HP Brings Storage Capabilities to OpenStack Kilo for Cloud Computing

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP announced it has made multiple contributions to the OpenStack Kilo release, including converged storage management automation and flash storage technologies to support flexible, enterprise clouds.

Drivers such as data growth, software-defined data center technologies, and the Internet of Things continue to fuel cloud adoption. Enterprises are deploying OpenStack technology to overcome private and public cloud challenges, including costly vendor lock-in, lack of control or customizability, and inability to scale applications for the cloud.

As a testament to the company’s ongoing commitment to open source cloud technology, HP is a Platinum Founding member of the OpenStack Foundation and a key contributor to multiple OpenStack projects, including funding, code, reviews, testing, and training. HP currently holds eight Program Team Lead positions and four Technical Committee membership positions. In additon, two HP employees currently sit on he OpenStack board of directors.⁽¹⁾

HP storage contributions increase storage efficiency in open cloud environments
Company’s storage contributions to the OpenStack Kilo release focus on two strategic goals: supporting application-centric, automated, converged storage management; and, helping make environments that use Kernel-based VM (KVM) server virtualization technology truly enterprise-ready.

These contributions are designed to increase storage and management efficiency in order to reduce acquisition and operational costs in cloud and hybrid environments via the following capabilities:

• Evaluator scheduler – improves management productivity and increases resource efficiency by automatically assigning storage resources to meet incoming requests based on workload requirements.

• Adaptive flash cache – reduces the overall cost of delivering I/O-intensive workloads in cloud environments by allowing ‘flash caching’ – the use of flash capacity as a virtual extension to storage system DRAM cache.

• Thin deduplication with express indexing – drives up capacity utilization and increases the life of flash drives used for virtualized workloads by 75% via data compaction using inline, block-level deduplication.⁽²⁾

• Manila files services – allows 3PAR StoreServ Storage to serve both block and file workloads in open cloud and hybrid environments using a single, cost-optimized pool of storage that occupies one third less space.⁽³⁾

“Enterprises today struggle with the ‘all-in-one’ cloud model because they don’t use a single OS or database software or management tool,” said Eileen Evans, VP and deputy general counsel, software, cloud, and open source, HP. “HP’s approach is to support a flexible hybrid cloud infrastructure with open source technologies as its core DNA, and this includes a commitment to supporting OpenStack technology at the storage layer.“

HP Helion continues focus on enterprise adoption and deployments
Helion OpenStack was released last October 2014, offering a free community download and fully-supported version of OpenStack code. Today, Helion is used by large enterprises worldwide including Hitachi Systems, Symantec, Ormuco and Intralinks. HP intends to incorporate support for OpenStack Kilo into future HP Helion OpenStack releases.

HP is a headline sponsor for the upcoming OpenStack Summit in Vancouver, May 18-22, 2015. Mark Interrante, Helion SVP  Engineering, HP,  will be delivering a keynote titled, ‘OpenStack – An Enterprise Force Awakens.’

⁽¹⁾ Openstack.org/foundation

⁽²⁾ As compared to not using data compaction technologies. Based on a 4:1 data compaction ratio achieved with the combination of thin provisioning and thin deduplication.

⁽³⁾ Based on HP internal analysis compared to EMC VNX, September 2014.