The Register®

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/15/hp_lhn_hyper_v/

HP confirms Hyper-V LeftHand appliance

Put your virtualised hands together

By Chris Mellor

Posted in Storage, 15th January 2010 11:20 GMT

Watch Now : Virtual Machine Movement with Hyper-V

HP is planning to develop a Hyper-V version of its VMware-based LeftHand Networks virtual storage appliance (VSA).

VSA [1] is LeftHand SAN/iq software packaged to run as a virtual machine under VMware. Like SAN/iq itself it turns direct-attached storage (DAS) on its server, or PC, host, into storage area network (SAN) storage. Groups of servers can be aggregated to form a bigger SAN storage pool.

As we reported in September [2], now confirmed [3] elsewhere, HP is going to have VSA running under Hyper-V within a year. This is part of the set of initiatives that make up Frontline [4], the HP-Microsoft alliance announced on Wednesday.

In principle, any storage system-level software running on X86 hardware can be converted to run as a virtual machine under a hyperviser. DataCore [5] already provides its SANmelody software as a Hyper-V-based software appliance. Darth Redmond will be encouraging other companies to follow suit, citing HP as evidence that the storage force really is with Hyper-V. ®