HP CloudSystem Matrix is designed to simplify the deployment of infrastructure, applications and cloud services by delivering IT capacity through pools of readily deployed resources. The goal of Matrix operating environment is to accelerate provisioning, optimize IT capacity across physical and virtual environments and to ensure predictable delivery and service levels. It includes an integrated service designer, self-service portal, auto-provisioning capabilities, the tools to manage and optimize the resources pools as well as a recovery management solution. Through included Cloud APIs it can be easily customized to meet specific requirements enabling chargeback and billing, approval process integration, as well as other process automation capabilities.
The industry-first, out-of-the-box bursting capability with Matrix allows an IT administrator to provision services beyond the private cloud managed by Matrix, by "bursting" into a public cloud for a specific template-defined service. The resources in the public cloud are paid for only when used and released when the usage is complete. The benefit is that costs are optimized and the incremental resources from beyond the private cloud are used only when needed.
And now there is an upgrade path for future HP BladeSystem purchases as IT needs grow all while protecting the existing HP BladeSystem investment. To get started right away, just ask us for an initial assessment. These HP CloudSystem Matrix Conversion Services provide a cost-effective way to start realizing the benefits of shared services and a private cloud today.
CloudSystem Matrix is built on the modular, standards-based HP BladeSystem and its proven innovations, including Virtual Connect and, the Matrix Operating Environment.With its open, extensible approach, CloudSystem Matrix runs any application workload and provisions the whole infrastructure in minutes including servers, storage, and networking. It is optimized for HP ProLiant and HP Integrity servers as well as HP storage and HP networking but also supports third-party x86 servers, networking, and storage. CloudSystem Matrix is also deeply integrated with virtualization technologies such VMware and Microsoft, for example, through the integration of VM template libraries.
HP Cloud Maps accelerate automation of cloud service deployments and ensure consistency and reliability of the implementation of service catalogs.
(*) HP White Paper: The business case for HP BladeSystem Matrix, based on data from the HP BladeSystem and BladeSystem Matrix TCO Calculator
(**) IDC White Paper: The Business Value of HP Business Service Automation (BSA) Solutions
The integrated HP CloudSystem Matrix solution reduces total cost of ownership up to 56% versus traditional infrastructure and is easier to implement than the individual components. It accelerates delivery of services to your business with template-based provisioning and automation and helps to continuously optimize the use of resources with tools for capacity planning and power management, giving you deep insight into the resource and power utilization of your data resources.
The HP CloudSystem Matrix lets you stand up a complete infrastructure environment ready for your applications in minutes -- by automating the provisioning of servers with their storage and networking connections. The Storage Provisioning Manager interface puts server and storage managers on the same page when it comes to storage needs for infrastructure, and with on-demand provisioning, storage resources are available within minutes, without the storage admin losing governance or control. With the Matrix Operating Environment, integration with HP Software application provisioning time can be reduced by 80%. With HP Cloud Maps you can build your own service catalog using tested and proven best practice templates and workflows for your specific infrastructure and application. They support common applications such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint that will let you get started quickly. HP Cloud Service Automation for Matrix enables standardized self-service application provisioning and ongoing compliance management of a Matrix environment, available in an easy-to-order software bundle.
Matrix provides deep insight into your infrastructure and lets you quickly adjust your environment over its lifecycle so that you can predictably make changes without time-consuming analysis. Key data points like power draw, CPU and network utilization are captured every five minutes (more than a thousand data points per server per day) and are used to generate best-fit consolidation scenarios. When combined with built-in rebalancing tools, this can eliminate weeks or months of tedious planning and implementation.
