HP StorageWorks and Microsoft
Consolidation, business continuity, remote office, client virtualization,
and private cloud solutions.
Solution brief
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Microsoft virtualization
with industry-leading
storage.
Put the power of virtualization to work
Virtualization is one of the most effective methods to save costs, increase the availability, and improve the agility of an organization’s infrastructure. With Microsoft® Hyper-V, it’s easier than ever to take advantage of the cost savings of virtualization through Windows® Server 2008 R2. Optimize your server hardware investments by consolidating multiple servers as separate virtual machines (VMs) running on a single physical machine. And increase availability with Hyper-V Live Migration by moving VMs from one Hyper-V physical host to another without any disruption or perceived loss of service. Microsoft virtualization offerings span from the data center to the desktop and
into the cloud – all of which place increased demands on your storage infrastructure.
Your storage infrastructure needs to deliver the ease of management, performance, scalability, availability, and efficiency required by virtualized environments. Whether it’s your first virtualization deployment or expanding an existing deployment, HP StorageWorks provides the ideal storage foundation of a comprehensive virtualized infrastructure. What’s more, HP StorageWorks solutions are part of the HP Converged Infrastructure, which delivers a new level of simplicity, integration, and automation by converging servers, storage, and networks – all coordinated through a common management platform.
HP Advantages HP Product or Capability Benefit Simple • HP Command View EVA, SVSP, XP Software
• HP P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance software • Nondisruptive scaling of capacity and performance • HP P9000 Smart Tier and storage tiering
• HP Insight with Microsoft System Center Essentials 2010
• Spend less time managing storage, servers, and networking.
Optimized • Virtual arrays with automatically adaptable performance • Solid state disks (SSD)
• Performance dashboards • HP P4800 BladeSystem SAN • Network RAID and RAID 6 • HP EVA Five Nines availability • HP P4000 Multi-site SAN
• HP EVA Cluster Extensions Software
• HP Data Protector Zero Downtime Backup and Instant Recovery
• Increase virtual server density and deployment.
• Deliver an exceptional virtual desktop user experience. • Avoid planned and unplanned
downtime.
• Protect business-critical data.
Efficient • HP D2D StoreOnce deduplication • Thin provisioning
• Reservationless snapshots • Dynamic capacity management
• SAN Virtualization Services Platform (SVSP)
• Achieve cost savings through better capacity utilization.
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HP and Microsoft – delivering
end-to-end solutions for more than 25 years
The HP and Microsoft global strategic alliance is one of the industry’s longest-standing alliances of its kind. For more than 25 years, HP and Microsoft have collaborated to bring you complete confidence around integrated technology solutions, investing considerable resources in technology, engineering, support, and programs.
HP and Microsoft recently extended our long-term partnership to deliver new solutions built on the next-generation infrastructure-to-application model – designed to greatly simplify your technology environment and advance your move to cloud computing. As part of our new agreement, HP, the world’s largest technology provider, and Microsoft, the number-one software company, are collaborating on an engineering roadmap for advancing cloud computing through converged application platforms, integrated management offerings, and comprehensive virtualization. This comprehensive integration of the technology stack is designed to improve your experience when it comes to developing, deploying, and managing your IT environment.
As Global Strategic Alliance Partners, HP StorageWorks and Microsoft engineering and technical marketing teams work together to:
• Conduct regular roadmap reviews and joint solution
definition and planning sessions
• Certify and validate HP StorageWorks solutions with
Microsoft Windows Server platforms
• Simplify end-to-end management through
management packs and HP Insight Control for Microsoft System Center to provide seamless integration of unique HP ProLiant, BladeSystem, and StorageWorks manageability features into the Microsoft System Center family of management products, including System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)
• Integrate with Citrix StorageLink and StorageLink
Site Recovery to enable additional virtualized desktop deployment and disaster recovery options for Hyper-V
• Produce reference architectures, best practice
deployment guides, technical whitepapers, and technical webcasts to speed deployment, reduce risk, and get predictable results
HP has the expertise to help design and deploy your Microsoft virtualization solution. HP:
• Has one of the largest, most specialized forces of
consultants and support professionals for Microsoft environments, with 23,000 Microsoft-trained and more than 16,000 Microsoft-certified professionals
• Manages more than 2,000 new Microsoft
engagements per year
• Is a four-time Microsoft Worldwide Enterprise
Alliance Partner of the Year1
Extend the power of Microsoft
virtualization with HP storage
solutions
HP enables you to get the most out of your Microsoft environment by extending the capabilities of the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V platform with an extensive portfolio of shared storage and data protection solutions.
