HP hedges storage bets

Daily Newsletters

Sign up to ZDNet UK's daily newsletter.

NEWS
Hewlett-Packard's storage division has announced a plan that attempts to merge the product lines of HP and Compaq without immediate cancellations of any products, despite giving Compaq executives overall control of its storage architecture. In what might be described as a "reverse takeover", HP has acknowledged Compaq's superior performance in the storage market, and put Compaq people in charge of the storage division. Early indictations are that those executives are attempting to keep the HP products on, including products based on systems from Hitachi Data Systems, or at least deferring the difficult decisions. However, despite its efforts to reassure users that all products will continue, the company has produced uncertainty by cancelling events based around HP-heritage storage products, including the European launch of its version of Hitachi's latest storage system. "HP remains committed to offering multiple choices for disk array and storage area network products," says an HP strategy document. "We will consolidate and rationalise our array portfolio and focus on creating NAS/SAN convergence." Both the HP XP product and Compaq's StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) are being kept on. XP is a version of the Lightning system from Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), and EVA is originated from the Compaq acquisition, Digital Equipment Corp. In its plan HP explains that it needs the two because the HDS product "enables storage consolidation via a single, monolithic, scalable and highly available storage system," while the Compaq is more scalable and suitable for the mid-range. "We believe HP will see the value of what we have today," said Vincent Franceschini, senior director of future technologies at Hitachi Data Systems, pointing out that with the new Lightning system, HDS' storage products can be scaled to much larger sizes than can Compaq's. HP's efforts not to lose anything continue in the mid-range. Here, Compaq's StorageWorks EVA might seem to be the best choice, say experts. However, HP will continue to offer its VA solutions for HP-UX centric environments and StorageWorks EMA modular arrays for heterogeneous environments "until our EVA architecture-based products fulfill our customer requirements, expected to be the middle of 2003." In storage area networks, HP plans to merge both companies' products. Experts say this might not be too hard given the companies' reliance on Brocade; for network attached storage (NAS), StorageWorks is being classified as entry level, while the HP appliance has become a mid-range and enterprise product. For storage management, HP's OpenView is too strong a brand for the company to do anything other than keep it on, but the company clearly acknowledges its deficiencies and will "integrate" the good bits of Compaq's storage management. In virtualisation, HP and Compaq have been at each others' throats, but once again these products will become complementary. "We will offer a multi-level virtualisation strategy and phased implementation plans, including the integration of HP and Compaq virtualisation IP into a common, multi-tier virtualisation strategy.
More enterprise IT news in ZDNet UK's Tech Update Channel.

For a weekly round-up of the enterprise IT news, sign up for the Tech Update newsletter. Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Go to the ZDNet news forum. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.

In other words, that battle has still to be fought.

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

You can also log in with Facebook. Log in or create your ZDNet UK account below

  • Login

Will not be displayed with your comment

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy. Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Community FAQ

Get ZDNet UK's daily newsletter

Enter your email address to sign up

ZDNet UK Live

JCB33

How dare film makers, artists or anybody that invests in creativity stop us pirating their works for free. I want to be able to walk into my local...

40 minutes ago by JCB33 on ACTA stumbles in Germany
Moley

@GrueMaster. I prefer horses for courses rather than one size fits all. I, and I suspect most other computer users, do not really wish to have...

3 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
greycynic

The product that scares me every time I have to use it is the Office 2007 version of Excel. The first bug that I found was applying the median...

3 hours ago by greycynic on Ten flawed products that derail productivity
GrueMaster

Nice review and very informative. One thing I'd like to add (in reply to whs001's 1st question), the main reason to have the same interface from...

4 hours ago by GrueMaster on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Frederick Wrigley

I'be been using Mint 12 since the RC came out, and I am far more happy with the Cinnamon, the Mate, and, yes (with extensions), theGnome 3...

5 hours ago by Frederick Wrigley via Facebook on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
bdantas

Excellent article. One small correction, though--although a fresh installation of Linux Mint 12 will, indeed, provide the user with a version of...

6 hours ago by bdantas on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Alan Ralph

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

6 hours ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material
Alan Ralph

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

6 hours ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material
Moley

For Gnome 2 die-hards, it is possible to add icons to the bottom panel (or top top panel, if you prefer) which provide the exact Gnome 2...

7 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
ramwellian

Your comments would seem pretty naive and immature. Your 'solution' appears to be, "gee, let's all just give in to the hackers and give them...

7 hours ago by ramwellian on Cloud computing security: no more oxymoron?
BugStalker

"Interesting thought ... If you installed Win7 as a dual boot on a machine that previously only had Linux, and it wrecked your Linux installation,...

8 hours ago by BugStalker on Windows 7 Declares War on GRUB
whs001

This is an excellent summary of Ubuntu and Mint and the interface differences between them. Most such articles take a very partisan position for...

8 hours ago by whs001 on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Moley

@ewallace. Not so clear. Anyone can obtain the text, for example from here http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/2379. I support ACTA so long as it and...

8 hours ago by Moley on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions
45283

I think WinRT is fantastic. I just wish it was an option for people that didn't want to go through Microsoft's App Store with its attendant...

11 hours ago by 45283 on Why Windows 8 needs architectural hygiene for WOA
Burn-IT

Nine people? £30m? Who's back pocket is that lot going in? And IF they say it is for new buildings, what about all the ones the government has...

12 hours ago by Burn-IT on Police set to launch three £30m e-crime hubs
ewallace

Just to be clear, nobody knows what is in the text of ACTA, here is a photograph of the text of ACTA http://twitpic.com/8h9iju as submitted to the...

12 hours ago by ewallace on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions
fgvrg56

Unfortunately main issue is that ASUS is refusing to accept that they make some mistake on this version of asus Transformer prime. 1 - GPS sensor...

14 hours ago by fgvrg56 on Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Wi-Fi & GPS problems?
Ben Woods

@Marcus A fair question. Just talked with Archos which said it was working on an announcement for next week....

15 hours ago by Ben Woods on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule
Marcus Karlsson

Any update on this, considering the claimed "first week of February"?

16 hours ago by Marcus Karlsson via Facebook on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule
apexwm

Bill Goodrich : Just as al_langevin pointed out, with Windows Server 2008 there is no Services for Macintosh anymore. It's gone, not available....

1 day ago by apexwm on Windows Server 2008 drops the ball for Mac compatibility