Technical white paper

HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Best Practices

Table of contents
Introduction 3
Overview of HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software 3
When to use thin provisioning 4
Avoiding frequent storage capacity addition to servers 4
Accelerating time to market 4
Modeling chargeback 5
When not to use thin provisioning 5
Common provisioning groups 6
CPGs and workloads 6
Reasons to create multiple CPGs 6
CPG automatic growth 6
How TPVVs use CPG space 7
Changing LD characteristics within a CPG 7
Snapshot space within CPGs 7
Allocating CPG space to TPVVs 7
CPG performance considerations 8
TPVV sizing guidelines 8
Managing thin storage 9
Allocation warnings 9
Allocation limits 10
Remaining physical capacity alerts 10
Remaining CPG free space alerts 11
Viewing logged warning and limit alerts 11
Host system based quota 11
User recommendations 11
Tracking volume space usage 12
TPVVs 12
CPGs 12
System space 12
Total used space 13
Running out of space 13
Running out of space in a TPVV 13
Running out of space in a CPG 13
Running out of space on the system 13
Usage reporting and trend analysis 14
Additional HP 3PAR thin technologies 14
Reclaiming unused space 15
File system considerations 16
Thin provisioning efficiency on host file systems 16
File system fragmentation 16
Thin provisioning and applications 16
Databases 16
Microsoft Exchange 17
VMware vSphere 17
Migration to thin provisioned volumes 18
Migrating from fat to thin across arrays 18
Migrating from fat to thin on the same array 18
Storage Federation and Peer Motion 19
Licensing 19
Conclusion 19
Learn more 19
Introduction
Balancing the storage needs of new projects or unpredictable workloads against limited resources is the prime challenge
of IT managers today. Of the many proposed solutions for improving storage efficiency, few are actually implemented.
Of those implemented, fewer still achieve demonstrable success.
Thin provisioning has achieved widespread adoption as it dramatically increases capacity efficiencies. It has become a
data center “must have” for its ability to break the connection between logical and physical capacity. However, all thin
provisioning implementations do not deliver the same results. Some are complex to deploy, while others use coarse
allocation units and cannot deliver optimal savings.
Thin provisioning allows a volume to be created and made available as a Logical Unit Number (LUN) to a host without the
need to dedicate physical storage until it is actually written. The operating system (OS) on the host recognizes and can
consume the full size of the thin provisioned volume. HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software has long been considered the
gold standard in thin provisioning for its simplicity and efficiency. Unlike other “bolt-on” implementations, HP 3PAR Thin
Provisioning Software is simple and efficient, helps to start new projects more quickly and on demand and saves millions
of dollars to organizations. HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning leverages the dedicate-on-write approach of the HP 3PAR Utility
Storage platform, allowing enterprises to purchase only the disk capacity they actually need. HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning
integrates into Symantec’s Veritas Storage Foundation, VMware vSphere 4 and 5, Oracle ASM, and others greatly
enhancing the operative and administrative efficiency of these applications.
While HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software is extremely simple to deploy and use, a certain amount of planning is
advantageous to maximize its benefits. This paper documents best practices on thin provisioning on 3PAR systems and
is intended for administrators looking to get the most out of their HP 3PAR Utility Storage deployment. In addition, it
describes other HP 3PAR thin technologies that can be used in conjunction with HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software to
maximize its effectiveness. Unique to HP 3PAR Utility Storage, HP 3PAR Thin Conversion Software enables customers to
reduce capacity requirements by 50 percent or more 1 by deploying HP 3PAR Storage Systems in place of legacy storage.
HP 3PAR Thin Persistence Software and other thin reclamation solutions enable thin provisioned storage on HP 3PAR
arrays to stay thin over time by ensuring that unused capacity is reclaimed for use by the array on an ongoing basis.

Overview of HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software

The HP 3PAR InForm Operating System software (InForm OS) running on the 3PAR system controller nodes
automatically subdivides the installed physical disks into “chunklets” which are the basic building blocks of every Virtual
Volume (VV). On HP 3PAR F-Class and T-Class Storage Systems, a chunklet is a contiguous area of 256 MB in size, on
P10000 systems chunklets are 1 GB in size (Figure 1). VVs are created by assembling a potentially large number of
chunklets, spread over all disks of the same type in the system, into a small number of logical disks (LDs). The LDs that
make up a VV are carved from a single Common Provisioning Group (CPG). A CPG is a grouping of characteristics for a VV,
such as disk type, RAID type, and availability level. A CPG can be seen as a “service level” for data storage. Every fully
provisioned VV has its own set of LDs, thin provisioned VVs (TPVVs) however share LDs. The LDs for TPVVs are sized just
large enough to store the data written to them and they grow automatically when the TPVVs grow. The InForm OS
allocates fine-grained 16 KB increments upon writes to thin provisioned volumes from a single, array-wide free space
reservoir with no separate, pre-dedicated pool required per service level.
Thin Provisioning management on 3PAR systems is assisted by one (F and T-Class ) or two (P10000) ASICs per controller
node in the array. This unique ASIC provides a hyper-efficient, silicon-based, in-band engine to maximize capacity
utilization while maintaining very high service levels. Its zero-detect capability reclaims allocated but unused capacity
on the array without any form of post processing. This ASIC is the key technology for converting traditional “fat” vol.

1
Refer to the HP 3PAR Get Thin Guarantee for details: hp.com/storage/getthin

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Figure 1: Overview of thin provisioned virtual volumes (TPVVs)

When to use thin provisioning

HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning can be used with nearly all applications available in the market to dramatically
improve storage utilization. To realize the highest value from this feature, you should consider the use cases
discussed in this section.

Avoiding frequent storage capacity addition to servers

Storage administrators often allocate large amounts of storage at the start of a project to accommodate their long-term
growth requirements. This practice reduces the number of times that LUNs mapped to a server have to be expanded, an
operation which can be complex, time consuming, and cause server downtime. With the HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning
Software it is possible to allocate large amounts of storage to a particular server but only consume physical space on
the array as used. This fits environments where:

• The addition or expansion of storage provisioned to servers is not desired, for example in mission-critical
environments
• Relatively slow growth rates or unpredictable growth over time occurs. This can happen on large file systems used for
group shares, mailbox databases, or general database space.

Accelerating time to market

In an application’s development stage, there is sometimes a requirement for the application storage to be in place and
ready before the application goes live. With the HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software, it is possible to present
the storage immediately so that it is ready for the developers to work on without the requirement for the full amount
of physical capacity being in place. Because thin provisioning gives storage administrators the ability to place
limits on TPVVs and CPGs, the admin can make sure that the developer’s work does not affect other production systems
by using the free space within the HP 3PAR system. Once the application is ready to go live, these limits
can be removed.

