With all the talk about converged infrastructure and stacks these days especially in the virtualization space I was really glad that I got to do this interview. There has been a lot written about its competitors but the HP BladeSystem Matrix was still kind of a mystery to anyone that had not had HP in to talk about it. I was lucky enough to spend some time talking with a couple of members from the HP BladeSystem Matrix team. These guys were very helpful in explaining what Matrix is and answered all of my crazy questions.
What I hope everyone gets from this is a better understanding of what BladeSystem Matrix has to offer if you’re looking at these types of converged offerings. Also highlight some of the features that are unique to the HP stack. In interest of being totally open I am also an employee of HP but my current work responsibilities have nothing to do with BladeSystem Matrix. Now that all that is out of the way let’s get started with the good stuff.
VT: Can you give me your elevator pitch?
HP: Matrix is the foundation for a private cloud solution managing both physical and virtual infrastructure. Matrix allows you to rapidly provision infrastructure via a self service portal. In addition, it offers the ongoing life-cycle management including capacity planning and disaster recovery. You can buy Matrix with a single SKU that includes hardware, software and services. The solution is all tested and certified by HP to work together.
VT: Who benefits from this solution?
HP: Customers who need to be able to address fast change and achieve a competitive advantage through time to market. Typical customers for Matrix are large Enterprises and Service Providers who have invested already in virtualization and shared infrastructure and want to take the next step to cloud computing. I think that these target customers are common to all converged infrastructure offerings.
VT: What hardware makes up a BladeSystem Matrix?
HP: BladeSystem Matrix all begins with something called a starter kit. This kit includes the following items, Central Management Server on a ProLiant DL360, HP C7000 Blade Chassis w/Virtual Connect networking and Insight Management software for managing Matrix. For the storage you have multiple options – you can use your existing Fiber Channel SAN storage if it’s supported or you can use HP storage, e.g. 3PAR or HP EVA 4400 array. iSCSI storage is supported as well for VM data stores. There is also something called an Expansion kit which is a C7000 Blade chassis, Insight Management software licenses and HP Services needed to integrate the expansion kit into your existing Matrix environment. It should be noted that Matrix supports both ProLiant and Integrity blades.
VT: What are HP Cloud Maps and how do they relate to BladeSystem Matrix?
HP: These Cloud Maps help customers to get started quickly with Matrix – they jump start the creation of a customized self-service portal. Cloud Maps include white papers and templates for hardware or software configurations that can be imported into BladeSystem Matrix that can save days or weeks of design time. A Cloud Map can also provide workflows and scripts designed to expedite the installation.
VT: What does the CMS or Central Management Server do?
HP: The CMS server is a physical server that is running the management software that controls, automates and monitors your BladeSystem Matrix. If you have a DR site with a Matrix you would need a CMS server there to control the environment. It’s also possible to setup the CMS in a HA or Highly Available configuration to prevent a single failure point for Matrix management. Lastly for large environments that exceed the maximums of a single CMS you can now stand up secondary CMS servers that will still allow you to manage everything from one admin console.
VT: Can I use existing HP gear with a Matrix install?
HP: If you purchase a new HP BladeSystem Matrix you can use it to also manage any qualifying HP hardware that you already own. HP has created something called the Matrix Conversion Services to assist with integrating your existing HP infrastructure with BladeSystem Matrix. This program is new and will evolve to allow customers to accomplish these integrations.
VT: Can I use arrays from other vendors?
HP: You can use Storage Arrays from other vendors as long as they are able to meet a list of criteria – for example the storage vendor needs to be certified with Virtual Connect. More details can be found in the Matrix compatibility chart.
VT: What software is used for Matrix?
HP: The software for Matrix is called the Matrix Operating Environment, which includes the whole Insight Management stack including Insight Foundation and Insight Control. With Insight Foundation you get the controls to install, configure, and monitor physical servers. With Insight Control you get all the essential server management including server deployment and power management. The real magic happens with the additional Matrix Operating Environment software (aka Insight Dynamics). It provides a service design tool, infrastructure provisioning with a self-service portal, capacity planning, and recovery management
VT: Does it come configured and who does the setup work?
HP: Some factory configuration is done then remaining work is done onsite by HP Services. The install and configure period can take from a few days to 2 weeks depending on the level of complexity.
VT: Explain how it is managed?