HP “Certified for Windows” products
To earn the “Certified for Windows Server 2008 R2” logo and the “Certified for Windows Server 2008” logo, HP network storage products meet Microsoft standards for compatibility and recommended best practices with the Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 operating systems.
1 HP was named Microsoft Enterprise Alliance Partner of the Year in 2007, 2005, 2003, and 2000.
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Shared storage that supports
Microsoft virtualization solutions
The HP StorageWorks product family has shared storage solutions to meet every solution need and budget.
• HP StorageWorks P2000 family of SAN arrays
is specifically designed for entry-level consolidation projects that need the latest in functionality and technology at affordable price points. It features the HP P2000 G3 MSA arrays with the latest 8 GB Fibre Channel (FC), 6 GB SAS, and 10GbE iSCSI connected models, along with the MSA2000i G2 1 GB iSCSI model.
• HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN solutions
are optimized for virtual server and desktop environments and are based on a clustered
storage architecture that eliminates single points of failure and scales nondisruptively in capacity and performance. The HP P4000 comes in Virtual SAN Appliance (VSA) Software, Storage Appliance, and BladeSystem SAN versions for different use cases. All enterprise-class software features are included standard.
• HP Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) and EVA Cluster give enterprises the ability to reduce the management burden of traditional storage with a high-performance disk array tuned for the most popular enterprise applications. The EVA’s fully virtualized architecture leaves no stranded performance or capacity and includes the ability to grow or shrink your storage dynamically as your Microsoft deployment changes.
Figure 1. Microsoft virtual infrastructure.
Consolidation Business Continuity SMB Remote and Branch Offices Client Virtualization Private Cloud HP and Microsoft Solutions
Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, Oracle, SAP, and
Client Desktops
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager
Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (App-V, Med-V) and Remote Desktop (Gateway, Broker, etc.)
Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V Virtual Desktops
VM VM
VM VM
Disaster Recovery Site Remote and Branch Offices
Backup Storage Shared Storage
Servers
Citrix StorageLink Site™ Recovery
Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Microsoft System Center Operations Manager Microsoft System Center
Note: The following configurations are examples only. Your actual configuration will vary, depending on your requirements. Consult with your HP or Microsoft representative for an official recommendation that meets your unique needs.
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• HP StorageWorks SAN Virtualization Services Platform (SVSP) is a network-based virtualization platform that consolidates heterogeneous arrays into virtual pools to simplify management and drive higher utilization of your SAN storage. Consistent data services that can be applied across arrays include thin provisioning, storage tiering, and replication.
• HP StorageWorks P9000/XP Disk Arrays
are large enterprise-class storage systems that combine a high-performance hardware platform with unique data replication capabilities and clustering solutions. The results include constant data access and efficient data management such as thin provisioning and HP P9000 Smart Tiers that reduce the cost and complexity of storage.
• HP StorageWorks X1000 and X3000 Networked Storage Systems are a fast and easy way to add Microsoft Windows-powered unified shared storage for file server, iSCSI target, and IP gateway services for HP arrays. Full HP ProLiant server integration including HP System Insight Manager and iLO management simplify end-to-end management.
• HP StorageWorks X9000 Network Storage Systems scale beyond traditional Network Attached Storage (NAS) in both capacity and performance. Policy-driven data tiering, 16 petabytes of capacity in a single namespace, and nondisruptive scaling enable simplified management of extreme file storage requirements.
