HP Storage Blog articles

Hocus pocus and fairy dust – dispelling SMB storage myths

ChrisJohnson — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:11:32 GMT

I have talked before about storage for SMBs and my belief that the future lies in a converged approach – to storage and the infrastructure as a whole. I can imagine your surprise when, just a couple of weeks later, HP announced its very own storage solution framework for small and midsize businesses – HP Simply StoreIT – based on exactly these principles! You’re probably expecting me to wax lyrical about the benefits of HP Simply StoreIT, so I’m not going to. Instead, I’m going to attempt to cut through some of the hype and myths surrounding SMB storage as I see it today.

Storage efficiency is the key to managing the data explosion

ChrisJohnson — Mon, 13 May 2013 18:56:00 GMT

From speaking to many customers, it is clear to me that the data explosion continues unabated and most organisations struggle to cope with the never-ending demand for more capacity. The traditional storage vendor battles have been focused on the “bigger, better, faster” mantra, but I see a need for increased vendor responsibility where our community needs to focus less on performance specs and more on the efficiency agenda. Employing techniques to offer customers real data reduction capability and much better utilization of storage is where the game is at. There is a lot to be done and a lot that can be done!

The SMB segment: Prime time for Converged Infrastructure?

ChrisJohnson — Thu, 02 May 2013 10:42:35 GMT

This week I thought we could explore how things should pan out in the small and medium business (SMB) space. We see a lot of commentary on how big organisations are deploying technology. However, just like large enterprises, small businesses are also experiencing an explosion of data and increasing complexity while often lacking the specialist people to manage their IT infrastructure. After examining the legacy of SMB storage, I think it’s time for a change – to Converged Infrastructure and Converged Storage for SMB. Here’s why

Chris Johnson - EMEA Storage Landscape Snapshot

ChrisJohnson — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:24:54 GMT

Hello Everyone! I’m Chris Johnson and this is my first contribution to the HP Storage blog. I’ve been in and around the storage industry for nearly 20years and as General Manager for one of the leading vendors, I see there is an absence of real-life, customer-facing commentary regarding the specifics of the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) storage scene. Having dedicated my working life to supporting the ‘internet generation’ and helping customers manage the ‘data explosion’, I see big shifts in the storage industry that should be interesting to expand upon (and even more fascinating to provoke insights from the community at large!). I travel around EMEA extensively: every week takes me to a new destination, and I plan to record my storage journeys and experiences as a way of capturing the real trends and shifts in the market, both from a user and a vendor perspective.

So, as a starting point, I want to lay out a ‘State of the Storage Nation’ – somewhere to start the journey together and build some themes that I hope will be both interesting and thought-provoking…

Today's the Day...

Tom_Joyce — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 03:18:00 GMT

So, today is the day. http://t.co/m9CGIWca

I am in Frankfurt, Germany for #HPdiscover, and I have been looking forward to today for quite some time. It's four o'clock in the morning, and I can't sleep, partly because of jet lag and partly because I feel like a kid on Christmas morning waiting until it's late enough to get up.

I can't say any more just yet, but what I can do is say thank you to all the people who have worked together to get HP Storage to the place it is today. This includes all the people in our organization, the people in the field, our channel partners, technology partners, and especially our customers. Not to mention the families of all the people who have been working so many hours over the past two and a half years since we set out to re-make HP Storage and reinvent the storage industry for the 21st century.

I have had the good fortune to work in a number of great companies. But I have never been as proud as I am to work for HP. We certainly have our challenges, and we have our work cut out for us. But two things continue to impress me every day. The first is the level of innovation inside this company. This morning I sat around a table with David Scott, Bethany Mayer, Mark Potter, Ric Lewis and others, and it was amazing how quickly a flipchart got filled up with pages of new ideas. The second is the high level of integrity of the people who work here. In my opinion these two things are the reason our customers have been so loyal to us.

There is a lot more coming in the future and there will be a lot more days like this one. Today, like every day, I look forward to being at HP and working side-by-side with all of you.

Paintball Party

Tom_Joyce — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:13:48 GMT

Recently I took my son to a birthday party for a friend who was turning thirteen. The party activity was paintball. This was my first exposure to paintball, and it was interesting. The paintball place was in the woods, and it was played in a makeshift arena that was set up with a kind of fortress at one end at the top of a small hill, and down the hill there were a number of obstacles that people could hide behind. Two teams would go in, with one defending the fortress and the others attacking from the bottom of the hill.