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Modeling chargeback
Thin Provisioning is ideal for service providers and others wishing to deploy a Utility Storage offering where
usage chargeback is an important component of the service. Thin provisioning offers service providers the
following benefits:

• Quick deployment
• Decoupling the charges for storage from the limitations of actual presented storage
• Removing the exposure to disruption of service during future capacity expansions
• Increasing profit margins based on the savings resulting from the difference in cost for provisioned storage compared
to actual physically used storage
• Collecting detailed charging data at the individual VV level (usage shown by the showvv –p –prov
[full|cpvv|tpvv|snp]or at the CPG level (usage shown by the showcpg –r <cpg> or showvv –p –cpg
<cpg>)

Note: When planning to collect charging data, it is recommended that the names chosen for objects like CPGs, VVs, snapshots and domains contain a
meaningful prefix or suffix referring to the project, application, line of business or department the objects belong to. This enables the grouping of objects
in the chargeback report. The InForm OS allows up to 31 characters for the name of an object.

When not to use thin provisioning

Thin provisioning may be used with all LUNs provisioned from a HP 3PAR array, also when they run mission-critical
applications. However, there are certain workloads or applications where it does not necessarily make sense to use thin
provisioning such as:
• Systems with a high file system utilization. File systems on TPVVs that are nearly full offer reduced benefits of thin
provisioning. This relates to the fact that, for thin volumes, the thin provisioning license charge will be incurred in
addition to the cost for physical disk capacity used. In the case of file system utilization rates of 80 percent or higher,
it may be more cost-efficient to use fat provisioned volumes to hold the data.
• Applications that write continuously to new space. Examples of this are log files and file system swap space.
Reclaiming space at some stage is virtually impossible in an environment like this.
• Databases not in “auto-extend” mode (or equivalent). Some databases initialize their assigned storage at creation
time by writing markers at regular intervals over the entire volume. This has the same effect as provisioning file
systems with a high utilization on thin volumes and is financially not interesting.
• Small capacity requirements. Thin provisioning is ideal for large-scale volumes. For small size VVs (256 MB up to a
few tens of GB) even the minimum growth increment of the CPG may mean that minimal benefit is realized. Use care
in the selection of the CPG growth increment in this case.
• Storage requiring large amounts of snapshots space. Snapshot space used by TPVVs is included in the thin
provisioning license usage calculations. With many snapshots taken, it is possible that the snapshot space used is
much greater than the TPVV itself. The efficiency of thin provisioning will be reduced when the combined TPVV and
snapshot space increases above 80 percent of the TPVV size.
• Environments that require encrypted volumes. Writing 16 KB blocks of zeros to a newly created thin provisioned
volumes on a HP 3PAR system with an encryption device in the data path will not trigger the HP 3PAR ASIC to replace
the zero blocks by stubs because the encryption alters the content of the blocks. Applying encryption to thin
provisioned volumes that already contain data or re-keying them will inflate all stubs for zero blocks to their full size
making the LUN consume space as if it was fully provisioned. Re-thinning the volume by writing zeros to allocated but
unused space after files were deleted is not possible as well. As a result, encryption by a device in the data path and
thin provisioning do not cooperate well. This is applicable to any array in general.
• Customers who are not prepared to maintain their storage. Thin provisioning requires only a minimal amount of
management, but it does require a willingness to set and monitor a series of alarms around space consumption and to
manage the physical storage and thin provisioning licenses as needed on an ongoing basis. The advantage of this is
that the customer can closely track their actual storage usage with the capacity in the array, thus minimizing costs.
Customers who are not prepared to dedicate any resources whatsoever to monitoring and managing their HP 3PAR
systems are not a suitable match for the use of thin provisioning.

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Common provisioning groups
CPGs are policies for how free chunklets within the HP 3PAR array should be used when creating volumes. A CPG policy
contains parameters such as disk type, disk speed, RAID type, growth increment, chunklet radial placement, and
availability level. CPGs automatically grow according to the stated parameters. Within a growth increment, the InForm
OS allocates blocks of 16 KB on demand to store data in a TPVV. No administrator intervention is needed in this
provisioning operation.

CPGs and workloads

HP 3PAR Storage Systems perform optimally for any type of workload, and different workloads can be mixed
on the same array. These different workloads may need different types of service levels to store their data. For
example, for high-performance mission-critical workloads it may be best to create volumes with a RAID 1 protection on
15k rpm Fiber Channel (FC) drives. For less demanding projects, RAID 5 protection on 7.2k rpm Nearline (NL) drives may
suffice. For each of these workloads, you can create a CPG to serve as the template for creating VVs for the workload. It
is most efficient to keep the number of CPGs low as each CPG reserves its amount of growth space. TPVVs can be moved
between CPGs with the HP 3PAR Dynamic Optimization Software command tunevv, thereby changing their underlying
physical disk layout and hence their service level.
The following sections discuss what to consider when planning CPGs for thin provisioning and virtual copy snapshots
and recommends a set of best practices.

Reasons to create multiple CPGs

All TPVVs associated with a CPG allocate space from a shared pool of LDs. This means that VVs associated with a
particular CPG all have identical LD characteristics. VVs that require different characteristics must use a different CPG.
Reasons to create different CPGs include:

• To define different service levels e.g. RAID 1, RAID 5 or RAID 6; use FC drives, NL drives, or Solid State
Drives (SSDs)
• To map TPVVs to specific controller nodes within the array (for example, associate some VVs with nodes 0 and 1 and
others with nodes 2 and 3)
• To isolate TPVVs onto a subset of the physical disks to minimize the interaction between workloads for performance
or availability reasons (for example separate database files and their transaction logs on different disk subsets)
• To map TPVVs belonging to different lines of business, departments, or customers onto particular CPGs for reporting
and management purposes. Creating CPGs with exactly the same characteristics but a different name is possible. This
allows a logical separation of resources and may help with chargeback models, as chargeback could be based on CPG
space usage rather than usage at an individual VV level.

CPG automatic growth

By default CPGs dynamically allocate storage in increments specified by the CPG’s growth increment. This
on-demand allocation unit determines the automated response to the growth demands of TPVVs. The growth
increment should be large enough to ensure wide-striping across all physical disks that are part of the CPG. To
grow the TPVV, the InForm OS may expand existing LDs according to the CPGs growth increment or create
additional ones. Growth is triggered when the CPG’s available space falls below 75 percent of the growth increment
value. The CPG growth increment can be changed at any time, which also changes the threshold for the next growth
increment to happen. A mechanism with warnings and limits can be configured on the array to control the growth
of a CPG. When the growth increment is set to zero, the CPG does not grow automatically.
The default and the minimum growth increment for a CPG depend on the number of nodes in the system. Table 1 lists
the default growth increment and its limits for different numbers of node pairs in a system. The maximum growth
increment for a CPG is 2,047.750 GB being 2 TB minus 256 MB. The numbers in Table 1 are valid for InForm OS version
2.3.1 and 3.1.1.

