Good reference guide in case you want to implement this nice technology!

Find the document here.

HP released this great technology brief on HP Cloudsystem and this integration with KVM and Openstack.

You can find the document here.

Happy reading!

This solution implements the Database Availability Group (DAG) mailbox resiliency features found in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.
This feature is the base component of the high availability and site resilience framework built into Exchange.
A DAG is a group of up to 16 mailbox servers that host a set of databases and provides database-level recovery from failures that affect individual servers or databases.

This solution brief describes a tested configuration for deploying Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 (Exchange) in a 10,500 user mailbox resilient environment. The performance results and best practices outlined in this document provide tested guidelines for configuring Exchange with the HP ProLiant SL4540 Gen8 Server in a direct attached storage (DAS) storage solution. It is designed around a building block approach with a multi-copy high availability design using a database availability group (DAG) and can be used to scale to large numbers of users. The DAG provides high availability with multiple copies in a primary datacenter location, and an optional secondary datacenter or disaster recovery (DR) location. This design is based on a specific number of servers per DAG which determines the number of users that can be hosted on a single server in a failover scenario.

Find the document here.

Happy reading!

Off course I wanted to add these nice systems in our SIM environment.

However, it does not seems to be supported/enabled by default.

When you launch a discovery with HP SIM towards the IP adress of the 3PAR StoreServ you will get following message:

* Checking for WBEM protocol support on system…
Minor:    This system does not have any SMI-S CIMOMs installed. No storage systems will be found on this system.
Minor:    The Central Management System (CMS) cannot communicate with the CIMOM locally installed on the managed system using the WBEM protocol, Identification will try to identify Windows systems using the WMI Mapper as proxy; for Linux and HP-UX systems, check credentials by going to Options->Security->Credentials->System Credentials. For Linux systems also check if the HP WBEM provider is installed.

This is because by default the CIM service is not running on the HP 3PAR StoreServ’s. You can check this with the command SHOWCIM in the 3PAR CLI.

By using the command STARTCIM you will enable the CIM service

By using SHOWCIM again you can verify that the service is now correctly running.

Now retry your discoverin inside HP SIM. You will see that the CIMOM discovery is now working like it should be.

* Checking for WBEM protocol support on system…
Normal:   This system has WBEM protocol support.
Normal:   This system has at least one SMI-S CIMOM installed to serve as the storage proxy to discover storage systems.
Normal:   This system has a server CIMOM installed.

All information on the 3PAR including ports and volumes is now nicely discovered by HP SIM

When I was growing up it was always a Lamborghini Countach

Or that tennis lady with the itchy butt

For you techies I guess it’s the ISS servers poster.

Download it here.

Historically, messaging has not been among applications that are commonly virtualized. Yet, virtualizing Exchange can be a cost-effective way to implement a flexible messaging architecture that delivers higher service levels and enables mailboxes to be scaled simply and dynamically. Virtualization decouples virtual and physical resources, thereby enabling the sharing of server resources previously dedicated to individual applications.

Microsoft® officially supports Windows® Server and Microsoft Exchange Server running on VMware’s vSphere.1 VMware vSphere was the first hypervisor validated under Microsoft’s Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP), providing customers with cooperative support from Microsoft and VMware.

This reference configuration is a guideline for the planning and budgeting of your Exchange server hardware deployments. This solution details the server and storage requirements for supporting 4,000 mailbox users, each with a 2 GB mailbox capacity and a workload profile of 200 messages sent and received per user, per day. The servers and storage are sized to support Exchange 2010 in a virtualized environment using VMware’s vSphere 5.0. The solution combines the native data protection features of Exchange 2010 along with the HA benefits of the HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2.

Download the white paper here.

This document will focus on the 3 node configuration of HP ProLiant SL4540 Gen8. It consists of up to three compute nodes and a total of forty-five (45) large form factor (LFF) 3.5″ hard disk drives (HDD) in the chassis. The HP ProLiant SL4540 is a dual socket Gen8 server, with a choice of five different Intel® Xeon® processors, up to 192GB of memory and one PCIe slot for expansion per node. Every compute node also has its own dedicated networking ports.

Also shown is an alternate design using disks without RAID1 protection, with two Exchange copies in both the primary datacenter and the secondary datacenter, which would make it possible to use identical server configurations (CPU, memory and database layout). Since the database volumes are not protected by RAID, a single disk failure will require failover to the second Exchange copy. This design supports slightly more users and larger mailboxes due to this different architecture, but does require an additional mailbox server per DAG in the secondary or DR location.

Download the white paper here.

While virtualization of Exchange is not necessarily new, it has now reached the level of operational maturity needed to support enterprise deployments. The sizing guidelines and design decisions in this white paper describe important details on how the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 server blades and 3PAR StoreServ storage can be configured and deployed to support virtualized Exchange 2010 enterprise deployments.

Download the white paper here.

Nice to know is the availability of the new Insight Control Server Deployment software which will replace the good old RDP Rapid Deployment Pack based on Altiris.
From now it is HP owned software based on HP Server Automation.

Other new features good to know are SNMP v3 in HP SIM, latest hardware support and support for Windows 2012.