20,000 Pages of Email

Tom_Joyce — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:33:58 GMT

In the wake of recent news reports out of Tampa about an investigation where the FBI is reviewing between twenty and thirty thousand pages of email, I was wondering: how can two people generate that much email??

The Economic Advantages of HP StoreVirtual VSA

Tom_Joyce — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:36:41 GMT

Since we announced StoreVirtual VSA this week we have gotten a lot of coverage and a lot of questions, so here are a few additional thoughts on why this is a difference maker.

Introducing HP StoreVirtual

Tom_Joyce — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:37:24 GMT

HP introduces StoreVirtual VSA, which is the leading example of an entirely new segment in the storage industry: software-only storage solutions.

Get Virtual Guarantee

Tom_Joyce — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:37:32 GMT

This week we announced our new HP Get Virtual Guarantee Program, which will enable customers to improve server virtualization ROI by doubling physical server virtual machine performance when deploying HP 3PAR Storage in VMware environments.

“Small Data”

Tom_Joyce — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:59:59 GMT

One of the great things about technology is that when times get tough it sometimes results in innovations that people didn't think were possible. We're seeing this today in the automobile industry, where the best companies in the business are exceeding expectations on fuel efficiency. It used to be the case that if you wanted fuel efficiency you had to make huge compromises in performance and capability.

In enterprise storage we have similar challenges. Capacity requirements are growing at an unprecedented rate, and there are more new applications and use cases than ever before. The best companies in storage are innovating rapidly in the area of efficiency. At HP we have made a significant investment in finding ways to reduce the amount of data that is stored, and fit as much data as possible on storage media.

Solid-State Disk Reality Check

Tom_Joyce — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 02:13:13 GMT

The storage market continues to be the most dynamic and interesting segment of the IT systems industry. The rate of change is higher in storage than just about any other segment, and every few months there is cool new stuff to talk about. But sometimes we have new widgets coming at us so fast that people forget the big picture.

Advanced Disk Efficiency: Now Is The Time to Turn It On

Tom_Joyce — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 02:14:31 GMT

Disruptions at some manufacturing facilities have resulted in shortages of some hard disk drives. IT managers can use new technology to mitigate any potential risk they may have.

Feed the Need for Storage Speed

Tom_Joyce — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:26:50 GMT

Six weeks ago we launched the new HP P10000 3PAR. This is the new high-end machine and the uptake from customers has been impressive. It is the first dual-ASIC 3PAR and the performance is out of sight.

3PAR Factoids

Tom_Joyce — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 16:40:56 GMT

Check out these facts about HP 3PAR.

Our Unpredictable World

Tom_Joyce — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 19:30:27 GMT

The impact on business and IT is significant in many ways. The one I want to focus on is that this rate of change means that technology and application requirements have become highly unpredictable over much shorter time horizons than in previous decades.

Virtualization "Phase 3"

Tom_Joyce — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:43:41 GMT

On June 7 at HP Discover in Las Vegas we announced a new platform called HP VirtualSystem. I had the good fortune to be able to do the keynote presentation introducing VirtualSystem, and last week did that same keynote presentation in Hong Kong for our partners and customers in Asia.

26,000 Users On 1 Windows NAS??

Tom_Joyce — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 04:39:24 GMT

We are now a few days away from HP Discover in Las Vegas on June 6. We are all really looking forward to taking the covers off our story and get it out there. We have been working very, very hard…

So I can't tell you what is coming at Discover. But as you may have figured out by now, I am a bit of a NAS geek. Today I spent some time looking at performance testing that was done on our HP 's Windows Storage Server NAS solutions.

Thinking Outside the Box

Tom_Joyce — Tue, 03 May 2011 15:11:51 GMT

Thinking Outside the Box

In my last two blog posts I discussed why I think some of the established “unified storage” products in the market represent where storage has been, not where it’s going....

Why did we buy 3PAR?

Tom_Joyce — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:40:45 GMT

A confluence of factors – from customer needs to our own market share goals – made the acquisition of 3PAR the right move for HP Storage. Here’s my view on the strengths of the HP storage portfolio—made even stronger with 3PAR.