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Table 1: Default and limits for the growth increment per node pair

Number of nodes Default (GB) Minimum (GB) Maximum (GB)

2 32 8 2,047.750
4 64 16 2,047.750
6 96 24 2,047.750
8 128 32 2,047.750

Considerations when selecting a CPG growth increment for a CPG include:

• The CPG growth increment can be changed at any time. This affects new LDs that are allocated from the CPG but does
not impact any LDs already allocated from it.
• A CPG always has a certain amount of growth space allocated to it. To determine the optimal growth increment for
your environment, review the following three factors influencing the value for it:
– The CPG growth increment should be as small as possible to minimize the amount of reserved growth space. This is
of particular importance for CPGs created on SSDs, the space on which is usually limited within the array.
– For optimal performance, the growth parameter of the CPG needs to be large enough to create new LDs from
chunklets coming from all physical disks of a particular type (FC, NL, or SSD) within the HP 3PAR Storage System. An
8 GB growth size with 256 MB chunklets using RAID 1 will use 64 chunklets hence touching 64 physical disks when
creating the LDs. If the 3PAR system has 480 disks, then the optimum CPG growth size to use all disks for RAID 1
would be 60 GB with 256 MB chunklets and 240 GB for 1 GB chunklets.
– If the environment is write-intensive, the rate of consumption of CPG space might be significant. In this case, it is
recommended that the growth increment be set to a value above the default value listed in Table 1.

How TPVVs use CPG space

LDs within a CPG are divided into “regions”, which are contiguous blocks of 128 MB in size. These regions are striped
across many chunklets. The space for each TPVV is allocated across the regions as needed. Host writes are mapped to
LD regions in 16 KB pages to optimize capacity usage.

Changing LD characteristics within a CPG

LD space within a CPG is automatically allocated to VVs as needed. Storage administrators have no direct control over
which LDs are used for a particular allocation. Therefore, in general, it makes little sense to have LDs with different
characteristics in the same CPG. Although the capability exists to modify the LD characteristics for new LDs within a CPG,
its use is advisable only in rare instances, for example when different LD characteristics would enable the CPG to fully
utilize the remaining available physical capacity.

Snapshot space within CPGs

A TPVV can be associated at creation time or at a later stage with Snapshot Data (SD) space, which is used to store data
changed in the original volume. The space for one or more snapshots or virtual copies can originate from the same CPG
as for the user space in the TPVV or from a different one. The CPG for the snapshot space of a TPVV can be changed
anytime later using the tunevv command. The snapshot space grows on-demand with growth increments as defined
by the CPG in which it was created. This association eliminates the planning required to estimate and dedicate capacity
upfront for copy-on-write snapshots of a volume.

Allocating CPG space to TPVVs

Each TPVV associated with a CPG allocates space from the following sources in the listed order:

• Unused SD and SA (Snapshot Admin) space in the CPG. The space of removed snapshots is left allocated to the TPVV
and selected as the primary source of space for expanding the TPVV. The LDs for expansion are mapped to snapshot
data and snapshot admin space of an associated VV and its snapshot descendents as needed. The space of removed
snapshots can be reclaimed using the freespace command. The reclaimed space is returned to the CPG.

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• Unallocated LD space in CPGs. LD space is shared by all the TPVVs associated with the CPG. This space can grow to a
considerable amount since the SA and SD space of any VV associated with the CPG is returned to the CPG as
unallocated LD space upon VV removal or when the freespace command is issued for a TPVV. CPGs do not
automatically remove unused LDs; the returned, unallocated LDs are remapped to the SD space of associated TPVVs
or their snapshots as needed over time. To free this space for other uses (for example, for use by other CPGs), the
unused LDs must be manually removed from a CPG using the removeld command. Only LDs that are entirely unused
can be removed. Unallocated LD space for a CPG can be displayed using the command showld –cpg <CPG>. Please
note that the system will automatically create new LDs, which will show as unused initially, based on the CPG growth
size parameter.
• Free chunklets. Free chunklets available to a CPG for creating new LDs may be limited by the LD creation parameters
for the CPG. It is important to understand that, if different CPGs can draw from the same pool of chunklets, the
chunklets allocated to one CPG will reduce the pool of storage available to the other CPGs. It is recommended that
storage administrators implement the following strategies to stay abreast of available free space:
– Set the CPG allocation warnings (and limits, if necessary)
– Monitor the free space reduction rate using the command showspace –cpg <CPG> –hist
– Set the free space capacity warning with the setsys RawSpaceAlertXX command (as detailed in Allocation warnings
section on page 9)
– Monitor available free space alerts set by the showalert command
– Maintain a buffer of physical capacity

CPG performance considerations

Two CPG performance recommendations can be made:

• CPG layout
– Use all physical disks of a particular type (FC, NL, SSD) present in the array when creating a
CPG to enable wide striping
– Use HP 3PAR Dynamic Optimization Software to rebalance the LDs when new disks are added
• CPG growth size
– Use a growth increment value that allocates exactly one, two, three, … chunklets from every physical disk of a
particular type in the system

TPVV sizing guidelines

What is the ideal size for a TPVV? There is no definite answer to this, but you should consider the following when
deciding on the size for thin volumes:

• On the P10000 (V-class) system the minimum size for a TPVV is 1 GB, for other arrays it is 256 MB. The maximum size
for a TPVV is 16 TB for all InForm OS versions on all types of HP 3PAR systems.
• Thin provisioning demonstrates the most value in situations involving large scale consolidation. For small virtual
volumes (256 MB up to a few tens of GB), the growth increment of the CPG of the TPVV may be many times higher
than the TPVV size meaning that minimal benefit is realized after one growth increment was applied.
• It is possible to increase the size of a thin volume. This provides a significant amount of flexibility. However, the
impact of growing volumes for host-based OS needs to be considered. It is not possible to shrink a TPVV.
• When faced with a choice, it is preferable to make volumes larger than needed over making them too small. If the
volumes that are presented are too small for the ongoing requirements, then TPVV growth or additional volumes will
be required in the future, which is something that needs to be managed.
• If you create large volumes, space overconsumption by the host system or by users may happen. Using quota on the
host system is an elegant way to manage potential overuse.

