Version 11.0 Announced, Finally - Capacity Increase and Tiered-Storage

[Manfri]

To all users , check the VSA licensing.
It's a 3 year term license

see http://hp.also.ee/news/uus-hp-vsa-litsentseerimisskeem/
it's interesting that it will not be possible to create volume, snapshot etc etc etc...

(our HP contact says the same thing so it seem true ).

[a_o]

Wow, unbelievable. That essentially means new VSAs are now using a subscription model. This is not SDS, it's SAAS.

Not being able to patch and update to the latest LH OS is one thing, as is not being able to create new volumes.

However, not being able to make snapshots, smartclones, remote copy turns your VSA into something way less functional.

I can understand that HP needs a revenue stream so as to be able to continue developing LH OS, but 
I see why HP has not been advertizing this new 'feature' of VSAs. Why would anyone buy any technology that loses functionality after a specific time? 
Let's see what happens in 3 years with all those free VSA licenses that's being bundled with Proliant servers. Personally, I would rather rip out the VSA than have my data be 'held ransom' by HP.

A better approach would be to price the product appropriately for perpertual licensing and then require a support contract for updates to the latest versions of LH OS.

[AuZZZie]

Should I even be surprised that it is now Jan 15th and the HP Storage Team have missed yet another date for the CMC update?

This is absolutely ridiculous. 

[oikjn]

lol yea not suprised at all.

I ended up exchanging my nodes one at a time over the holidays.  because it was an off time, I didn't care as much about losing the redundancy for a few hours while it restriped, so I just deleted a node, recreaded it w/ v11 software and then re-joined it to the system w/ the same IP/MAC and did a node repair to get it back together, but it would be safer to add a temporary node to another hardware with a different MAC/IP, use that to exchange out a node, then delete the node you want to upgrade, recreate a new v11 node w/ the MAC/IP of the one you want to update and then re-add and re-sync that one back to take the data back from the temporary one...  rinse and repeat w/ that temp node and you can exchange every node on the management group without losing any redundancy.  Once EVERY node in the MANAGEMENT GROUP is running V11 INCLUDING THE FOM, then you will get all the v11 features.  I forgot about the FOM for a while and couldn't figure out why I couldn't get AO to show.

[AuZZZie]

Creative solution but not really practical (nor should it be necessary) for live production environments that can't handle the performance drop or risk associated.

If HP considers that an acceptable upgrade path for a production SAN with a price tag near 100K then they really are losing their marbles.

[oikjn]

no not a good path at all, but if your environment is smaller and you are impatient then that is how you can get around their delays in providing the in-CMC upgrade path.

I've only got ~7TB of storage so I was able to complete all those upgrades in a single day, but I don't think I would have the guts to do that on a 100TB management group...  just not worth doing anything close to the line there.

[AuZZZie]

Download page updated one again. What a joke. Magically vSphere 5.5 is supported with no other released updates? Something tells me they've been feeling the heat so they just said "Ok sure. It's "officially" supported now on 10.5". 

[quote]

For upgrading an older version of LeftHand OS to version 11.0, use the Online Upgrade capability available via the Centralized Management Console.General Availability of the LeftHand OS 11.0 upgrade package has been delayed. Availability is now expected by early to mid-February. For customers who wish to upgrade to 11.0 to support an upgrade to VMware vSphere 5.5, this operating system is now supported with LeftHand OS 10.5

[/quote]

[5y53ng]

Bart,

Just had a chance to read your blog on AO. Very informative! Thx.

[Gediminas Vilutis]

[quote]

For upgrading an older version of LeftHand OS to version 11.0, use the Online Upgrade capability available via the Centralized Management Console.General Availability of the LeftHand OS 11.0 upgrade package has been delayed. Availability is now expected by early to mid-February. For customers who wish to upgrade to 11.0 to support an upgrade to VMware vSphere 5.5, this operating system is now supported with LeftHand OS 10.5

[/quote]

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I'm not native english speaker, but if I understand correctly, 'early to mid-February' already had passed. Any new bids? :-}

[AuZZZie]

it's only roughly the 10th time they've missed the date.

HP now has the balls to start restricting software/firmware updates to those only with active support contracts yet can't hit a release date within 6 months of a set date.