Data protection, business continuity, and compliance are high-priority concerns for IT organizations today. Hewlett-Packard (HP) provides software functions on its intelligent storage arrays that help ensure that data is synchronized between two disparate storage devices. This software, called HP StorageWorks Continuous Access, can synchronize distant HP Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) disk arrays to help ensure that, if a device or site fails, a copy of that data is safely stored on a distant array.
HP Continuous Access is faced with performance challenges created by the WAN, including bandwidth, throughput, latency, and packet loss. Cisco® Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) Software provides powerful WAN optimization and application acceleration technologies that can improve the performance of HP Continuous Access. When using Cisco WAAS, IT organizations find that replication consumes less bandwidth, and distant arrays can be more closely synchronized in shorter amounts of time. Figure 1 shows a deployment of HP EVAs with HP Continuous Access replication over Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) using the Cisco MDS 9000 family of intelligent storage switches. Cisco WAAS is deployed in the network, which provides the optimization capabilities necessary to minimize bandwidth consumption and improve performance of HP Continuous Access.
Figure 1. Deployment of HP Continuous Access with Cisco WAAS
Figures 2 and 3 show that Cisco WAAS provides up to a 15-fold increase in the number of disk write operations per second in HP Continuous Access. Table 1 and Figure 4 show that Cisco WAAS also provides up to 95 percent reduction in the amount of WAN bandwidth consumed, thereby providing a 20X capacity increase for HP Continuous Access traffic. The test results show performance before Cisco WAAS and with Cisco WAAS. The operations performed include the synchronization of an 8-GB volume over an FCIP connection established between Cisco MDS 9000 family intelligent directors. Optimization provided by Cisco WAAS is based on WAN conditions and the data being replicated; therefore, the level of optimization Cisco WAAS provides will vary based on characteristics specific to your environment and may differ from what is shown here.
Figure 2. Cisco WAAS Improves Performance of HP Continuous Access-200 km (2ms)
Figure 3. Cisco WAAS Improves Performance of HP Continuous Access-300 km (3ms)
Table 1. Bandwidth Savings Reported in Cisco WAAS
Total bytes saved
2,367,693 KB
Percent reduction (including pass-through) provided by this device
95%
Percent reduction (excluding pass-through) provided by this device
95%
Effective capacity provided by this device
20X
Figure 4. Cisco WAAS Provides Up to 95 Percent Compression for HP Continuous Access
Summary
Cisco WAAS provides demonstrable performance improvement and WAN bandwidth savings for HP EVA environments where HP Continuous Access is employed for replication. By using Cisco WAAS with HP Continuous Access, IT organizations can achieve up to a 10X increase in data transfer speed and reduction of bandwidth utilization.