Hyper-V environment protection
Protecting data in a virtual server environment is no small challenge. From disk-to-disk (D2D), to advanced deduplication, to traditional tape libraries and tape drives, HP has you covered.
• HP StorageWorks D2D Backup Systems with HP StoreOnce deduplication provide efficient disk-based data protection for data centers and remote offices. Automate and consolidate the backup of multiple physical and virtual servers while improving reliability by reducing the errors frequently caused by media handling. HP D2D Backup Systems integrate seamlessly into your Microsoft environment.
• HP Data Protector centrally manages all backup and recovery for Hyper-V and physical environments offering multiple protection options to deliver any recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time
objective (RTO) from a single user interface without scripting. HP Data Protector software provides tight integration with Hyper-V, Microsoft VSS, HP StorageWorks shared storage solutions, and HP D2D Backup Systems with StoreOnce deduplication. The combined solution delivers an
easy-to-implement, automated tiered storage infrastructure for application-consistent backup and lightning-fast recovery of virtualized systems.
HP StorageWorks and Microsoft
virtualization solutions
HP has proven solutions for Microsoft virtualization in support of five key business initiatives. These solutions are backed by best practice deployment guides, technical whitepapers, and reference architectures to speed deployment, reduce risk, and deliver with predictable results.
1. Infrastructure consolidation – If your business is constrained by poor server and storage utilization, you’re probably overinvesting in hardware and wasting space and power, not to mention propagating operational inefficiencies. These factors increase costs and lead to negative environmental impacts. HP complements Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V by virtualizing the underlying storage infrastructure, consolidating hardware, and providing the same efficiencies for storage that Hyper-V does for servers, which leads to additional savings in storage, power, cooling, floor space, and system administration.
Shared storage for Hyper-V
without the SAN
Looking for a way to implement virtual server high availability with Hyper-V Live Migration that does not require the costs and complexity of separate external shared storage devices? HP P4000 VSA transforms server disk drives and external FC, iSCSI, or DAS storage into a virtual iSCSI SAN. Because the HP P4000 VSA is based on the same software as the HP P4000 SAN systems, you get the same software capabilities such as thin provisioning, snapshots, local and remote replication, and clustering for nondisruptive scalability and high availability. Virtualize your servers with Hyper-V and your existing storage with HP P4000 VSA. For a free full-featured trial version, go to www.hp.com/go/tryvsa.
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Key benefits of HP shared storage solutions for consolidation include:
– Reduce costs and increase storage utilization and efficiency through HP StorageWorks thin provisioning. – Allocate and resize storage to the virtual machines
that need it with dynamic capacity management. – Substantially increase storage utilization and
reduce costs using reservationless snapshots. – Completely virtualized arrays optimize capacity
and performance.
– HP Insight Control for Microsoft System Center delivers the power of Insight Control’s management of storage, servers, and networking directly through System Center.
2. Business continuity – High availability (HA), disaster recovery (DR), and data protection are the three key elements of business continuity. For many companies, virtualization has been a game changer since it makes HA and DR simpler and more affordable. HP has several business
continuity solutions tested and proven with Microsoft virtualization that help deliver simple, automated, and affordable HA and DR.
A. Solution for midsize business for HA and DR
Organizations would like HA and DR implemented for all applications, but these technologies have traditionally been too expensive and complex. Therefore, companies have only implemented HA and DR for select mission-critical applications, or not at all. This solution gives companies the ability to easily and inexpensively construct an HA environment with DR for all applications (See Figure 2).
This solution is enabled by the HP P4000 G2 SAN, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clustering, Hyper-V, and Citrix StorageLink Site Recovery software. In the HP P4000, Network RAID stripes and protects multiple copies of data across a cluster of storage nodes, eliminating any single point of failure. In the event of failure of a disk, controller, storage node, power, network, or site, Hyper-V VMs have continuous volume availability.
