HP XP Racks - Manual (Page 11)

2 Requirements and planning
This topic describes requirements and planning.
Planning workflow
Before mapping an external volume to HP XP7 Storage, review the information in this chapter to
make sure that you understand the External Storage requirements and implementation procedures.
Use the general order in the following to prepare for External Storage:
•
Review “System requirements” (page 11) .
•
Ensure that the external system whose volumes you want to map is supported by External
Storage. See
“Supported external storage systems” (page 80) .
•
Ensure the functionality you want is supported for mapped external volumes. See “HP XP7
Storage software supported for external volumes” (page 26) .
•
In the external system, select a port and set any necessary parameters. See “Setting up ports
on the external system” (page 33) .
•
In the local system, identify the port that will connect to the external system and make sure it
is specified as an “external port”. See
“Setting port attributes on the local system” (page 30) .
•
Plan data paths from the local to the external system. See “Planning external paths and path
groups ” (page 21) .
•
In the external system, prepare volumes for use in the local system. For example, if you plan
to use an external volume for replication, make sure it matches the HP replication software’s
requirements.
See the following for this and other considerations.
◦ “Planning external volumes ” (page 13)
◦ “Mainframe volumes” (page 15)
◦ “Open systems volumes” (page 16)
◦ “Capacity requirements for volumes ” (page 16)
•
In the local storage system, configure external volume groups to which you will assign the
external volume during the mapping operation. See
“External volume groups (ExGs) ”
(page 16) .
•
You can change the defaults for some mapping settings before performing the operation. See
“Editing external volume policies (settings)” (page 42) .
System requirements
External Storage (Ext Stor) operations are performed between the local storage system—HP XP7
Storage—and volumes in an external storage system. General requirements for these and all Ext
Stor components are described below.
Description Item
HP XP7 Storage • Required for the Ext Stor local storage system.
•
All hardware and microcode levels must be installed.
One is required, multiple external systems are supported per HP XP7 Storage. See
“Supported external storage systems” (page 80) for related details about each
supported external storage system.
External storage systems
Planning workflow 11