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Posts Tagged ‘hp storage tech day’

Now that HP Storage Tech Day is a few days removed and all the attendees have had more time to digest what we experienced during our day and a half in Colorado Springs, several blog posts have been published worth reading. The event also picked up some mainstream coverage from sites like The Register, TechVirtuoso.com, ITKnowledgeExchange.com, and Tech Republic.

This post lists links some of the blogs from other HPTechDay attendees that I think make some great points or cover pieces I missed regarding what we saw about storage virtualization at HP. I’m adding some of my own opinions to expand on these ideas from a server virtualization perspective.

I’ve also archived 500 of the #HPTechDay tweets into a .pdf report created by Tweetdoc.org. Check the end of this post for that document complete with working links to photos and urls.

First of all, HP’s Calvin Zito (@HPStorageGuy on Twitter) has a master index of all posts and articles from HPTechDay in his post StorageWorks Tech Day – in their words so far…. Check it out for just about everything written on the event.

HP StorageWorks TechDay & SMB Announcements
Simon Seagrave (@kiwi_si)
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I’m not a fortune teller and I don’t have a crystal ball, but during my attendance at HP Storage Tech Day I definitely received an impression that the acquisition of Left Hand Networks now plays a key role in future storage offerings at HP. Based on the discussions, presentations, and hands-on-labs I participated in, Left Hand’s storage virtualization model is obviously common strategy among other HP storage products moving forward. I predict a win/win storage scenario is “in the cards” for both HP and it’s customers.

The Left Hand Model
Left Hand Networks established itself with SMB and Mid Market customers by combining storage controllers and disk shelves into one x86 based appliance that serves iSCSI storage to ESX hosts. Linking multiple storage appliances together in a cluster, Left Hand replicates iSCSI volumes across all nodes creating a highly available SAN for virtual hosts. If one node is no longer available the remaining ones seamlessly continue to provide shared storage via the replicated data. Add to this the capability to non disruptively add additional Left Hand appliances, which then enables companies to take advantage of a pay-as-you-grow SAN. Performance improvements and tuning can also be achieved as existing volumes are automatically spread across additional disks provided with each new Left Hand appliance joining the cluster.

The acquisition press release (linked above) provides further insight into HP’s business strategy incorporating Left Hand’s products in it’s portfolio.

“With the addition of LeftHand Networks, HP will add midrange offerings to its suite of iSCSI solutions. Customer needs at the low end of the market will be met with the HP StorageWorks All-in-One Storage System (AiO) and HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array (MSA) product lines. The high end will be addressed by the HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) line. Customers will further benefit since LeftHand Networks’ solutions are already certified to work with a wide range of HP products, including HP ProLiant servers, HP BladeSystem infrastructure, HP ProCurve Networking and HP Insight Control management software.”

Today HP offers P4000 SAN Solutions with Left Hand technologies.

Server and Storage Convergence
HP’s message from the very beginning of Storage Tech Day was that they intended to converge their server and storage infrastructure offerings. This seems to me to be creating products that by design offer similar scale out capabilities as Read the rest of this entry »

Today I am in Colorado Springs, CO attending Storageworks Tech Day also being referred to as HP Storage Tech Day. It is a day and a half storage virtualization event hosted by HP, and I have the privilege of attending along with several other storage and virtualization bloggers.

The line up includes (with twitternames):

• Nina Buik (@NinaBuik)  Connect Community
• Stephen Foskett (@sfoskett)  http://blog.fosketts.net
• Robin Harris  (@StorageMojo) http://storagemojo.com
• Greg Knieriemen (@Knieriemen)  http://www.storagemonkeys.com
• 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
• Nigel Poulton (@nigelpoulton)  http://blogs.rupturedmonkey.com
• Simon Seagrave (@kiwi_Si) http://www.techhead.co.uk

Calvin Zitto (@HPStorageGuy) is one of the leaders of the event, and he explains our agenda in his Around the Storage Block blog post titled Storageworks Tech Day Starting Now.

“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”

Other attendees have already posted about the event. Be sure to check these posts (along with Calvin’s above):

• StorageMojo off to HP’s Storage Tech Day
• HPTechDay 2009 Day 0: Colorado Springs
• HP Storage Tech Day 2009

The official Twitter hashtag is #HPTechDay, and I’ve created a Tweetgrid after the post break if you would like to watch all tweets using the hashtage roll in live. Another option is a 3 columned Tweetgrid I’ve created for the event available here.

I’m looking forward to meeting the other bloggers and learning about HP’s storage virtualization offerings. Look for more posts on the event on VM /ETC throughout the week.

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