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HP erects common storage platform

Ibrix, LeftHand, and StoreOnce embraced

HP has announced Store360, common storage services software that uses underlying ProLiant and BladeSystem hardware, with storage personalities layered on top.

At the company announced at its HP Discover event in Las Vegas, HP is layering Store360 across its industry-standard ProLiant and BladeSystem server hardware platforms. This layer provides common services for upper-level storage products.Three existing storage products will be implemented using the Store360 services on these platforms; Ibrix (X9500) scale-out file storage, LeftHand (P4000) iSCSI SAN storage and StoreOnce deduplication.

Store360 services include a common Linux operating system. Previously, the three storage products used different versions of Linux. The services also provide common messaging and metadata functions and common reporting. We could envisage Ibrix, LeftHand, and StoreOnce as storage functional personalties constructed using common building blocks.

We can also envisage StoreOnce being layered onto Ibrix, then onto Store360, and then onto the ProLiant or BladeSystem hardware, to produce a highly scalable deduplication system. There are implications here for the role of Sepaton's high-end deduplicating product in the HP range.

The 3PAR hardware and software will migrate to using these software service and hardware layers as well over time, although the 3PAR ASIC will still be used.

The P6000 EVA development takes advantage of some of the elements of this converged storage building block approach and, again over time, it will take more advantage. Existing EVA architecture, being based on older technology, can't be so moved. Tom Joyce, HP's VP for marketing strategy and operations, said: "Newer architecture storage products give you more flexibility."

The P9500 high-end storage array, OEM'd from Hitachi, will remain outside the StoreOnce/ProLiant/BladeSystem building block structure, although it will be managed by HP's Converged Storage management facility.

HP StorageWorks is being renamed HP Storage and will focus on storage software, not hardware.

HDS is developing a common storage platform, combining the VSP and AMS ranges into a single product line. Dell has an unspoken ability to do the same thing with its PowerEdge, EqualLogic, and Compellent storage lines.

HP also announced a Storage Consulting Services offering to help clients design and deploy a Converged Storage environment. It said that, with this, clients could "optimise the storage infrastructure, reduce costs, and protect and align data while preparing storage for cloud computing." ®

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