Licensing vs Support question

[dpgator33]

We have a 7200 with one additional 4U 3.5" enclosure and one additional 2.5" enclosure (DCN1, DCS1, DCS2)

They are all full with a mix of FC, NL, and SSD.

We have a couple of issues.
1. We are running out of SSD space
2. Our HW/SW support expires soon.

I'm an administrator, not in any manegerial type role, and don't typically deal directly with our VAR that we typically order stuff through. I don't know what was quoted to renew, but I'm getting the feeling that it's not going to be due to budgetary constraints.

My concern is that something will stop working once this period expires. Below is the result of showlicense.

Should I be concerned at all about any loss of functionality, or do I just not get support and software upgrades after this thing expires?

Also, assuming that nothing will break, do we have an option to add hardware (enclosure and drives) after the expiration - purchasing not directly from HPE or "new" but refurbished? (not ideal, I know, but we ARE running out of space, so something will have to be done)

Code: Select all

License key was generated on Thu Sep 28 10:05:20 2017

System is licensed for unlimited disks.

License features currently enabled:
3PAR OS Suite
Adaptive Flash Cache
Adaptive Optimization
Autonomic Rebalance
Dynamic Optimization
Peer Motion
Priority Optimization
Recovery Manager for SQL
System Reporter
Thin Conversion
Thin Copy Reclamation
Thin Deduplication
Thin Persistence
Thin Provisioning (10240000G)
Virtual Copy
VSS Provider for Microsoft Windows

[MammaGutt]

Nothing will stop working.

You will not get support for software issues, you will not get support for hardware issues and you will not get software updates (so maybe plan for an upgrade before the contract expires if there is no plan to renew).

Things to keep in mind.

3PAR 7000 is in End of Life phase and has for some time.

Additional upgrades from HPE are only available until October of this year and subject to availability.

All software and hardware support for 7000 ends in October 2022.

3PAR 7000 was launched in 2012 and was superseeded by 3PAR 8000 in 2015 (which is probably superseeded by Primera in 2019) so you are running on 8 years old technology (with probably some software enhancements if 3PAR OS has been maintained). What I would question is how critical is this storage array to your environmemt because it's getting old and out-dated meaning limited or no support for new host OS, increased risk of hardware failure, increased support cost (if you had plans on paying that) to mentioning a few. It could be time to look at a refresh.

[Richard Siemers]

Regarding running out of SSD space, are you using AO? Not sure what your strategy is with the 3 tiers of storage, but the way I leveraged it was I provisioned luns from the FC tier, and used AO scheduled daily to keep my SSD ~95% full of the most used data.

[dpgator33]

Nothing will stop working.

You will not get support for software issues, you will not get support for hardware issues and you will not get software updates (so maybe plan for an upgrade before the contract expires if there is no plan to renew).

Things to keep in mind.

3PAR 7000 is in End of Life phase and has for some time.

Additional upgrades from HPE are only available until October of this year and subject to availability.

All software and hardware support for 7000 ends in October 2022.

3PAR 7000 was launched in 2012 and was superseeded by 3PAR 8000 in 2015 (which is probably superseeded by Primera in 2019) so you are running on 8 years old technology (with probably some software enhancements if 3PAR OS has been maintained). What I would question is how critical is this storage array to your environmemt because it's getting old and out-dated meaning limited or no support for new host OS, increased risk of hardware failure, increased support cost (if you had plans on paying that) to mentioning a few. It could be time to look at a refresh.

Thanks for the confirmation on the support expiration stuff. And I do understand all of the other stuff and am looking at all options. Fact of the matter is, finances have changed drastically and nobody is signing off on a new storage system anywhere close to what we paid in total for the 3Par; certainly not if we won't even sign off on support renewal. I'll be lucky if I get anything north of $50k for a refresh, and that would mean likely just moving the most important stuff (SQL mostly) over and keeping the 3Par for stuff we can live without until a restore can be done (and stocking up on spare refurbished drives most likely). There's no getting around the fact that we need more storage, so something will have to be done.

[dpgator33]

Regarding running out of SSD space, are you using AO? Not sure what your strategy is with the 3 tiers of storage, but the way I leveraged it was I provisioned luns from the FC tier, and used AO scheduled daily to keep my SSD ~95% full of the most used data.

We do run a single AO configuration, but not against all CPGs. Our really high IO, mission critical VVs are on CPGs that are not in the AO configuration, so SSD only. And honestly, I am not sure if I can or want to change that on the fly.

I know enough to configure and maintain what we have, but "storage admin" isn't my sole responsibility by a long shot, and not one that I can fill with very much of my time - I just wear too many hats. It might be worth reaching to support, while I still have it, and see if they can advise on changing/adding our AO configuration to free up some SSD space. I really can't risk any data loss or significant impact on performance on those VVs though, so I would need to be really certain of what I'm doing there.