StorageWorks Tech Day starting now
If you don't follow me on Twitter, you may not be aware that we have a blogger event going in on Colorado Springs. We've brought a number of prominent storage and virtualization bloggers and over the next day and a half, have a packed agenda. The topics we'll cover include:
- Storage virtualization for enterprise customers - virtualize infrastructure, not just servers
- Shared storage for virtual servers (SMB-focused)
- Unified storage
- Deduplication
- Converged Infrastructure
We'll also have hands on sessions and demos of the HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA), SAN Virtualization Services Platform (SVSP), and HP LeftHand. Here's a list of who is here (the "@name is their Twitter user name):
- Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) http://vmetc.com
- Nina Buik (@NinaBuik) Connect Community (its a long URL so this is a hyperlink)
- Stephen Foskett (@sfoskett) http://blog.fosketts.net
- Robin Harris (@StorageMojo) http://storagemojo.com (Robin has already post a blog - click here to see it)
- Greg Knieriemen (@Knieriemen) http://www.storagemonkeys.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&Itemid=136
- Ray Lucchesi (@RayLucchesi) http://silvertonconsulting.com/blog/
- John Obeto (@JohnObeto) http://absolutevista.com
- Frank Owen (@fowen) http://techvirtuoso.com
- Devang Panchigar (@StorageNerve) http://storagenerve.com (Devang also posted a blog - click here to see it)
- Nigel Poulton (@nigelpoulton) http://blogs.rupturedmonkey.com
- Simon Seagrave (@kiwi_Si) http://www.techhead.co.uk
I'm grateful to all of them for taking time out of their busy schedules to learn more about HP StorageWorks.
I'll be blogging here about what is going on and hope to have a few podcasts later in the week. If you want to follow the conversation real-time, we'll be using the hashtag #HPTechDay on Twitter. If you don't use Twitter, here's a URL where you can see all of the "tweets" using this hashtag: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23HPTechDay.
Tales of cold dead fish
By Lee Johns
Do you love Sushi? I certainly have come to. Great taste, healthy - what could be better? It seems everywhere I turn today there are new Sushi restaurants springing up. Sushi is it! It is one of the old adages of marketing that if Sushi had been marketed as "Cold Dead Fish", it would not have been as successful.
Now to the topic of this blog post. The new HP StorageWorks X1000 and X3000 Network Storage Systems - our unified storage products announced this week feature a capability called single instancing. These products provide an easy way to deploy unified file and block services to new and existing SAN environments and the single instancing feature eliminates copies of files on the system and can reduce the space consumed by up to 35%. Now I am not an expert but that seems to me to be deduplication. I understand that there are different types of deduplication. There are different types of sushi too. Apparently someone at Microsoft decided to use single instancing as the term for file deduplication. Whoever it was, they likely are not a fan of Sushi.
The new X1000 and X3000 HP StorageWorks are unified storage systems that combine file and application storage and feature file deduplication that can save up to 35% of space. There - I've said it. . .
New StorageWorks consolidation solutions for SMB's
By Carol Kemp
In case you missed it, HP came out with several new products and solutions designed for SMBs to help them survive and thrive during this tough economy. To read the full press release, click here. Headlining the announcement are new storage consolidation solutions designed to help SMBs do more with less - less money and less time...
Think of the advantages of having one network storage device that doesn't care what kind of data you're storing, whether you have more files than you can handle or block-based application data including gigantic databases. Think of the convenience of having one device to help you manage, protect and grow your business as your data grows. The new HP StorageWorks X1000 and X3000 Network Storage Systems enable customers to easily manage and optimize their storage capacity by consolidating file and block data into a unified storage solution. These new solutions increase performance by up to 30 percent over previous HP file and unified storage solutions. As a result, companies can reduce costs and simplify data management by improving capacity optimization of storage resources.
For SMBs who are making their first move into shared storage from direct attached storage, their requirements won't be the same as enterprise customers and in fact most SMBs will seek to reduce the level of complexity usually associated with installing their first SAN. The HP StorageWorks 2000sa and 2000i G2 Modular Smart Arrays are designed to provide low cost and high performance entry level SAN storage. These solutions deliver 33 percent more storage capacity per unit of rack space for SFF SAS drives over 3.5" drives. The capability of using small or large form factor SAS or SATA drives, combined with a scalability of up to 99 SFF drives is unmatched by ANY entry-level array product in the market. The MSA2000sa G2, with its' four SAS ports per controller or eight per dual controller system allows the customer who is moving from a single-host DAS environment enjoy the benefits and economies of a SAN without building a switched infrastructure. Four dual-path or eight single-path hosts can directly access a single MSA2000sa G2.
What if HP combined everything you need to realize the full potential of virtualization into one package? The HP Virtualization Bundles are the industry's first integrated solution that allows SMBs to more easily and cost-effectively deploy virtualization by transforming existing server disk drives into highly available shared storage. The bundle allows customers to reduce costs up to 35 percent by eliminating the need for external storage to support application high availability. The bundle includes HP server, storage and networking technology as well as integrated virtualization software from HP and VMware. To take advantage of some of the most critical features in VSphere (HA, VMotion, SRM, Live Migration), customers need to implement highly available storage area networks (SANs). For many midsized customers this is a challenge as adding external storage increases their hardware costs and impacts overall IT management. The HP Virtualization bundles allow an organization to pool all of the storage that is either inside or directly attached to HP ProLiant G6 servers into one virtualized pool of storage. Combined with HP ProCurve data center networking solutions, this allows an organization to quickly implement a fully virtual infrastructure, with all of its benefits, using pre-tested building blocks.
To get more information, go to our announcement day page on hp.com.
(Editor's note: Carol is my colleague and is the category manager for StorageWorks with an SMB focus)
