HP upgrades converged storage portfolio

Computerworld - Hewlett-Packard's Storage division Monday released upgrades to three product lines. A product marketing director called the upgrades the Storage division's biggest news since acquiring 3Par in 2010.

HP said it's upgrading the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage, StoreAll Storage and StoreOnce Backup product offerings.

The upgrades are said to bring some enterprise-class features to midrange offerings, as well as converge block, file and object-based storage under one user interface.

In 2011, HP announced the Converged Systems portfolio as a type of all-in-one, IT-as-a-Service data center architecture.

Similar to EMC and Cisco's vBlock offering, the pre-configured converged storage offering combines scale-out software with HP EVA storage arrays and BladeSystem or HP ProLiant server hardware.

HP has three Converged Storage architecture models, the VS1, VS2 and VS3.

The VS3 can now be ordered with HP's new 3Par StoreServ 7200 array, which has a dual-core controller, or the 7400, which has quad-core controller.

HP's 3PAR StoreServ 7000 array line is a midrange platform offering Tier 1 storage availability and quality-of-service features, according to Sean Kinney, director of product marketing for HP Storage.

With the StoreServ arrays, HP adds file-based data services to existing block-based data services. The system also includes a combination of hard disks and solid-state disks (SSD), or an all-SSD configuration capable of performing more than 320,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS), according to Kinney.

Kinney said the 3Par StorServe 7000 series comes with native thin provisioning capability, as well as primary data deduplication and encryption for data in flight and at rest.

"We guarantee we can double the virtual machine density on each of your servers," he said.

The HP 3Par StoreServ 7200 is available immediately starting at $20,000. HP's 3Par StoreServ 7400 starts at $32,000.

"You're getting all the benefits of 3Par, but in a mid-tier offering," Kinney said.

HP has added some of the EVA's ease of use features, such as its familiar user interface, to the 3Par StoreServ arrays, Kinney noted.

For example, HP's data storage management software, Command View, is now a simple tab in the 3Par user interface. In fact, Kinney said users would have an easier time migrating data from their existing EVA arrays to a StorServe 7000 array, than to another EVA array.

Kinney said there are no immediate plans to discontinue the EVA array line, but added, "We're strongly encouraging our EVA customers to move to 3Par. That way, you get all the ease of use with the advanced data services of 3Par."

Additionally, HP said it will release its Priority Optimization software in 2013. HP Priority Optimization software allows users to set up service level agreements for a tenant (a business unit, for example) or an application, meaning certain performance and capacity metrics can be pre-set on its converged architecture.