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Managing thin storage
Overprovisioning capacity to hosts is one of the prime reasons why people choose to create thin provisioned volumes.
Natural growth or a misbehaving process writing excessive amounts of data to VVs can cause a CPG or the entire array to
run out of space potentially causing an interruption of service for applications consuming space from that CPG or array.
While HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software is simple to use, a certain level of management is required to maximize its
benefits. The InForm OS provides multiple categories of alerts that notify storage administrators of important events to
ensure the smooth running of a HP 3PAR array. Figure 2 illustrates the categories for which warnings can be set.
These include:

• Allocation warnings and limits for TPVVs

• Growth warnings and limits for CPGs
• Used physical capacity alerts
• Free physical capacity alerts

Figure 2: HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning alert options

Allocation warnings
Allocation warnings provide a mechanism for informing storage administrators when a specific capacity threshold is
reached. An allocation warning can be specified independently for each TPVV and each CPG. It is recommended that
allocation warnings be used, at least on the CPG level, and acted upon when they get triggered.
The relevant CLI commands for setting allocation and growth warnings are:
• setvv –usr_aw <percent> <TPVV>: sets the allocation warning for the user space of the TPVV
as a percentage of the TPVV size
• setvv –snp_aw <percent> <TPVV>: sets the allocation warning for the snapshot space of the TPVV
as a percentage of the TPVV size
• setcpg –sdgw <num> <CPG>: sets the growth warning for the CPG in MB (append to the
value num “g” or “G” for GB or “t” or “T” for TB)

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These warnings can be changed at any time and are effective immediately. The CLI commands showvv –alert and
showcpg –alert lists the allocation warnings that were set per TPVV and CPG.
The following CLI commands set warnings for the remaining space on a particular drive type in the array:

• setsys RawSpaceAlertFC <num>:
• setsys RawSpaceAlertNL <num>:
• setsys RawSpaceAlertSSD <num>:
sets the allocation warning for FC drives where num is the
remaining raw capacity in GB on the FC drives in the array
sets the allocation warning for NL drives where num is the
remaining raw capacity in GB on the NL drives in the array
sets the allocation warning for SSD drives where num is the
remaining raw capacity in GB on the SSD drives in the array

These warnings can be changed at any time and are effective immediately. The CLI command showsys -d lists the
warnings that were set per disk type.

Allocation limits
Applications sometimes get into an abnormal state writing data continuously to the storage device. Allocation
limits provide a mechanism to prevent such “runaway” applications from consuming disk capacity beyond a
specified threshold. Allocation limits can be specified independently for each TPVV and each CPG. For a TPVV,
once the allocation limit is reached, the capacity allocated to the TPVV stops growing and new application writes
fail. Similarly, for a CPG, once the allocation limit is reached, the automatic creation of new LDs, if configured,
is disabled.
The relevant CLI commands related to setting allocation and growth limits are:

• setvv –usr_al <percent> <TPVV>: sets the allocation limit for the user space of the TPVV
as a percentage of the TPVV size
• setvv –snp_al <percent> <TPVV>: sets the allocation limit for the snapshot space of the TPVV
as a percentage of the TPVV size
• setcpg –sdgl <num> <CPG>: sets the growth limit of the CPG in MB (append to the
value num “g” or “G” for GB, or “t” or “T” for TB)

These alerts can be changed at any time and are effective immediately. The CLI commands showvv –alert and
showcpg –alert list the allocation limits that were set per TPVV and CPG.
It is important to note that the growth limit for a CPG is a hard limit and the CPG will not grow beyond it. Any VVs that
require more space from the CPG once the hard limit is reached will not be able to grow and will eventually present write
errors to host systems until the CPG allocation limit is raised. Because of this, it is recommended that TPVV, CPG, and
free space warnings and limits be set to sensible levels and managed when they are triggered. As an example, the CPG
warning limit should be set sufficiently below the CPG allocation limit so that it alerts the storage administrator with
ample time to react before the CPG allocation limit is reached.

Remaining physical capacity alerts

As available physical capacity across the HP 3PAR Storage System is utilized by traditional VVs and/or TPVVs,
pre-configured alerts are generated at 50 percent, 75 percent, 85 percent, and 95 percent of physical capacity in use per
disk type (FC, NL, or SSD). Furthermore, the storage administrator can use the CLI command setsys as follows to set
another warning level when the available space within the system falls below a custom-defined
capacity point:
• setsys RawSpaceAlertFC <value>, where value is the remaining capacity on FC disks in GB
• setsys RawSpaceAlertNL <value>, where value is the remaining capacity on NL disks in GB
• setsys RawSpaceAlertSSD <value>, where value is the remaining capacity on SSD disks in GB
These serve as array-wide, advance warnings to the storage administrator to plan for and add necessary physical
capacity. The alerts generated should be monitored and promptly acted upon to prevent all free space being used of a
particular disk type.

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Remaining CPG free space alerts
A history of used and free CPG space is available. The InForm OS samples CPGs and the space available to the CPGs for
growth once per day. This history is stored in an internal table and can be displayed using the -hist option in the
showspace and showcpg commands. An alert is automatically generated if the available free space for a CPG falls
below the CPG warning limit or the CPG allocation limit.

Viewing logged warning and limit alerts

All warning and limit alerts mentioned above can be viewed in several ways:

• The CLI commands showalert and showeventlog list the alerts in various formats and with various options
• The HP 3PAR InForm Management Console shows the alerts in the “Events” section
• SMI-S integrated in InForm OS provides for asynchronous notification of events that indicate changes in the managed
elements controlled by the CIM server. A CIM client can subscribe to selected CIM Indications to receive event
notifications from the CIM server.
• The SNMP agent within the InForm OS allows for retrieving the alerts by remote SNMP clients
• Alerts can be forwarded (setsys) to a Log Host for viewing them in an Enterprise Management application like
HP OpenView

Host system based quota

Host system based quota can be used through complement TPVV and CPG limits. Quota limits may be handled more
gracefully by the applications and the host OS than the hard limits set for the TPVVs and CPGs by the InForm OS.

User recommendations
The monitoring of alerts for available capacity by storage administrators and internal business processes are a critical
component of a successful HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning management and administration strategy. In priority order, the
recommended level of process responsibility for customers to monitor thin provisioned HP 3PAR Utility Storage is:
• Customer should nominate a primary and if possible a backup storage administrator for each site with HP 3PAR
equipment. Nominated storage administrator roles are:
– Proactively monitor free space availability per TPVV and CPG
– Proactively monitor consumption rates for TPVVs and CPGs
– Proactively monitor used TPVV capacity and compare to licensed thin provisioning capacity
– Proactively monitor physical capacity thresholds for each disk type and for the entire array
– Ensure adequate purchasing and installation of additional physical disk capacity buffer and thin provisioning
license upgrades in a timely manner
– Customer should nominate an escalation contact who will have proper authority to drive the customer
responsibilities outlined in this document if the nominated storage administrator(s) fail to carry out their
responsibilities.

