Features - Storage Innovations:
NEW HP STORAGE SOFTWARE AUTOMATES PROVISIONING
By Mitch Wagner
Hewlett-Packard has begun shipping storage-management software that automates
provisioning and media management.
HP OpenView Storage Provisioner allows IT departments to separate storage
resources for different purposes, reducing the complexity and time of manual
storage provisioning, and improving system availability. The software allows
administrators to set up policies to automate tasks such as freeing up more
storage space for an application and backing up data.
The new product is similar to EMC's Automated Resource Manager software that
started shipping at about the same time as the HP product. The software is
priced starting at $20,000, and includes the HP OpenView Storage Management
Appliance and 2 Tbyte capacity.
"HP's announcement keeps them competitive with companies like EMC, BMC, IBM,
and Veritas," said analyst Nancy Marrone of the Enterprise Storage Group. The
provisioning functionality and automation will help to significantly reduce
the costs of managing storage, she said.
The HP OpenView Continuous Access Storage Appliance (CASA) provides data
replication and data migration across heterogeneous storage systems. The new
version of the appliance supports asynchronous write ordering, which speeds up
replication because users don't have to wait for confirmation each time data
is transferred. The appliance also now supports NetWare Versions 5.1 and 6,
and clustering for HP-UX. The appliance is priced starting at $122,500.
HP OpenView Storage Media Operations automates removable storage media
tracking and helps administrators keep track of the tasks involved in backing
up and archiving data. The tool is now in use by HP Operations for managing
900,000 tapes in HP data centers worldwide, HP said. An entry-level license
for one server and unlimited clients with 2,000 media is $8,400.
"Tape is still the predominant media for backup and archive, and as such needs
to be managed more effectively in heterogeneous environments," Marrone said.
"With disaster recovery being such a predominant subject these days,
administrators are looking to their current media management solutions and
find the solutions don't give administrators all the information they need."
Administrators need to know where their most important data is backed up, and
what needs to be restored first. She added, "HP will need to support more than
just their own backup solution to get traction outside of installed-base
customers."
HP said it plans to support the Storage Management Interface Specification
(SMIS) standard for storage management, which is sponsored by the Storage
Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and based on Common Information model
(CIM) and Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) technologies.
HP now ships its StorageWorks xp1024 and StorageWorks VA 7400 disk arrays
using interfaces compatible with an early draft of the CIM specification,
enabling other vendors' software to manage HP arrays. HP plans to support the
interface on its full line of disk arrays, as well as the HP OpenView Storage
Area Manager suite and OpenView Storage Data Protector applications, soon
after the release of the final SMIS specification from SNIA, expected in the
second quarter of 2003.
HP's storage group has managed to retain market share and mind share following
the Compaq merger, Marrone said. "Compaq had the largest installations of SANs
in the market, and the new HP is still a major player. As long as they execute
on some of the integration and don't mess with their channels too much they
should remain a major player," Marrone said.
She added that the departure of former Compaq CEO Michael Capellas makes the
future uncertain; Capellas was president of HP after the merger, and HP
announced his departure this week.
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