HP: There are two separate consoles that control a BladeSystem Matrix. The first would be the admin console used by your support team to configure and control the environment. The second would be the Self Service portal site. This allows for IT consumers to request and provision resources from the Matrix environment.
VT: What types of automation and provisioning can Matrix do?
HP: One example would be in the creation of templates. You can create templates in the Matrix software or use ones already created, for example on your VMware vCenter server. If you use an existing template that might be created with only one OS partition you can use the Matrix template process to provision the VM and add on additional disks and features not present in the base template.
VT: How is support handled for Matrix customers?
HP: There is a dedicated team to contact for Matrix support issues. Matrix is treated as a single solution, with all calls coming in through a central team. This team is cross trained in the various aspects that make up Matrix and they will escalate to product specific engineers if needed.
VT: Can you explain fail over P2V and then back to V2P for DR?
HP: This feature allows for a physical server to be recovered at the DR site on a physical or virtual machine. To make this HP spoke about creating what is known as a “portable image” What this meant was that the logical server was created in a way that it would be able to be deployed on either another physical blade, or as a VM within a virtual machine host. . I asked about if there was any type of conversion process that takes place and there is not. The engineer talked about the creation of the portable image which to me meant that you need to include both OS drivers for the physical hardware and the virtual hardware. This way when the imaged was moved to the other platform the physical OS or the hypervisor-based OS would find all of the devices. The last piece would be the network settings and these are preserved with an application called PINT so that when new network cards are installed your settings will remain.
VT: How does it integrate with VMware?
HP: The HP tool set for BladeSystem Matrix offers many integration points with VMware vSphere. A short list of the functions would include provisioning VM’s, change in power state, activate/deactivate, add servers to group, and add disks to a VM or group of VM’s. Along with those features Matrix monitors status and performance, capacity & workload analysis and Disaster Recovery integration.
VT: What separates Matrix from other converged stacks?
HP: A big selling point is that HP BladeSystem Matrix is integrated and engineered holistically by one company, while still allowing for heterogeneous components in areas such as networking and storage. Also at this time BladeSystem Matrix is the only solution that is capable of managing both physical and virtual servers with the same tools and allow movement between physical and virtual resources. Something that Matrix offers that others do not is integrated automated Disaster Recovery. Lastly Matrix supports both VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V, as well as Integrity Blades, for virtualization.
VT: What SAN protocols are supported today?
HP: As of today BladeSystem Matrix supports Fiber Channel as the preferred method of connecting to storage. In addition, Matrix does support FCOE and iSCSI for VM data stores.
VT: What is storage provisioning manager?
HP: This was explained as enhanced volume provisioning management, allowing more proactive maintenance of the pools of storage available for provisioning of an environment. Where this seem to tie for me was using it to publish or tag which volumes are available for provisioning. For example you could label a volume as boot disk and others as data disks. Then when creating your templates for provisioning the system will know which volumes are available for boot, as well as which volumes are available as data volumes during OS install, so that you provide better management of the storage you’ll utilize during provisioning.
VT: How many customers or units sold so far?
HP: I had to try but was only told that HP does not release any numbers or revenues for products. BladeSystem Matrix is made up of components that have been offered for many years by HP, and includes multi-million unit sales of components such as BladeSystem servers and Virtual Connect.
VT: How will software and firmware updates be handled?
HP: There are update bundles that are created for BladeSystem Matrix. At this time these updates must be performed by an HP Services person. These updates can be done in person or remotely.
VT: How does the SAN fabric interact with BladeSystem Matrix?
HP: In the current version of Matrix you will need to pre-create volumes and your server zoning ahead of any provisioning.
VT: What is Insight Virtualization Manager?
HP: Also known as VSE Virtualization Manager that is part of Insight Dynamics. With VSE you can move a logical server from the existing blade it’s running on to another blade. The VSE application will move the server profile to the new blade and restart the server once the move is complete and your operating system will start up. The VSE interface will offer recommendations for target blades that match your requirements. There are a few reasons for such a move that would include upgrades and maintenance. Video demo of moving a blade server to another blade. Video Link
Brian is a Technical Architect for a VMware partner and owner of this website. He is active in the VMware community and helps lead the Chicago VMUG group. Specializing in VDI and Cloud project designs. Awarded VMware vExpert status for 2012 & 2011. VCP3, VCP5, VCA-DT, VCP5-DT, Cisco UCS Design
Brian Suhr is responsible for designing and delivering VDI and Cloud solutions backed by 20 years of IT experience.