In the event that the customer implements all of the recommendations indicated above and has a network connection
with HP 3PAR Central via the Service Processor integrated in the array, the customer can request to receive thin
provisioning and other alerts forwarded to HP 3PAR Central also by mail to a specified email address or via phone. The
customer retains responsibility for managing thin provisioning capacity and CPGs, HP is not responsible for any failure
when thresholds are met or exceeded.

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Tracking volume space usage
TPVVs consume user space, admin space, and possibly snapshot space on the disk array. The following sections provide
the CLI commands needed to determine how much space of every type is being consumed within the array. The output of
these CLI commands show the Reserved and the Raw Reserved space. The Reserved space is what is offered by
the array as usable space to the host. This value is also shown in the HP 3PAR InForm Management Console in the
Reserved User Size column for a TPVV and in the pie chart for the Logical option in the Summary tab for the
virtual volume details screen. The Raw Reserved space is calculated from the Reserved space by multiplying the
latter by its RAID overhead factor. For example, this factor is 2 for RAID 1 and 8/7 for RAID 5 with a SetSize equal to 8.
The InForm Management Console shows the Raw Reserved space in the pie chart for the Raw option in the Summary
tab for the virtual volume details. In chargeback models, most IT Departments bill their customers on the amounts of
Raw Reserved space consumed.

TPVVs
Use the showvv –r –p -prov tpvv command to see how much admin, user and snapshot space is used by each
TPVV. Columns 5 to 10 in the output of the command show these different types of space in their Reserved and Raw
Reserved amounts with totals in columns 11 and 12. Adding the user space and snap space CPG names to this output
for chargeback identification is possible using this CLI command:
showvv -showcols Id,Name,Prov,Type,UsrCPG,SnpCPG,Adm_RawRsvd_MB,
Adm_Rsvd_MB,Snp_RawRsvd_MB,Snp_Rsvd_MB,Usr_RawRsvd_MB,
Usr_Rsvd_MB,Tot_RawRsvd_MB,Tot_Rsvd_MB,VSize_MB

CPGs
Space in use on the array can be tracked by CPG. The showcpg –r command shows the user, snapshot, and admin
space in Used and Raw Used amounts. You can work out the unallocated space within the CPGs by subtracting the
used space from the Totals listed.

System space
Not all space on the physical disks can be used for storing customer data. A small portion of the space on the array is
dedicated to volumes with an administrative function. These volumes are described below.
At array initialization, the InForm OS creates a fully provisioned volume named admin that is used to store system
administrative data such as the System Event Log. This volume has 10 GB of usable space in RAID 1 with SetSize=2,
meaning the volume consumes 10*2=20 GB of raw space on the array. Details about the admin volume can be found in
the InForm Management Console (IMC) or with the CLI command showvv -r –p –baseid 0. From the IMC or the
output of showld –d –vv admin we see this volume does not belong to a CPG, it is created directly on the physical
disks. The 20 GB raw space of the admin volume is created on equally sized LDs, one on each controller node in the
system. On a four-node system we would have one LD with 5120 MB (5 GB) of raw space on every node making up the
admin volume.
The output of showld shows a few LDs starting with the name pdsld. These are the Preserved Data Space Logical
Disks (PDSLDs), created in RAID 1 with SetSize=3 which creates two copies of the data. They are created by the
InForm OS during initial system setup, do not belong to a CPG and do not show up as a virtual volume in the IMC or in the
output of showvv. Preserved Data is the data moved from the system’s cache memory to the PDSLD space when
multiple disk write failures occur. The total capacity of the PDSLDs is equal to the sum of all data cache memory located
in the controller nodes of the system.
Finally, the array deploys a number of logging LDs that make up the logging disks. These disks, starting with the name
log in the output of showld, are created during initial system setup, do not belong to a CPG and do not show up as a
virtual volume in the IMC or in the output of showvv. They store data temporarily during physical disk failures and disk
replacement procedures. Every node in the array has one logging LD comprised of 60 GB of usable space. The protection
level for the logging LDs is RAID 1 with SetSize=2 meaning the raw space per logging LD is 120 GB. The command
showld -d will show the usable and raw space used for these LDs.

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Total used space
The showsys –d command gives the total raw space in use on the system on the line starting with “allocated
capacity”. This number is the sum of the raw space used by VVs, the space used by the admin volume, the PDSLDs, the
logging LDs, and by the spare chunklets. You can obtain this individual information from the output of the
showpd –space command, the last line in the output with the totals contains the numbers to use. The value in the
Volume column of the output is the raw space in use by the admin volume, the PDSLDs, the logging LDs, and the
volumes created by the customer. The individual sizes for the admin volume, the PDSLDs and the logging LDs can be
obtained from the output of showld; note that the values shown are for the usable space in use, not for the raw
space. The command showvv –r shows the raw space in use by the VVs in its 9th column. The Spare column of
showpd –space gives the space in use by the spare chunklets. All of this information can also be determined from the
Space Reports using the optional HP 3PAR System Reporter Software, which is licensed separately.

Running out of space

The following sections describe the severity of the situation when space limitations are met, from the least critical (for
example, running out of space on a single TPVV), to the more severe (for example, running out of space on a CPG or on
the entire system).

Running out of space in a TPVV

If an allocation limit was set for a TPVV, the array will stop all writes to that TPVV once the limit is reached returning SCSI
hardware errors if more writes come in. Depending on the OS and application, the effect of this can range from the host
application stalling to the host server crashing. Reaching a TPVV limit purely affects that volume and its resident
application(s).
TPVV limits can be changed at any time with the setvv command. After an appropriate change, writes to the TPVV will
continue to be processed.

Running out of space in a CPG

Reaching a CPG limit has the same effect as reaching a TPVV limit; however, many more TPVVs and other types of VVs
may be impacted. HP used to recommend a maximum of 32 volumes per CPG, but since InForm OS 2.3.1, this
recommendation is no longer in place. CPG limits can be changed at any time with the setcpg –sdgl command. After
an appropriate change, writes to the volumes in the affected CPG will continue to be processed.

Running out of space on the system

Running out of space on the system will affect TPVVs and all other types of volumes being written to in all CPGs. In the
unlikely scenario that all physical capacity becomes used, the system prevents new writes from occurring until more
capacity is added.

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Usage reporting and trend analysis
The CLI command showcpg –hist <CPG> gives a daily account of CPG usage split into user, snapshot, and admin
space. The command showspace -cpg <CPG> -hist also shows this information. Additionally, the optional
HP 3PAR System Reporter Software has the ability to track TPVV usage for comprehensive usage and trend analysis.

