Hewlett Packard (HP) has introduced the latest addition to its StorageWorks range, an enterprise virtual array designed for midsize customers looking to implement a storage-area network (SAN) whilst at the same time reducing cost and complexity.
The HP StorageWorks 4400 Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) is the first of its kind in this range to offer richer features-- previously available only in high-end arrays-- but now at a price point small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) will be comfortable with.
In a phone briefing last week, Jim Wagstaff, vice-president and general manager of HP’s StorageWorks division in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ), told journalists that a common theory surrounding SMBs is that they operate differently from larger companies when in practice, they operate similar to that of the enterprises, but their lack in the areas of IT expertise and budget are major bottlenecks which prevent them from successfully deploying enterprise class functionalities.
Aimed at organisations with a headcount of between 100 -999 employees, the EVA 4400 is seen as a desirable candidate for organisations that frequently encounter storage complexities and do not have sufficient IT resources needed to manage the environments.
The new solution features key virtualization technologies such as a dual-redundant hardware architecture that supports local and remote replication software. This eliminates single points of failure and helps ensure maximum uptime.
“Virtualization for HP translates to pooling resources, keeping the cooling and aggregation simple from customer’s perspective. Customers can make provisioning changes with minimal amount of understanding at a physical layer,” said Wagstaff.
Storage provisioning is also available with EVA Dynamic Capacity Management to help efficiently manage resources and improve overall productivity.
In a recent survey of current and planned virtualization users by analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group, 28 % said they plan to implement server virtualization in the next six months and 42 % plan to deploy such technologies within the next year.
HP claims that a series of tests using the EVA 4400 and competing products from EMC has revealed that IT managers spend up to 75% less time managing the EVA than the competitors’ array.
“Other SAN environments typically create significant management overhead, but the powerfully simple EVA4400 is the better solution for midsize businesses since it is easier to configure and automates storage provisioning to improve capacity utilization. Plus, it is approximately 20 percent more affordable than higher end systems,” said Wagstaff.
Wagstaff also mentioned, during his media brief, that installing the EVA 4400 is easy enough to be done by customers themselves. This capability is favorable to many SMBs that lack IT expertise and can now save cost from hiring a consultant.
When asked which countries in the APJ region HP will see traction for this product, Wagstaff replied that this would vary from country to country but sees industries such as, distribution hubs, financial services, healthcare, government and non traditional segments like online gaming, animation and digital content providers showing interest.
The EVA4400 can be integrated with the HP BladeSystem, HP ProLiant and HP Integrity servers, thus providing customers with a complete solution in which storage and servers are managed together, making the infrastructure easier to manage and faster to deploy. This will, in turn, decrease overall management costs.
The EVA4400 is available now with a list price starting at USD 15,000.
The array comes with Solution Blocks-- pre-tested “blueprint” solutions that combine the right server, storage and application components to reduce time and effort by both customers and channel partners. The Solution Blocks aim to simplify the integration of the most popular midsize business applications, including Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, OracleEVA Dynamic Capacity Management E-Business Suite, VMware ESX Server and HP PolyServe Scalable NAS. |