Figure 2. Configuration with HP Multi-site SAN for high availability at primary site and Citrix StorageLink Site Recovery for automated recovery
plans at disaster recovery site. 2008
Hyper-V Hyper-V 2008
VM VM VM VM
Citrix StorageLink
TMSite Recovery
Primary Site
Room A Room B HP P4000 G2 SAN
Remote Replication
HP P4000 G2
Multi-Site SAN
Disaster
Recovery Site
Configuration DataCitrix StorageLink
TMSite Recovery
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The HP P4000 Multi-site SAN permits you to stretch a Microsoft cluster across two different locations – in this case two different rooms of the same building – to provide full-fault tolerance and built-in zero downtime at the primary site.
HP P4000 SANs support DR through a combination of thin provisioning and asynchronous replication called Remote Copy that maintains both time- and space-efficient remote copies at a DR site. In addition, Citrix StorageLink Site Recovery software provides one-touch failover in case of a disaster. Key benefits of this solution include:
– Affordable HA and DR for even noncritical applications
– HA with zero downtime during component failures or environmental failures
– Simplified one-touch automated DR failover – Quick and easy HA and DR implementation process
B. Solution for enterprise business disaster tolerance
One of the key use cases of Hyper-V is to achieve business continuity and DR through complete integration with Microsoft Failover Cluster. The HP solution extends this capability with HP EVAs, Cluster Extension (CLX), and Continuous Access (CA) replication software to achieve a comprehensive and robust multi-site DR and HA solution (See Figure 3). While HP EVA provides the efficient, easy-to-manage enterprise-class SAN, HP CLX software offers protection against system downtime from fault, failure, and disasters. It enables flawless integration of the remote mirroring capabilities of HP CA software with the HA capabilities provided
Figure 3. Live migration across data centers and disaster-tolerant virtualization with HP StorageWorks Cluster Extension and Microsoft Hyper-V.
hp StorageWorks
enterprise systems library hp StorageWorks enterprise systems library
Microsoft Live Migration HP Continuous Access Replication Data Center 1 HP EVA HP EVA Data Center 2 CLX Manages Direction Exchange Exchange Exchange SQL Exchange SQL SQL SQL Microsoft Failover Cluster
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by clustering software in Windows. HP CLX extends a local Microsoft Failover Cluster between geographically distant data centers and enables Hyper-V Live Migration over these distances. The extended-distance solution allows for more robust DR topologies as well as automatic failover,
failback, and redirection of mirrored pairs for a true disaster-tolerant solution.
Key benefits of this solution include: – Fully automatic failover and failback – No single point of failure
– End-user transparent application migration across data centers
– Zero downtime maintenance
– Failover, failback, and quick and live migration using the same management software
C. Data protection
HP has a portfolio of systems and software to protect Hyper-V virtual servers and deliver the RPO and RTO required by your business.
Key benefits of HP data protection solutions include: – Store more data on disk using HP StoreOnce
deduplication, which reduces the disk space required to store backup data sets by typically 20-times without impacting backup performance. Retaining more backup data on disk for longer enables greater data accessibility for rapid restore of lost or corrupt VHDs or files and reduces downtime.
– Perform zero-impact backup of VMs and
application data within allotted backup windows by automating snapshot management using HP Data Protector Zero Downtime Backup and HP StorageWorks array-based snapshots.
Figure 4. HP Converged Infrastructure reference architecture for client virtualization: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Citrix XenDesktop.
HP BladeSystem c7000 enclosure
Four HP P4000 Storage Blades
Two SAS Switch Modules
Two MDS600 enclosures with 140 450 GB 15K SAS Drives HP StorageWorks P4800 BladeSystem SAN HP ProLiant BL490c
G6 with Intel Xeon 72 GB of Memory and onboard SSD Citrix XenDesktop 4 Enterprise Edition Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 Modules
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– Simplify management through HP Data Protector tight integration with HP StorageWorks, P4000, EVA, and XP arrays.
– Provide application data consistency through tight integration with Microsoft VSS and Hyper-V. – Manage backup and recovery of both physical
and virtual servers through one common graphic user interface (GUI).
– Seamlessly integrate HP D2D Backup Systems into your current backup environment with the flexibility of both virtual tape library and NAS targets.