Additional HP 3PAR thin technologies

The HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software license is accompanied by several other related licenses that cooperate closely
with it:
• HP 3PAR Thin Conversion Software. Traditionally, data migrations associated with a storage technology refresh have
carried forward the poor utilization rates from one system to the other. Administrators had to procure at least the
same amount of capacity on a new array as on the legacy systems from which data was being migrated, even if the
migration involved a large amount of allocated but unused capacity. The HP 3PAR Thin Conversion Software leverages
the zero-detection capabilities built into the HP 3PAR ASIC to drive the conversion of inefficient, traditional storage
volumes on legacy arrays to more efficient, higher-utilization thin provisioned volumes on any model of HP 3PAR
Storage System.

This “thinning” of volumes enables data centers to meet green IT targets, eliminate wasted space, and increase
utilization rates. Because the fat-to-thin conversion mechanism is built into the array hardware, volume conversions
take place inline and at wire speeds, while preserving service levels, and without causing disruption to production
workloads when using host-based logical volume manager migration tools. The use of HP Thin Conversion Software is
supported across all HP 3PAR Storage Systems and requires that an HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning license is present on
the destination array. The zero-detect capability, required for thin conversion, has to be enabled on every
destination TPVV.

When combined with Thin Provisioning, Thin Conversion is so powerful that HP even guarantees the ability to reduce
storage capacity requirements by at least 50 percent with the Get Thin Guarantee 2. With this program, customers
deploying HP 3PAR Utility Storage as part of a storage technology refresh are guaranteed to reduce storage capacity
requirements by 50 percent or more when using HP 3PAR Thin Conversion Software to non-disruptively convert
legacy storage from fully allocated, traditional volumes to new thin volumes on the HP 3PAR Storage System. More
information on this Get Thin Guarantee program is available at hp.com/storage/getthin.
• HP 3PAR Thin Persistence Software. HP 3PAR Thin Persistence Software augments the benefits of HP 3PAR Thin
Provisioning Software and HP 3PAR Thin Conversion Software by ensuring that thin volume arrays stay as lean
and efficient as possible. To do this, HP 3PAR Thin Persistence Software leverages unique capabilities built into
the HP 3PAR ASICs within the controller nodes to power the ongoing, inline “thinning” of volumes on any model HP
3PAR array, also known as thin reclamation of allocated but unused capacity. Thin Persistence has a dependency on
the presence of the HP 3PAR Thin Conversion Software license. Without this license, large chunks of zeros will still be
written to the disks. A Thin Persistence license is also needed for reclamation of space when using Symantec’s Veritas
Storage Foundation, VMware’s vSphere, Oracle’s ASRU and others.
• HP 3PAR Thin Copy Reclamation. This license ensures the reclamation of unused space resulting from the
deletion of snapshots associated with virtual copy, full copy, and remote copy volumes. The HP 3PAR Thin Copy
Reclamation feature keeps your storage lean and efficient. Thin Copy Reclamation has a dependency on the presence
of the Thin Provisioning license.

2
The above is intended to highlight certain aspects of our Get Thin Guarantee and does not contain the full terms, conditions, limitations, definitions, and
other provisions (“Terms”) of the Get Thin Guarantee. The Terms shall be contained in a written Get Thin Guarantee Terms and Conditions which shall
take precedence over the above. Qualification for our Get Thin Guarantee is subject to your acceptance of a Get Thin Guarantee Terms and Conditions and
your satisfaction of those Terms.

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Reclaiming unused space
When application data that reside on a thin provisioned volume is deleted by the host OS, the host system no longer
shows this space as allocated but its physical capacity will remain allocated on the HP 3PAR array. This allocated but
unused space is not available to the storage administrator when creating new volumes on the array. In other words:
deleting data on the host does not automatically result in reclamation of capacity on the array. With a lot of file
creations and deletions over time, the free space on the array may become depleted while in reality there is a great deal
of unused space on the system.
The storage administrator needs to reclaim that deleted space. The HP 3PAR Utility Storage platform provides tools to
reclaim this space under various conditions, as described below.

HP 3PAR Thin Persistence Software

To reclaim space users can run a “zerofile” tool that writes zeros to all allocated but unused space. The tool can be
executed manually or automatically via a periodic execution mechanism. On UNIX® and Linux the dd command can be
used for writing the zeros to the deleted and non-used space in a VV, on Microsoft® Windows® the sdelete program is
available for this. The reclamation of space is achieved automatically by using the zero-detection capability embedded
in the HP 3PAR ASIC if the Thin Persistence license is present. The zero detect policy needs to be set for each TPVV.
Blocks of 16 KB of contiguous space filled with zeros are freed and returned for reuse by the VV; blocks of 128 MB of
contiguous space are freed and returned to the CPG for use by other volumes. Using the compactcpg command,
zeroed blocks of 128 MB are returned to the overall pool of free space. No particular InForm OS CLI command or HP 3PAR
Management Console action has to be executed after the tool finishes. All this is valid in InForm OS 2.3.1 and 3.1.1. With
InForm OS 3.1.1 and higher, the system automatically runs a defragmentation process on the array on a per-VV basis
that concatenates contiguous areas of 16 KB of zeros to a contiguous one of 128 MB. This enables greater space
reclamation within the CPG and the array.
In addition, as of InForm OS 3.1.1, the benefits of Thin Persistence have been added to read/write snapshots of TPVVs.
Previously, thin reclamation was only available for the TPVVs themselves. The mechanism for reclamation is the same
as for the parent TPVV: writing zeros to the allocated but unused space in a read/write snapshot will trigger the ASIC to
initiate reclamation of the deleted space. The reclamation happens with the same granularity as the parent TPVV. In
order to benefit from thin reclamation, the zero detect policy needs to be set for each read/write snapshot. The use of
HP 3PAR Thin Persistence Software requires that a license for HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning is present on the array.

3PAR Thin Reclamation for Veritas Storage Foundation

A Thin Reclamation API developed by 3PAR in conjunction with Symantec allows hosts with VxFS file systems managed
by the Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) software to intelligently communicate with HP 3PAR Storage Systems to reclaim
space associated with file deletions or file shrinking. This HP 3PAR Thin Reclamation Software for Veritas Storage
Foundation is the first platform solution to take advantage of this API, which is part of the T10 SCSI standard.
With Thin Reclamation Software for Veritas Storage Foundation, the Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) software in
cooperation with the host informs the array about deleted blocks in VxFS file systems. Upon receiving the deleted block
information, the array autonomically frees this allocated but unused storage space. No tool to write zeros to the deleted
space in the file systems is required for reclaiming the space. The list of disks whose allocated but unused space can be
reclaimed is given by the command vxdisk –o thin list executed on the host. The space reclamation is initiated
by the Veritas Volume Manager command vxdisk reclaim [<disk>|<dg>|<encl>]. This thin reclamation
capability provides environments using Symantec’s Veritas Storage Foundation an easy way to keep their thin volumes
thin over time, especially in situations where large numbers of file creation and deletions occur.
HP 3PAR Thin Reclamation Software for Veritas Storage Foundation is included with the HP 3PAR Thin Persistence
Software license. It requires an HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software license to be present on the array and is supported
across all models of HP 3PAR Storage Systems.

