Back in early March, I talked about our storage virtualization announcement and pointed you to a video we did on the EVA.  Well, I think I finally figured out how to embedded video in the blog (at least from YouTube), so I wanted to mention it it again and embedded the video.  But first, here's a bit about the video. 

Last year when we announced the EVA4400, we were just wrapping up some work with the Edison Group where we measured the time it took to perform specific storage administrative tasks on an EVA, Clariion CX, and NetApp FAS array.  As a follow-up to the EVA4400 announcement, we brought some IT administrators to HP and asked them to perform a number of tasks on an EVA and Clariion array.  The video was pretty good and was well received.   So as we were getting ready to announce the EVA6400 and EVA8400 this year, we wanted to do another video to show just how easy the EVA with it's unique virtualization is to manage compared to competitive traditional arrays. 

My original idea was to use either high school or college students; we'd have two groups - one a few football players and the other students taking high-tech classes.  I was very confident that if we asked the football players to configure the EVA's and the tech students to work on the competitve arrays, the EVA would win hands down.  A few folks on my team thought this could be a bit offensive, suggesting you really don't have to be educated to be an IT administrator.  I saw it very differently - if HP StorageWorks can make products that simplify the time it takes to administrate their storage, that's really what our customers need - make it simple!  I think the idea we used works just as well - we had three teams of high school students who each were asked to perform the same tasks on an EVA, Clariion CX4, and NetApp FAS array.  As you'll see in the video, it appears as though the NetApp results are close but this is a bit misleading as we had to tell the students to skip some tasks on the FAS because no one could figure out how to do them. 

With that background, there's the video:

By Calvin Zito

I wanted to follow-up on John Spiers previous blog post about our HP LeftHand announcement on Monday.  I'd like to point you to a few different things around our hp.com web pages to help you learn more about the problems our HP LeftHand solutions are solving, product details, and point you to some customers who are using HP LeftHand today.  So here we go:

• First is a feature article that talks about the customer problems HP LeftHand helps you to solve.  It's titled The secret to successful virtualization.
• Next is a video that provides a good introduction to HP LeftHand.  It features Bill and Dave (no, not Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard but Bill Chambers and Dave Roberson).  The video talks about how the HP StorageWorks LeftHand SAN delivers low-cost storage that is optimized for virtualized computing environments.
• I found another video that gives a quick tour of the LeftHand P4000 SAN solution.
• If you want to dig deeper into our LeftHand solutions, you can check out the product pages:

1. HP LeftHand P4000 SAN Solution page.  Be sure to check out the Flash-based product demo and click on the Resource Library link to get a look at all of the collateral available. 
2. HP LeftHand P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance (VSA) Software page and again, be sure to click on the Resource Library link (which for all of our products is always on the top right-hand side of the product page). 

Lastly, I'll point you to our customer case studies where you can read how others are using HP LeftHand solutions:

• BlueLock, a technology service provider running VMware ESX, Windows and Linux OS's
• Gaylor, a construction services company running VMware ESX Exchange, and SQL
• Litigation Management, a litigation support services business running VMware ESX and SQL.
• Mojave Water Agency, a public utility running SQL, Visual Studio, Exchange, and ESRI GIS
• Florida Municipal Power Agency, a public utility running VMware ESX, Dynamics SL, Lotus Notes, Maximo Asset Management
• Los Angeles Mission College, an educational institution running Exchange, SQL, and ImageNow document imaging
• University of Florida, an educational institution running VMware ESX, Exchange and SQL
• Jackson Energy Authority, a public utility running Windows Hyper-V, SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, System Center

I know I've given you a lot of links today but if you're looking for an iSCSI based storage solution, it will be worth your time. 

I also wanted to remind you that you can follow HP StorageWorks on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HPstorageGuy. 

Have a great weekend!

By Calvin Zito

What a bad day to do an announcement just prior to our HP Technology@Work event in Berlin this week!  We had a lot of interesting news that went out today but it won't get the attention it should because of the Oracle announcement today.  Here's a link to our online press kit where you can read more about our HP LeftHand, BladeSystem Matrix, and the StorageWorks MDS600: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_kits/2009/convergeeverything2009/index.html.

