Scenario
Following the merger of two financial companies, management is considering combining the two
distinct customer call centers into a single physical location. In addition to the overall call center
headcount increasing by 30%, the support for two distinct customer bases presents the potential
of having two different desktop PCs on the desk of each call center employee. Instead of
correspondingly increasing IT support headcount to manage the single, larger call center and call
center infrastructure, management believes they can reduce the required time to support call
center operations by 40% if they employ virtual desktop technology.
An initial assessment has identified the need for a centralized storage solution that could support
500 virtual desktops running a variety of applications that can scale quickly to accommodate an
expected increase in call center staff. The customer is already an HP Blade System customer
using HP Virtual Connect Flex-10.
Some of the additional business criteria identified in customer planning interviews includes:
Use client virtualization for the desktops.
Achieve the highest possible density and performance for the virtual desktops, but keep the
virtual desktop storage traffic off the network due to a current, existing limitation of only 1GbE.
Do not use standalone, network-attached storage.
Limit the impact of additional rack space.
Minimize the risk of additional help-desk tickets.
Present multiple solutions, prioritized with a recommendation.
Refer to the scenario.
Select the HP MSA configuration with SAS + SSD drives that will satisfy the customer
requirements.

A.
HP MSA 1040, with converged controller and FC sfp

B.
HP MSA 1040, with GbE Ports

C.
HP MSA2040, with converged controller and Ethernet sfp

D.
HP MSA2040, with SAS controller