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.
HP StoreOnce
HP also released upgrades to two backup appliances, the StoreOnce 2000 series and StoreOnce 4000 series.
The StoreOnce line of backup appliances were launched in 2010. The line included the 2000, 4000 and 6000 series.
Previously, the StoreOnce 6000 was the only model to come with HP StoreOnce Catalyst software, which enables data deduplication on application servers or backup servers. The deduplication occurs before data is replicated to a centralized HP StoreOnce Backup system, greatly reducing the amount of data that needs to go over a WAN.
The HP StoreOnce 2000 and 4000 series have also been given hardware tuneups that offer users up to two times the performance over previous models in native mode and up to three times the performance when used with StoreOnce Catalyst. They also cost up to 25% less than the previous generation models, Kinney said.
HP's StoreOnce Replication Manager is also now available as a free download, which allows multiple StoreOnce appliances to be managed as they replicate data from branch and remote offices to a central data center.
The HP StoreOnce 2000 Backup system starts at $10,000 and HP StoreOnce 4000 Backup system starts at $25,000.
HP StoreOnce Catalyst Software licenses are now available starting at $500 on the StoreOnce 2600.
The StoreOnce line of backup appliances now all offer deduplication
HP StoreAll Storage
HP also introduced the StoreAll object and file archive system.
The StoreAll archive disk array is based on the same hardware as the StoreOnce appliance, but instead of data deduplication, it is a scale-out storage system that can grow to 1,000 nodes with up to 16 petabytes of capacity under a single domain name space, according to Kinney.
Along with the scalable architecture, the HP StoreAll comes with Express Query, an application created by HP Labs that when used in conjunction with map reduce technology, greatly improves big data search query performance.
Express Query essentially creates a metadata database that allows clients to conduct search queries 100,000 times faster than previous file system search methods, Kinney said.
The storage system is integrated with HP Autonomy Intelligent Data Operating Layer, which offloads processing tasks to HP StoreAll so that analytics can be rapidly performed with more current data and using less compute hardware.
Additional integration with HP StoreAll and HP Autonomy Consolidated Archive, as well as certification of other independent software vendor applications, provides long-term retention of digital assets.
HP StoreAll Storage is expected to be available globally on Dec. 20, with pricing as low as 91 cents per GB.
HP StoreOnce 6200 Backup systems are available worldwide immediately for a starting price of $250,000.
HP StoreOnce 2000 Backup systems start at $10,000 and HP StoreOnce 4000 Backup systems start at $30,000.
HP StoreOnce Catalyst Software licenses start at $500.