload like Big Data, there is opportunity for tuning and tailoring hardware to specifically handle the work better than industry standard hardware. Within HP, Moonshot is one example of hardware that is hyper-scale, simple node architecture suited for Big Data (I previously covered Moonshot here). On each cartidge, co-processors or GPU’s could be added to better handle big data workloads, but there is even possibilities within the system-on-a-chip on the cartridge.

Battas mentioned the idea of Dark Silicon, or un-used and un-powered transistors within today’s chips. Today, the industry has the capability of packing on more transistors into a piece of silicon than we have connections to power, leaving them dark. But the interesting idea is tailoring the dark silicon cores to handle a specific task well and then rotating the customized core in and out of use to increase efficiency. This is a particularly interesting topic, enough so that I have written a second post today about dark silicon.

September 16, 2013 0 comments