Server management and administration personnel costs can represent over 80% of the costs of a typical IT organization today. With Matrix, your staff can configure and manage a thousand servers or more as a single domain reducing the staff time required for routine tasks. Compared to a rackmount environment, the time needed for routine server administrative tasks, such as performance and capacity assessment can be decreased by 60 percent or more, freeing up staff to focus on other priorities. With Virtual Connect technology, available only from HP, provision server network and storage connections upfront for your entire environment to eliminate add/move/change requests. By eliminating manual coordination between server, storage, and network administrators for everyday tasks, and automating resource-intensive manual tasks, your administrators can install, deploy and reconfigure server connections to storage and networking in 90% less time compared to traditional infrastructure.
Thermal Logic technology in Matrix lets you reclaim trapped capacity by dynamically ‘capping’ power, so data center power and cooling are not over provisioned, reducing blades power and cooling infrastructure requirements up to 50%, without impacting performance. This is available for ProLiant server blades in Matrix today, and Integrity server blades in the future. Matrix also lets you assess energy costs of different consolidation scenarios in minutes, helping you achieve even greater power efficiencies.
4:1 network consolidation reduces network edge switching costs up to 75% using the HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 technology built into HP CloudSystem Matrix, and reduces cabling by up to 94%. Optimize server utilization and recapture unused resources using the integrated capacity planning and lifecycle management to avoid over- and under-provisioning. Avoid “stale” virtual machines, with the ability to put end dates on new virtual machines. An ROI calculator can quickly estimate your savings, and HP Services can perform a detailed analysis and a full financial business case.
Highly flexible, scalable architecture for shared services built on proven technologies, Matrix is built on the modular HP BladeSystem platform and its proven innovations including Virtual Connect, Thermal Logic, and Insight Management Software. HP BladeSystem is a proven architectural approach for environments ranging from small businesses to the most mission critical enterprise applications. It is delivering compelling business benefits for customers around the world, with over two million blade servers, more than 5 million Virtual Connect ports, and more than five million Insight Management software licenses delivered for ProLiant and Integrity servers. Using standard components that can be dynamically changed, you get the efficiencies of standardization without sacrificing flexibility. If you have an HP BladeSystem environment, Matrix is the next logical step.
HP CloudSystem Matrix is designed to work with the common technologies and processes used in data centers today. This open design approach ensures that Matrix integrates seamlessly with most storage and network fabrics, such as HP StorageWorks and HP Networking, as well as EMC and Cisco. It connects to industry- leading IT service management platforms, such as HP Service Center, aligning with your existing processes. It runs any application out of the box, and is integrated with the leading virtualization technologies from HP, Microsoft and VMware. In fact, HP has more VMware certified professionals than anyone except VMware. Matrix manages virtualization for the entire infrastructure, across servers and storage as well as network connectivity, with Virtual Connect. Matrix includes Cloud APIs that enables it to be easily customized to meet your specific requirements such as chargeback and billing, approval process integration, as well as other process automation needs.
Every HP CloudSystem Matrix is pre-configured and installed by HP experts and includes all-in-one implementation services to get your shared services platform ready for your business in days, not months. HP Factory Express solution integration delivers your custom HP CloudSystem Matrix to your door, fully tested and configured by HP. Regional implementation experts ensure fast and reliable deployment.
HP Technology Services addresses the design, deployment, and support needs for your CloudSystem Matrix solutions and has an extensive portfolio of cloud and virtualization consultancy and support services. These cover all stages of the lifecycle of a CloudSystem Matrix: infrastructure design, deploy, test, integrate, migrate, upgrade, and ongoing support. Our experienced professionals bring you the expertise required to address unplanned downtime, enhance Cloud IT performance, and evolve IT to meet future business needs, while helping to reduce TCO. For instance, the HP CloudSystem Enablement Services provide pre-defined consulting and integration services for faster time-to-solution. Services HP offer also include visioning workshops, needs assessments, data center design, operations assistance, and additional implementation assistance.
