By Siobhan Kennedy & William Fellows
If Hewlett-Packard Co is serious about the wide-ranging three- year OEM and technology agreement it has struck with longtime buddy Hitachi Ltd for SAN storage area network arrays and software then the lucrative storage market has a new player. But stress free, as HP has branded its reborn storage interest, it will not be. Its jilted partner EMC Corp is sure to see to that. Storage now accounts for up to 65% of a total system sale and under the deal Hitachi Ltd’s global marketing arm, HDS, HP gets an opportunity to address this market on HP and non-HP systems with arrays that carry its own label.
HP stood up in New York yesterday and admitted that it might have confused customers that it was supporting a proprietary SAN with EMC’s enterprise storage network SAN strategy, ESN. HP worldwide marketing manager for enterprise storage David Scott went on to say that EMC’s commitment to a proprietary architecture is divergent to our open SAN policy, he said, adding that HP was finding it increasingly difficult to make its storage story tally with EMC’s when talking to enterprise customers. Moreover while EMC can do 99.999% uptime, HDS can do it better. We think it can get to 100%, it added. That’s sure to get to EMC’. It will have done some $1bn on sales of its Symmetrix arrays to HP customers this year.
HP used a New York press conference to announce plans to resell a souped-up version of HDS’ 7700E high-end array as the MC256, a Brocade-based Fibre Channel switch, some HDS SAN management software plus enhanced HP applications, uptime services and design and consulting services as. HP now brands its entire storage business the HP Equation. SureGear E are the MC256 arrays and other hardware. HP says it has worked with HDS to enhance the guts of the HDS 7700E array, adding greater connectivity and expandability options, high-availability and management functions; MC256 because it can support multiple systems and in multiple configurations. It can house 256 disks. Under the deal, HP says it will be able to contribute to the development of the 7700E engine, likening its MC256 implementation to the way Canon engines are used in printers from multiple manufacturers. The array supports from 60Gb to 9Tb storage and supports Unix, NT, MPE and mainframes with connections to HP-UX, Solaris, AIX and NT.
The company also unveiled a new switch for use in SANs which is based on a product from Brocade Communications informed with components from EMC’s McData, called the SureStore E Switch F16. HP says the fibre channel switch will connect all components of a SAN with its new disk array MC256 product plus EMC’s Symmetrix box. In choosing the Brocade switch, some industry watchers say that HP appears to have abandoned compatibility with EMC’s SAN environment, which uses the company’s McData switch.
On the software side, HP introduced the SureStore E Storage Node Manager, which HP claims is the first management software to discover, map and monitor storage devices, fabric devices and host bus server adapters across a SAN. In fact HP is OEMing several storage-management applications for local and remote data mirroring, inter-operating system data transfers, and centralized array management. HP is integrating this software into Storage Node Manager software as well as HP OpenView (now claimed to manage 70% of internet nodes) OmniBack II backup software.
In addition, in response to requests from its customers, HP said it plans to deliver a future SureStore E server-less SAN back-up product that will be integrated with HP OpenView OmniBack II and Legato Networker. The software will enable tape devices to back up disk subsystems directly across the SAN, without having to encroach on LAN bandwidth, HP said. The MC MetroCluster currently enables users to locate storage and servers 43km apart. Soon they will be able to do it across continents, HP claims. There are 11 SureStore E applications in total.
On the services side, HP has set up a new unit, called SureGuide, consisting of 350 new sales and technical pre-sales staff, as well as a new support center from which it will provide, among other things, remote diagnostic services. Some 150 HDS staff are supposed to lend HP a hand with the rolling out the MC256 sales strategy. It looks like an uphill challenge as EMC previously handled all of the HP’s high-end storage constancy and design issues.
Initially HP will sell MC256 only to its own customers. HDS will resell the MC256 for use with non-HP systems. HP views HDS – and HDS’s partners – as the channel to win storage attachments to Sun, IBM and other third party servers.
HDS doesn’t see it quite that way. Yoshihiro Koshimizu, president and CEO of Hitachi Data Systems Corp told Computergram that there maybe some overlap in sales of its 7700E and its other Freedom Data Network SAN products versus HP’s MC256 implementation. However its roll-out of the HP product will be different in each territory. Koshimizu says he also expects there will be more unique opportunities for each and says HDS will be offering 7700E more as a solutions package in keeping with HDS’ new corporate mission. The two will also co-develop new SAN hardware and software which either company may manufacture and sell.
It wouldn’t quantify the new revenue opportunity HP brings it but its long-term partner – Hitachi already resells HP kit in Japan – has certainly breathed a new lease of life into it. HDS had looked to be in danger of withering under the constraints of a new mainframe landscape forged by IBM Corp’s CMOS S/390 series.