3PAR Thin Reclamation for Oracle databases

Over a database lifecycle, allocated storage capacity can decrease as changes are made to the database through
common operations such as:

• Dropping a tablespace or database

• Resizing a database file upon shrinking a tablespace
• Freeing space on existing disks when data get rebalanced over new and existing disks

15
These changes result in the creation of allocated but unused disk space that can build up over time to account for a
considerable part of the total storage capacity available. This space is available for reuse but, in the absence of a control
communication protocol between the application, the file system and the block storage, the storage array is unable to
distinguish between capacity associated with deleted data and valid data. Therefore, the unused capacity remains
allocated within the storage volume(s) on the storage array. The end result is that the storage utilization on the array
eventually falls below desirable levels.
To solve this problem, HP 3PAR and Oracle have partnered to create the Oracle ASM Storage Reclamation Utility or ASRU
tool. This tool reclaims space from deleted blocks inside an Oracle database created on an ASM (Automatic Storage
Management) environment. The ASRU tool is a script that compacts the selected ASM disks, writes blocks of zeros to the
unallocated space on the disks and resizes them, all with a single command. The zeros written by the script are
intercepted by the HP 3PAR ASIC in each controller node so that each contiguous block of 16 KB of zeros is declared
unused to the array. These operations take place online and in a non-disruptive fashion. The use of ASRU is supported
across all models of HP 3PAR Storage Systems and requires that an HP 3PAR Thin Persistence Software license be
present on the array.

HP 3PAR Thin Copy Reclamation Software

HP 3PAR Thin Copy Reclamation is an optional feature that reclaims space when a snapshot of a virtual copy, full copy,
or remote copy volume is deleted from the system. The deleted snapshot space is reclaimed from either a standard or
thin provisioned volume and returned to its CPG for reuse by other volumes. The HP 3PAR Thin Copy Reclamation feature
works on all HP 3PAR Storage Systems and requires that an HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software license be present on
the array.

File system considerations

Thin provisioning efficiency on host file systems
When considering the use of HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning software, the OS and file system on the host should be carefully
chosen as not all of them are thin friendly. Table 2 shows utilization efficiency by file system type for a number of
common operating systems. In each case the file system was created using the default parameters.

File system fragmentation

As described earlier, space for data written into thin volumes is allocated in 16 KB increments inside LD regions of
128 MB. LD regions for multiple TPVVs are interleaved within the same CPG. As a result, data may get fragmented to
some extent on disk, independent of how the file system has the data mapped. The HP 3PAR Storage System uses
high-performance, table-based mapping algorithms to track the data and spreads the load across all available disks.
This means that application performance impact due to file system fragmentation is much less of a concern compared to
traditional storage systems where “head thrashing” on individual disks can dramatically affect performance.

Thin provisioning and applications

All applications including mission-critical ones can be installed on thin provisioned volumes. Installing applications on
thin volumes may need some consideration upfront to enable them to utilize the volume space thin-efficiently. The
following sections include recommendations for installing a few well-known applications on thin provisioned volumes.

Databases
Some databases initialize their storage space by writing a pattern into the database space before it is used. In this case
Thin Provisioning will allocate the same physical space as a traditional or “fat” virtual volume. To make sure that the
value of thin provisioning is realized in database environments, it is important that the database space is initialized
without any pattern written to its thin provisioned volume. Also, keep the initial database tablespace marginally larger
than the current data size and create it with the autoextend option. Once configured with autoextend, the database
handles tablespace growth in small increments over time automatically and this is thin friendly.

16
Microsoft Exchange
With the email explosion happening, mailbox setups tend to grow rather quickly in used space. Thin provisioning handles
this problem by offering a large thin volume to the mail server software while only reserving storage capacity when data
is actually stored in a user’s mailbox.
Microsoft Exchange can be installed on thin provisioned volumes on a 3PAR array. When mailboxes are removed or
migrated, the reclamation of space is not trivial. Shrinking the mailbox database to recover the unused space is only
possible offline. The other option is to create a new mailbox database, copy all mailboxes into it, and delete the old
database. In both cases, the freed space will be reclaimed using the HP 3PAR ASIC once it is written with zeros. HP 3PAR
Thin Copy Reclamation will reclaim unused space from virtual copy, full copy, and remote copy snapshots of the
Exchange files.

Table 2: OS and file system friendliness for thin provisioning

OS File system Thin friendly

HP-UX JFS (VxFS) Yes
HFS No3
Windows Server 2003/2008 NTFS Yes
Linux XFS Yes
VxFS Yes
ext2 Yes
ext3 Yes
ext4 Yes
Solaris UFS No3
VxFS Yes
ZFS Yes4,5
OpenVMS VMS Yes
VMware VMFS Yes
Tru64 VFS Yes
AdvFS Yes
JFS No1
AIX JFS2 Yes
VxFS Yes

3
At file system creation time, the capacity of the pool is consumed up to 100 percent of the thin volume capacity.
4
At file system creation time, the capacity of the pool is consumed up to 30 percent of the thin volume capacity.
5
The ZFS “zpool scrub” command is not recommended because it will force the volume to fully allocate.

VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere has been thin-provisioning aware since its version 3.0. Since the HP 3PAR array also supports thin
provisioning, the question often arises on which level to implement thin provisioning when using an HP 3PAR array as
the storage for VMware’s vSphere. HP recommends to implement it on both levels. However, there is one caveat: if
deploying thin provisioning simultaneously on VMware and on the HP 3PAR array, one has to set up, maintain, and
monitor two sets of warnings, alerts, and limits. This requires an agile and knowledgeable IT staff, but the benefits of
this strategy are beyond doubt.

