5 Things I Like about the Virtual Storage Platform from @HDScorp

I first got my hands on the Virtual Storage Platform over the summer, and it was a fun experience to work with. So far, the best publicly-available discussion of the VSP is Nigel Poulton's deep dive, but here are five quick points that impressed me:

• SAS Back End - FC-AL is gone from the current versions of the HDS product line with the introduction of the VSP. Modular has been 3GB SAS since the release of the AMS2000s in Dec-2008, and now enterprise goes 6GB SAS. Like the modular, the VSP's back end will allow the user to install either SAS or SATA II drives where they please.
• 2048 Drives - Not quite double the USP/USPV (each at 1152), but a solid expansion. Since you can't "span" arrays yet, this gives the user more drives under one umbrella for now.
• Virtual Storage Director (VSD) - No more FED and BED processors, the VSP pools quad-core Intel processors in the middle, in a pool called the VSD. You've got two ports out of balance? the VSD can re-allocate processor power to the overloaded port, instead of a dedicated/pre-assigned processor on the less-active port sitting idle. Same for the back end. Again, this is similar to what the AMS2000s do on the modular level, but on the much-grander enterprise scale.
• Microde Upgrade Goodness - Because of the VSD's architecture, front end ports won't go off-line during microcode updates! Since no processors are directly tied to FEDs, there will always be processors alive to assign to ports. In the enterprise world, this could be as huge as the on-line upgrade capability of the AMS2000s was in the modular world.
• Storage Navigator 2 and HCS 7.0 - While the java stuff isn't completely gone yet, SN2 looks/functions more like Storage Navigator Modular 2, with its Device Manager-y look-and-feel. Additionally, SN2 has a task queue similar to the one in Hitachi Tiered Storage Manager, so you can set up a task, click "OK" to fire it off, and it goes into the task queue, returning control of SN2 back to you. No more "spinning i" or the "sunrise/sunset" of the old Lightnings. No more queueing up a zillion things and walking away for awhile. In addition to the task queue, SN2 also has a CLI, making repetitive tasks all the easier to implement.

Again, these are first-impressions and thoughts. I'll go deeper in upcoming posts.