Below are some of the questions we thought you might have. You can also try our technical forums to get more specifics from our technical experts in our technology forum, or sign up to connect with members of the global BladeSystem community
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| Q1. | What is in CloudSystem Matrix? Are there any new or unique technologies in CloudSystem Matrix that I can’t already buy from HP? |
| A1. | CloudSystem Matrix utilizes proven technologies such as BladeSystem, Virtual Connect, Insight Management software, shared storage such as Fibre Channel SAN, and HP Networking products. CloudSystem Matrix converges these capabilities together in powerful infrastructure-as-a-service solution with factory integration and implementation services. Matrix efficiently delivers standardized yet flexible infrastructure in “building blocks”. Additionally, CloudSystem Matrix is much more efficient to buy than individual components and is faster to implement. |
| Q2. | What are the supported components? |
| A2. | See the CloudSystem Matrix Compatibility Chart here. |
| Q3. | What is the purchasing and implementation experience for CloudSystem Matrix? |
| A3. | CloudSystem Matrix is a fully integrated infrastructure that is delivered and implemented in your environment with a single complete service. The estimated delivery and fulfillment time is approximately one month for an implementation of a basic single rack full of resources. The order process is simple and straightforward, and the step by step details can be found in the QuickSpecs at this website. |
| Q4. | Is CloudSystem Matrix available for HP Integrity blades? |
| A4. |
Yes, customers can order the HP CloudSystem Matrix with HP-UX Starter Kit and then add HP CloudSystem Matrix with HP-UX Expansion Kits. In addition, customers who have purchased a Matrix for ProLiant blade servers can add Integrity server blades into their Matrix configuration, then provision HP-UX on these Integrity blade servers. |
| Q5. | What’s new for version 7.0? |
| A5. |
Matrix 7.0 adds the following new capabilities: Matrix is introducing a new bursting capability, specifically with the service provider Savvis. Cloudbursting will allow an IT administrator to provision services beyond the "private cloud" managed by Matrix by "bursting" into a public cloud for a specific template-defined service. The resources in the public cloud are paid for only when used, and released when the usage is complete, offering optimized cost as well as flexible use when needs require resources beyond the scope of the private cloud. Additionally, Matrix will introduces improvements in scalability by allowing provisioning of VM's up to 10,000 via the federated CMS architecture that was first enabled in Matrix 6.3. In the area of multi-tenancy, Matrix 7.0 provides enhancements in the management of VLANs, specifically allowing secure multi-tenancy through better separation of VLANs between different private cloud users. In the area of storage, CloudSystem Matrix 7.0 offers enhancements to storage provisioning by offering the ability to automatically provision storage LUNs during the deployment of a service. This capability will is offered for both EVA and 3PAR FC storage arrays, and is built on enhancements to the existing Storage Provisioning Manager interface introduced in version 6.3 and is included with Matrix. In terms of disaster recovery, Matrix 7.0 offers integration with 3PAR storage replication for automated recovery management of server profiles, in the same fashion that Matrix already supports EVA and XP storage replication. Finally, Matrix continues to offer additional best-practice solutions via the CloudMaps program, including templates, workflows and sizers for key application providers utilizing the Matrix solution. Additional APIs have been introduced, supporting key customer and partner requests.