17
HP recommends the use of “large” LUNs (1–2 TB) as datastores, created on thin provisioned volumes on the HP 3PAR
array. With HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software, one can allocate as much logical capacity to a VMFS volume as is
needed over the lifetime of that volume without actually dedicating any physical capacity upfront. Physical capacity is
allocated seamless on an as-needed basis and is consumed only when vSphere writes to the thin provisioned virtual
volume. This means that there is no wasted capacity in the LUN that is presented to the VMware host. Oversubscription
on the sizes of the VMDK files inside the datastore is possible.
When creating VMs, there are a number of options at creation time of the VMDK files, not all of which are “thin friendly”.
Since VMware vSphere 3.5, VMs are created by default with the “Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed” option which is
thin-friendly. With this option, when a new VM is created, the full size of the VMDK is not immediately zeroed. The ESX
server returns zeros when asked to read from unwritten areas of the VMDK but does not actually write the zeros to disk.
For performance-intensive environments, VMware recommends using “Thick Provision Eager Zeroed” (EZT) virtual disks.
EZT disks have the smallest overhead at runtime but require zeros to be written across all of the capacity of the VMDK at
the time of creation. On traditional arrays, this VMDK format would negate all the benefits of thinly provisioned LUNs
since all of the physical storage is allocated when the volume is zero-filled during creation. However, HP 3PAR Thin
Persistence Software allows clients to retain thin provisioning benefits when using EZT VMDKs without sacrificing any of
the performance benefits offered by this VMDK option. In this case, Thin Persistence ensures that, when a new fully
formatted EZT volume is created, the entire volume is not allocated from physical storage since all zeros that have been
written to the EZT VMDK were intercepted by the 3PAR ASIC.
When files are deleted inside a VM, HP 3PAR Thin Persistence Software also keeps the associated VMDK thin. Using
standard file system tools (sdelete in Microsoft Windows, dd in UNIX/Linux) to write zeros across deleted and
non-used space in a VM’s file system, the zeros are autonomically detected by the HP 3PAR ASIC and the disk space they
were consuming is freed up and returned to the thin provisioned volume.
Another benefit of the presence of an HP 3PAR Thin Persistence license happens when deleting a VM. With vSphere 5.0
and InForm OS version 3.1.1, the space reclamation takes place automatically upon deletion. With vSphere 5.0 and
Inform OS 2.3.1 MU2 and higher MU versions the same result is obtained when the HP 3PAR Management Software
Plug-In for VMware VAAI 2.2 is installed in vSphere. With older VMware solutions, a similar benefit can be achieved by
writing zeros to the VMDK and have the HP 3PAR zero detection ASIC release the storage. The HP 3PAR Management
Software Plug-In for VMware VAAI 1.1 needs to be installed in vSphere for this.

Migration to thin provisioned volumes

Migrating from fat to thin across arrays
There are several approaches to consider when migrating data from a source array to thin provisioned volumes on a
3PAR system. Using file-based migration tools such as rsync in UNIX/Linux, Quest in Windows, or backup-and-restore,
the target TPVV will grow only to the capacity of data contained within the file system, therefore making efficient use of
thin provisioning on the target HP 3PAR system. A block-based migration tool such as a host-based logical volume
manager or a SAN-based virtualization appliance will copy all blocks of the source volume to the TPVV, whether they are
used or not. This means that the customer may not benefit at all from thin provisioning when using block-based
migration tools. If the allocated but unused space in the fat volume on the source array was filled with zeros, the
HP 3PAR ASIC enables fat-to-thin block-based array-to-array migrations to reap the benefits of thin volumes
immediately and under all circumstances.

Migrating from fat to thin on the same array

The migration from fat to thin on the same HP 3PAR array happens by executing a HP 3PAR Full Copy (or Physical Copy)
operation, the license for which is included in InForm OS. The full copy operation requires the fat volume to have
snapshot space mapped to it. HP 3PAR Full Copy copies all blocks in the fat volume to the thin one. The HP 3PAR ASIC
will assist in reducing the amount copied by using its zero-detect capability to remove the need to copy blocks of zeros.
This requires that zero-detect is enabled on the target TPVV. To make optimal use of this feature, it is advantageous to
write zeros to the allocated but unused space on the fat volume prior to the full copy operation. The “thinning”
operation does not complete online: a brief disruption of service is required to change the host mapping from the fat to
the thin provisioned volume.

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Storage Federation and Peer Motion
HP 3PAR Peer Motion Software enables customers to migrate storage volumes between any HP 3PAR Storage System
online, non-disruptively, and without complex planning or dependency on extra tools. HP Peer Motion leverages the
HP ASIC to power the simple and rapid inline conversion of legacy volumes on source arrays to more efficient,
high-utilization thin volumes on the destination HP 3PAR Storage System. The source array must be running InForm OS
2.2.4 or higher, the destination system has to run 3.1.1 or higher. An HP 3PAR Peer Motion license and an HP 3PAR Thin
Provisioning Software license are required on the destination system.

Licensing
The HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software license is needed to create TPVVs. Thin provisioning is licensed based on the
number of terabytes of raw capacity written to thin provisioned volumes. Space used by snapshots is also included in
this figure. Because of the “raw capacity written” metric, no fraction of the license is consumed by creating thin
provisioned volumes and not writing to them. The rate of consumption of a thin provisioning license will depend on the
RAID level of the TPVVs. Assume the array has a thin provisioning license for 1 TB and a 500 GB TPVV in a RAID 1 was
created. When the user writes 300 GB of data to it, the thin provisioning license is consumed for 300 GB * 2 = 600 GB.
The multiplier of 2 originates from the RAID 1 overhead factor. If the TPVV was created in a RAID 5 (3+1) CPG,
300 * 4/3 = 400 GB of space would have been consumed from the thin provisioning license.
When doing a remote copy of a thin volume, the destination array needs a thin provisioning license as well. Otherwise
the copy of a TPVV volume on the source array will create a fat volume at the target.
To simplify licensing, HP offers the HP 3PAR Thin Suite license. This license combines HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning,
Thin Conversion, and Thin Persistence Software into a single suite. This license is available for F- and T-Class models as
well as for the P10000 Storage Systems.

Conclusion
HP 3PAR Utility Storage is the only platform that offers a comprehensive thin strategy that not only allows storage to
start thin, but to get thin and stay thin. HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software is a simple yet powerful tool for improving
the efficiency of storage. Following the best practices outlined in this paper will allow IT staff to maximize the benefit of
HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning and do more with less. To supplement the dramatic savings of thin provisioning, HP 3PAR
Utility Storage features a unique HP 3PAR ASIC with thin capabilities built in and a range of software offerings that can
save enterprises 50 percent or more on the cost of a storage technology refresh.
Together, HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning and the accompanying 3PAR thin technologies not only minimize upfront and
ongoing storage costs, but also the cost of housing, powering, cooling, and managing storage so that enterprises can
shift resources away from operations and apply them to innovation.

Learn more
To know more about HP 3PAR arrays and HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software, visit hp.com/go/3PAR

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© Copyright 2012 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. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.

4AA3-8987ENW, Created April 2012; Updated July 2012, Rev. 1

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