HP 3PAR InForm OS 3.1.1 Concepts Guide

• HP 3PAR Autonomic Groups, allow domains, hosts, and volumes to be grouped into a set that
is managed as a single object. Autonomic groups also allow for easy updates when new hosts
are added or new volumes are provisioned. If you add a new host to the set, volumes from
the volume set are autonomically provisioned to the new host without any administrative
intervention. If you add a new volume or a new domain to a set, the volume or domain inherits
all the rights of the set.
• HP 3PAR Persistent Cache Software, allows systems to maintain a high level of performance
and availability during node failure conditions, and during hardware and software upgrades.
This feature allows the host to continue to write data and receive acknowledgments from the
system if the backup node is unavailable. Persistent Cache automatically creates multiple
backup nodes for logical disks that have the same owner.
• HP 3PAR mySnapshot Software, is a copy utility designed for non-storage professionals such
as database administrators, software developers, and test engineers to safely and easily copy
and provision their own test data. With mySnapshot, developers have instant access to test
data, thus eliminating the time required to request, justify, and receive these copies from the
storage administrator. To learn more about the mySnapshot utility, see “mySnapshot Software”
(page 53).
Optional Software Features
Optional HP 3PAR software features may not currently be enabled on your system because they
require additional licenses and may require separate installations. When features are not available
on your system because they are not licensed for use, screens and functionality relating to those
features may appear grayed-out or be otherwise inaccessible in the InForm OS Management
Console and InForm OS CLI.
Systems may use the following optional software features:
• HP 3PAR Adaptive Optimization Software gives you a much higher degree of control over
disk usage by reserving your faster and more expensive storage resources for the data that
is frequently accessed and relegating your slower and less expensive drives to storing data
that is only occasionally accessed.
To learn more about HP 3PAR Adaptive Optimization, see “Adaptive Optimization Software”
(page 57).
• HP 3PAR Virtual Domains Software is used for access control. Virtual Domains allow you to
limit the access of users to only subsets of volumes and hosts in an HP Storage System and
ensures that virtual volumes associated with a specific domain are not exported to hosts outside
of that domain. To learn more about domains, see “HP 3PAR Virtual Domains” (page 25).
• HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software allows you to allocate virtual volumes to application
servers yet provision only a fraction of the physical storage behind these volumes. By enabling
a true capacity-on-demand model, a storage administrator can use HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning
to create Thinly-Provisioned Virtual Volumes (TPVVs) that maximize asset use. To learn more
about TPVVs, see “Virtual Volumes” (page 43).
• HP 3PAR Thin Conversion Software converts a fully-provisioned volume to a Thinly-Provisioned
Virtual Volume (TPVV). Virtual volumes with large amounts of allocated but unused space are
converted to TPVVs that are much smaller than the original volume. To use the Thin Conversion
feature you must have an F-Class, T-Class, or P10000 Storage System, an HP 3PAR Thin
Provisioning license, and an HP 3PAR Thin Conversion license. To learn more about HP 3PAR
Thin Conversion, see “Enhanced Storage Applications” (page 53).
• HP 3PAR Thin Persistence Software keeps TPVVs and read/write snapshots of TPVVs small by
detecting pages of zeros during data transfers and not allocating space for the zeros. This
feature works in real-time and analyzes the data before it is written to the destination TPVV
or read/write snapshot of the TPVV. To use the Thin Persistence feature you must have an
F-Class, T-Class, or P10000 Storage System, an HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning license, an HP
16 Overview