All details and specs:

Insight Management 7.2 DVDs:

The HP Insight Management integrated installer and all product documentation are located on DVD #1. The installer will automatically prompt for DVD #2 if components located on that DVD are selected for install or upgrade. Insight Control and Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager users only need DVD #1. Matrix Operating Environment users need both DVDs.

• DVD2 is now double-layer
• Support for Gen8 Snap4 servers
• New CMS support:
  • Windows Server 2012 Standard
  • Windows Server 2012 Data Center
  • HP-UX 11iv3 (11.31) 1303
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V
  • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012
• New database support:
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express SP2
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard SP2
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise SP2
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Standard Initial release and SP1
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Initial release and SP1
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Business Intelligence Initial release and SP1
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Web Initial release and SP1(HP SIM only)
• New managed system support:
  • RHEL 5.9
  • Hyper-V • KVM on RHEL 5.9
• (The deprecated support list can be found in the Insight Management Support Matrix.)
• HP Systems Insight Manager 7.2:
  • Security enhancements including SNMP v3 support (for SNMP v3 compliant devices), SSL support for 2048 bit certificates, and user defined ciphers
• HP Insight Control 7.2:
  • Location Discovery Services support on blade servers
  • New Insight Control server provisioning component for rapid physical OS provisioning, firmware, BIOS and smart array configuration
• HP Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager 7.2:
  • Support for Virtual Connect FW 3.75
• HP Matrix Operating Environment 7.2:
  • Intra-company resource sharing via CloudSystem-to-CloudSystem bursting
  • Built-in OpenStack connector for Service Providers
  • Support for Insight Control server provisioning
  • Enhancements to initial VM server import capabilities
  • Support for 3PAR StoreServ 7000

Insight Management 7.2 DVD #1 (double-layer):

• HP Insight Software Integrated Installer 7.2 updated
• HP Systems Insight Manager 7.2 updated
• HP Systems Management Homepage (SMH) 7.2 updated
• WMI Mapper 7.2 updated
• HP Version Control Repository Manager (VCRM) 7.2 updated
• HP Insight Control 7.2 updated
• HP Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager (VCEM) 7.2 updated
• HP Managed System Setup Wizard 7.2 updated
• mxsync 7.2 updated
• HP Insight Software Advisor 7.2 updated
• MIBs 9.30 updated

• HP Insight Control power management 7.2 updated
• HP Insight Control server deployment 7.2 updated
• HP Insight Control server migration 7.2 updated
• HP Insight Control performance management 7.2 updated
• HP Insight Control virtual machine management 7.2 updated

Insight Management 7.2 DVD #2 (double-layer):

• HP Matrix Operating Environment 7.2 updated

• HP Matrix Operating Environment 7.2 updated
• HP Matrix infrastructure orchestration 7.2 updated
• HP Matrix recovery management  7.2 updated

• Storage Provisioning Manager (SPM) 2.2 updated
• EMC Adaptor 7.2 updated
• Open source files

Where to find it?

• hp.com update website: www.hp.com/go/insightupdates
• SW Depot direct link: https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=IMDVD
• Product documentation: www.hp.com/go/insightmanagement/docs

New features in Matrix Operating Environment

•Provisioning to an HP Matrix KVM Private Cloud

•Storage Provisioning Manager (SPM) Windows CMS only)

◦Support for virtual domains

◦New SPM security groups (e.g., Matrix User Security Group)

•Data disk provisioning for HP Cloud Services servers

•User-defined properties in templates to facilitate external integration

•Organization lifecycle API and CLI extensions

•Bursting support for HP Matrix systems, as a source and a target

•Upgrade Matrix OE Operations Orchestration to version 9.06.0001 with Content Pack 9

•Extending bursting capabilities to partners

•Support for Insight Control server provisioning

•Enhancements to initial VM server import capabilities

•Assign service to another user

•Per user template control

•Chargeback archival mechanism

•mxreconfig for CMS

•Support for HyperV non-HA VM with non-Clustered RDM disk

•Support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 in Compatibility View

• HP SUM 5.3.5 User Guide: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c03673114/c03673114.pdf

• HP SUM 5.3.5 Release Notes: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c03674279/c03674279.pdf

• HP ProLiant and Integrity Firmware Management Best Practices Overview: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c02225412/c02225412.pdf

• HP ProLiant and Integrity Firmware Management Best Practices Planning Guide: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c02967678/c02967678.pdf

• HP ProLiant and Integrity Firmware Management Best Practices Implementer Guide: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c02049593/c02049593.pdf

• HP Intelligent Provisioning User Guide: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c03182305/c03182305.pdf

• HP Intelligent Provisioning 1.40 Release Notes: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c03674135/c03674135.pdf

• HP ROM-Based Setup Utility User Guide: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00191707/c00191707.pdf

• HP Scripting Toolkit 9.40 for Linux User Guide: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c03674024/c03674024.pdf

• HP Scripting Toolkit 9.40 for Windows User Guide: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c03674075/c03674075.pdf

• HP Service Pack for ProLiant User Guide: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c03190790/c03190790.pdf

Additional documentation is available on the following information libraries:

• HP ProLiant Gen8 Server Management Information Library: http://www.hp.com/go/proliantgen8/docs

• HP SUM Information Library: http://www.hp.com/go/hpsum/documentation

• SPP Information Library: http://www.hp.com/go/spp/documentation

Update time!