3. Client virtualization – Companies are increasingly turning to virtualization to solve their desktop challenges.
The storage infrastructure for client virtualization is critical to making the economics of client virtualization work while delivering a high quality end-user experience. HP, Citrix, and Microsoft collaborate at an engineering level to ensure that you can benefit from software, hardware, and service solutions that are jointly tested, certified, and tuned to deliver optimal performance and user experience.
This HP client virtualization reference architecture is based on Hyper-V, Citrix XenDesktop, HP BladeSystem c7000, HP Virtual Connect Flex-10, and the revolutionary HP P4800 BladeSystem SAN that rewrites the story for client virtualization in terms of reduced cost, increased security, and unmatched performance and scalability. This prescriptive reference architecture from HP
reduces risk, delivers predictable results, and accelerates time to deployment. The reference architecture can be scaled to meet your changing business needs, leveraging the extensive
experience gained by HP from testing and simulating real-world workloads (See Figure 4).
4. Small business and remote office/branch office (ROBO) – The challenge in small business or ROBO environments is keeping IT expenses low while providing quality service to customers and employees. That’s where Microsoft virtualization comes in. However, HA benefits from Hyper-V Live Migration require a shared storage system, which is often too expensive for a small business or structure that includes tens to thousands of ROBOs.
The HP P4000 VSA software for Hyper-V allows you to create a more cost-effective full-featured shared storage solution without purchasing a traditional external SAN system. The HP P4000 VSA runs as a Hyper-V VM and creates a SAN virtual storage pool with the disk storage inside your servers running Windows Server 2008 or the DAS connected to the servers. The software features included with the HP P4000 VSA provide simple storage provisioning and management, efficient capacity utilization, HA, DR, and remote management (for ROBO) without requiring additional storage systems, onsite IT staff, or large capital investments.
To simplify management, HP Insight with Microsoft System Center Essentials 2010 manages physical and virtual servers, clients, storage, and networking
Figure 5. Configuration with two servers each with HP VSA software providing shared storage and HA for Hyper-V VMs. The third server acts as management station.
1 GB Switch OS App OS App OS App Windows System Center Essentials Hyper-V Hyper-V Failover Manager VSA Management Console HP P4000 VSA HP P4000 VSA OS App OS App OS App
HP ProLiant Server HP ProLiant Server HP ProLiant Server Hyper-V
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equipment from a single console, notifying you of critical problems before they result in unplanned downtime, reducing the need to deploy and learn multiple management solutions (See Figure 5). Add to this HP D2D Backup Systems with
StoreOnce deduplication that provide automated, centralized backup of remote sites with reduced network bandwidth requirements, and you have a complete ROBO consolidation and business continuity solution.
5. Private cloud – Private cloud gives you the flexibility and economics of the cloud while retaining the security, transparency, and control of internal IT. But building a private cloud environment requires the right approach, people, and technologies. HP has the expertise to help you deploy a private cloud based on Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V and the System Center family of products. HP StorageWorks is a key component of HP private cloud solutions, offering the scalability, high performance, and data availability needed to deliver services via the private cloud.
– HP CloudStart is the industry’s first all-in-one solution for deploying an open, flexible private cloud environment within 30 days. Built on HP Converged Infrastructure, this turnkey solution simplifies and speeds private cloud deployments for any environment.
– HP StorageWorks Storage Provisioning Manager, integrated with HP BladeSystem Matrix, the backbone of the HP CloudStart solution, streamlines storage provisioning and delivers on-demand infrastructure deployment for applications. – HP P4000 G2 SAN solutions and HP X9000
Network Storage Systems deliver the HA, nondisruptive scalability, and simplified management that private clouds depend on.
Solution in action
Tennessee public utility Jackson Energy Authority (JEA) wanted to boost application availability, improve hardware utilization, and streamline its technology infrastructure – and was exploring virtualization to meet those objectives. After evaluating a number of options, JEA chose the HP P4000 SANs with Hyper-V virtualization.
