2.1 Assessment, Sizing & Configuration Tools: SAF, NinjaSTARS, Ninja Online & OCS

Assessment, Sizing & Configuration Tools

Quick Answer: Use HPE Assessment Foundry (SAF) to collect and analyze data about what the customer runs today. Use HPE NinjaSTARS to size and configure an HPE storage or StoreOnce solution, including a ready-to-order bill of materials (BOM). Use HPE Ninja Online for MSA to size MSA arrays, and HPE One Config Simple (OCS) to build valid product configurations and quotes. Then validate interoperability in SPOCK (section 2.2).

Why tools matter

A storage proposal that relies on guesswork fails in one of two ways. It is either undersized, with high latency, controller saturation or full pools, or oversized, wasting the customer's budget. HPE's tools replace guesses with measured data and enforce the configuration rules each product has. The exam objective, "locate and use available tools and resources for HPE Storage", expects you to know what each tool is for and when to use it.

Step 1: Assess with HPE Assessment Foundry (SAF)

HPE describes the Assessment Foundry (SAF, originally named Storage Assessment Foundry) as a free suite of tools that collects configuration and performance data from customer environments, analyzes it, generates reports and supports the sizing of new HPE solutions.

What SAF can collect from:

• Storage arrays, including HPE arrays and many third-party arrays
• Standalone Windows servers and all major Linux distributions
• Virtual environments, with host and guest performance and configuration (for example VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V)
• Backup applications

How an assessment runs:

1. The HPE or partner presales engineer creates an assessment in the SAF portal.
2. The customer receives an invitation email and downloads SAF Collector from it.
3. The customer runs the collector against the systems in scope. Guidance from HPE's SAF team for a Hyper-V host, for example, is to select the device type, enter the host address and collect for up to one week, the maximum supported collection time; a shorter trial run first verifies credentials and connectivity.
4. The collected data is uploaded and SAF Analyze produces dashboards and reports: capacity used, IOPS, throughput, latency, read/write mix and growth.

What a good assessment captures:

Collect across the busiest period you can, such as month-end processing or a backup window, because averages hide the peaks that cause trouble.

Step 2: Size with HPE NinjaSTARS and related tools

HPE NinjaSTARS is HPE's primary interactive storage sizing tool. HPE describes it as able to size and configure a cost-effective, performance-optimized solution for its enterprise array families and StoreOnce, whether replacing a legacy array or a backup target, and to create a ready-to-order bill of materials. It is downloaded as a desktop application from the SAF portal, and SAF data can feed it.

Related tools in the same ecosystem:

For an MSA opportunity, HPE also points out that the existing MSA's own management interface shows capacity on the main screen and in the pool and volume views, and performance graphs on the performance tab. These are a quick input to Ninja Online.

Sizing checks that every tool applies

• Capacity: raw, then usable after RAID and sparing, then effective after data reduction (section 1.2).
• Performance with headroom: a dual-controller array must be able to carry the full load on one controller during a failure or an online firmware upgrade.
• Growth: size for the planned life of the system, not for today.

Step 3: Configure and quote with HPE One Config Simple (OCS)

HPE One Config Simple (OCS) is a web-based configurator that guides you through building a valid configuration of HPE products and produces a quotable list of parts. It enforces the ordering rules published in the product QuickSpecs, such as required controllers, supported drive types, transceivers, cables and power options. One Config Advanced (OCA) handles more complex, multi-product configurations. Neither replaces a performance sizing tool: they check that a configuration can be built and supported, not that it will meet an IOPS target.

Other helpful HPE tools include HPE Power Advisor, which estimates power consumption for server and storage configurations.

Putting it together

Common exam traps

• Who downloads SAF Collector? The customer, from the invitation email, not a dedicated appliance that HPE ships.
• "NinjaSTARS only produces graphs." HPE states it can create a ready-to-order BOM.
• Using OCS for performance sizing. OCS validates configuration rules, not workload performance.
• Sizing on averages. Peaks and growth determine whether a design succeeds.