So what does the announcement today of Oracle's intent to buy Sun mean?  My answer is a simple who knows?  What I find interesting is all of the speculation that is rampant across the internet.  I don't have an opinion yet on what it means because I just don't know what Oracle is trying to achieve beyond what they've said today but I'd like to make a few observations and point you to what's being said:

• The presentation that Oracle used on this morning's investor relations call was titled "Oracle Buys Sun".  That just seems a bit odd to me.  I've been involved in more than a few HP acquisitions and prior to an acquisition closing, we are careful to say that we are announcing our intent to acquire - probably not a big deal but last I heard, the SEC hadn't approved the acquisition yet and neither had Sun and Oracle shareholders.  I'm not implying that this all won't happen (what Sun shareholder would say no to this bailout plan) - just seems premature to say that Oracle buys Sun.
• I've seen two articles in eWeek, each having a bit different perspective: 

1. In the first article, Oracle will keep the Sun software business and sell off much of the hardware (though the article says they'll keep the storage business).  Oracle wants control of Java and the ability to kill off MySQL.  The article went on to say that "the losers in the deal are likely end users who can expect higher prices for software and fewer choices."
2. Another eWeek article said that storage and database hardware are key to the deal.  Whatever the case, Sun's storage just got a bailout deal from Oracle and better it come from Oracle than the Obama administration.  As to whether the GM or Sun bailout is successful, only time will tell.

• In a SearchStorage article, John Webster from Illuminata said "People who have been delivering separate pieces are now potential acquisition targets. You could put NetApp and Brocade on that list."  Maybe he should put EMC on that list too.  I especially wonder what is going on at EMC after Cisco announced their partnership with NetApp within weeks of EMC's claim of "brave new thinking".  Also quoted in the article is Brian Babineau from ESG.  He said, "EMC and NetApp are going to have to work even harder to convince customers that an integrated application stack isn't the way to go."

I guess we'll have to see how this plays out but what do you think? 

By John Spiers 

The LeftHand bloggers are pleased to announce that LeftHand's Virtual View blog is moving to Around the Storage Block

It's an exciting time for storage at HP. I'm in Singapore, a small country in Asia that has world-leading IT initiatives focused on Cloud Computing. I was meeting with customers yesterday and they asked me whether HP's LeftHand storage meets Cloud Computing requirements such as having a grid-based architecture, scalability, virtualization, easy to manage, physically resides in multiple locations with central management and has high availability features. Of course every storage vendor out there would raise their hand to these requirements, but when you start looking at the details, HP LeftHand clearly rises above the rest.

First of all, grid architecture is a must. Does it scale small to large non-disruptively without bottlenecks? Does it deliver multiple levels of fault tolerance? Can you fail drives, racks, complete disk shelves and even have multiple sites go offline without losing access to data in the Cloud? Can the same data set reside at multiple sites simultaneously (the Cloud) and be changed at any site and synchronously or asynchronously update all other sites and be reconfigured on-the-fly? Can all storage be globally virtualized and managed from a single GUI?  As you ask these questions storage vendor's hands start dropping, except for one, and that's HP LeftHand.

When customers see how HP is now leveraging LeftHand's technology in their market-leading BladeSystems, they instantly see the benefits; simple, self contained, less components to cable up, flexible and centrally managed. The first thing they say is, "that's a complete data center in a box; servers, networking, virtualization and SAN storage - what else could you need?" This platform clearly delivers storage and server virtualization at its best.

I'm also pleased to announce to the world that the HP LeftHand P4000 SAN Solution and the HP LeftHand P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance Software (VSA) + HP StorageWorks SB40c Storage Blade bundle will be available worldwide through the HP channel on May 1 (see www.hp.com/go/lefthandsans).

Please join me and other LeftHand bloggers at our new home here on Around the Storage Block.

John Spiers, LeftHand Evangelist