The HP P4000 SAN was selected for its simple user interface, which enabled JEA to train its junior IT technicians to administer the SAN within a couple of days. The HP P4000 SAN solution enables JEA to realize enterprise-class availability and business continuity features, including instantaneous snapshot backups, remote IP data replication, and multi-site recovery capabilities, thereby eliminating the need and expense of third-party backup and recovery software. And the thin provisioning feature built into the HP P4000 SANs prevents the overallocation of storage and saves money on storage capacity. According to Michael Johnston, vice president of IT at JEA, “When we selected Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V to create our virtualized environment, we knew that we needed a storage system that could easily support our Microsoft applications. The solution had to be very flexible, easy to manage, and able to address our availability needs. Choosing the right SAN was critically important. Without the storage component, we wouldn’t have a comprehensive virtualized IT solution.”
Summing up the experience, Johnston says, “We brought our first server up on a Monday, and had a fully replicated file server by Friday. Having a fully redundant, remote site setup within a few days is really amazing. We were told to expect the solution to be easy to deploy and manage, and it has consistently delivered on that promise.”
Simple, cost-effective way to get
started with virtualization
Getting started with virtualization for your organization can be challenging. You need to find the appropriate software, network, server, and storage configurations. HP has made it simple with the HP Virtualization Smart Bundles. They include everything you need to get started with virtualization – from Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V software to the next generation of HP ProLiant servers, BladeSystem, Insight Software, StorageWorks SANs, Virtual Connect technology, and networking solutions. For more information, visit www.hp.com/go/virtkit.
© Copyright 2010 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
4AA2-0293ENW, Created October 2010
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When Compudyne moved to the HP ProLiant DL380 G6 Servers, they also moved to HP StorageWorks MSA2324i iSCSI storage for their virtual cluster, which they manage using Microsoft Hyper-V. “Clients reported to our service department that performance seemed ‘snappier’. Usually, we only hear from clients when things go wrong or aren’t working. Now, they report improved performance to our service center. The HP ProLiant DL380 G6 Servers, combined with StorageWorks, improves performance – and clients notice.”
Dustin Simonson, Infrastructure and Design Consultant, Compudyne
Speedy data recovery and a good prognosis: Myrtue is midway through transitioning its business infrastructure to an HP StorageWorks C7000 blade enclosure system with seven virtual server blades running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. In this environment implementation of the HP D2D2T Backup System was a snap. “Integrating the HP D2D2T solution was actually pretty easy for us. It works right across the network, and we just kept the Veritas program we’ve been using for years. It was a very simple transition that’s already saving us a lot of time and money.”
Khristine Jacobsen, IT Director, Myrtue Medical Center
Resources
HP has a wealth of Microsoft best practice deployment guides, reference architectures, and technical whitepapers to accelerate deployment with predictable results and reduced risk. They can be found at www.hp.com/go/activeanswers. Information on HP StorageWorks can be found at www.hp.com/go/storage.
Information on HP’s Consolidation and Virtualization Services can be found at http://h20219.
www2.hp.com/services/us/en/consolidated/ consolidation-virtualization-services.html. Other useful resources can be found at HP Solutions for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/ us/en/partners/microsoft-hyper-v.html, and www.hp.com/go/storagevirtualization.
Service options
HP provides a comprehensive array of solutions across services, software, servers, storage, and networking. In addition, HP’s services expertise can bring all your solutions together and deliver them any way you want. You can use these services to help keep critical processes “always on”:
• Integrated Support • Server Services
• Mission-Critical Services • Service Management Services • Multivendor Support Services • Storage Services
• Security, Compliance, and Continuity Services • Support Services
You can also choose from these storage services:
Storage Infrastructure Optimization Services
• SAN Readiness Assessment for Virtualization • Storage Consolidation
• Data Protection and Replication • Storage and Data Migration • Storage Management
Storage Technology Services
• Storage Support
• Storage Installation and Implementation
• Scalable Event, Technical, and Solution Services
Related Services
• Data Center Transformation • HP CarePack Services for Storage • Mission-Critical Services
• Virtualization Support
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