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| Q6. | What is an HP Cloud Map and how does it help me deploy infrastructure and applications with CloudSystem Matrix? |
| A6. |
Cloud Maps is an easy-to-use navigation tool to build your own service catalog, saving days or weeks of time architecting infrastructure for applications and services. They include tested and proven best practice templates and workflows for your specific infrastructure and application, which can be imported into Matrix and integrated into your environment. |
| Q7. | Does Matrix support iSCSI storage? |
| A7. |
Matrix does support the use of iSCSI SAN storage, specifically for VM boot and data storage for VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V environments. Physical support of iSCSI SAN storage solutions is currently not supported by Matrix. Any iSCSI SAN solution which is formally supported by the hypervisor vendor (VMware or Microsoft), or qualified by the storage vendor for either Hyper-V or vSphere, can be utilized within this Matrix VM data store environment. Testing is done with certain HP iSCSI SAN environments, such as the HP P4300 and P4500 G2 SAN solutions, ensuring that storage sold by HP is included in qualified Matrix environments. |
| Q8. | Can I convert my existing on-site HP BladeSystem hardware into a Matrix environment? |
| A8. |
Yes. You can support a conversion of existing HP ProLiant hardware to Matrix by using the new HP CloudSystem Matrix Conversion Services. These services, performed by HP Services experts, let you move from the HP ProLiant BladeSystem investment you already have, to a complete, fully supported HP CloudSystem Matrix environment. For more information, please see the data sheet. |
| Ordering | |
| Q1. | How do I order CloudSystem Matrix? |
| A1. | Ordering CloudSystem Matrix involves first ordering a Starter Kit, which includes everything to get started with a fully functioning environment. It includes a fully-redundant c7000 enclosure, Virtual Connect, Insight management software licenses, an implementation service, and other options, including a StorageWorks EVA4400 array. At the time of ordering your Starter Kit or at any time later, you can add more infrastructure and capacity to your Matrix environment by buying one or more Expansion Kits. The Matrix Starter Kit can be configured with either Virtual Flex10 or VC Fibre Channel connectivity. For Matrix on ProLiant blades, you can also choose Flex Fabric Virtual Connect connectivity. See the QuickSpecs at this website for step by step ordering guidelines for the Starter and Expansion Kits. |
| Q2. | What is included in CloudSystem Matrix, and what are the compatible options? |
| A2. | See the QuickSpecs at http://www.hp.com/go/matrix and CloudSystem Matrix Compatibility Chart. |
| Q3. | What is a central management server (CMS) and how do I order one with the Starter Kit? |
| A3. | If you order a Starter Kit, a specially configured rack-based HP ProLiant DL360 CMS functions as your Microsoft Windows-based CMS, or management software host. If you prefer another server to host your CMS, it can be de-selected and replaced with another ProLiant server, or removed entirely from the order. A CMS server host must be provided though, and it must meet the requirements as detailed here. The CMS can manage both ProLiant and Integrity blades that, in turn, support various operating systems and hypervisors. |
| Q4. | Do you offer special lease options, pay as you grow, or instant capacity programs? |
| A4. | Yes, HP CloudSystem Matrix may now be ordered through the HP Utility Ready Computing program which allows customers pay-per-use access to Matrix that resides on their site. This program ensures you have server capacity as your demand grows, eases procurement and aligns costs with usage. HP Financial Services offers 0% lease options to ease the upfront investment costs. |
| Q5. | I already have a Fibre channel SAN array. Do I have to buy the StorageWorks EVA4400 array option that is recommended for the CloudSystem Matrix infrastructure? |
| A5. | As long as your existing FC SAN array is certified and supported with HP BladeSystem c-Class and Virtual Connect (see this website), HP CloudSystem Matrix will also work with it. The FC SAN should be configured for boot from SAN. If you purchase the EVA4400 with your Matrix order, we will optimize its configuration for boot from SAN and even pre-provision LUNs per your requirements. |
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| Q1. | What are the Starter and Expansion Kit implementation services? Who performs these services? |
| A1. | The implementation services are project-managed services that will receive at your site your pre-racked/cabled CloudSystem Matrix infrastructure, and further set up and configure it in terms of networking, storage connectivity, and management software, through to the point of being in full operation and provisioning of your first few managed or target servers, integrated with your data center infrastructure. The service will conclude with knowledge transfer and demonstrations. The Starter Kit and Expansion Kit services are implemented only by specifically identified, qualified, and experienced delivery specialists from HP and our valued partners. |
| Q2. | What is the warranty on CloudSystem Matrix? |
| A2. | Three years for all components is standard. For simplified management and tracking, we offer warranty Care Pack “uplifts” for the entire CloudSystem Matrix solution (all hardware and software components) to extend your warranty and support beyond the standard three years to four or five years. |
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