Hewlett Packard Enterprise Delivers Path to All-Flash Data Center

Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced 3PAR StoreServ Storage solutions to accelerate the move to all-flash data centers.

3PAR StoreServ Storage

HPE has integrated 3PAR StoreServ with StoreOnce and StoreEver product lines to ensure protection and retention keep pace with demand.

The need for enterprises to move faster is driving trends like IT-as-a-Service and the growth of data analytics, which in turn are driving the adoption of flash storage. In addition to speed and predictable service levels, organizations adopting flash are reducing storage footprint by up to 85% as they move away from spinning disks in favor of this higher density media. ⁽¹⁾ In fact, IDC reported that the impact flash-based arrays will have on the data center is undeniable as more flash platforms deliver enterprise data services, including snapshots, clones, encryption, replication, and QoS. ⁽²⁾ 3PAR StoreServ delivers all of these data services and has a recently updated flash portfolio that provides industry leading scale, ⁽³⁾ record-setting performance, ⁽⁴⁾ and affordability starting at $19,000. ⁽⁵⁾ These announcements help legacy storage users migrate more quickly to flash while reducing risk.

“Faced with the need for agility, organizations want to take advantage of game-changers like flash without introducing risk,” said Manish Goel, SVP and GM, storage, HPE. “To meet those demands, HPE simplifies storage with a single flash-optimized 3PAR StoreServ line from the entry to enterprise with tier-1 resiliency and built-in data protection.“

3PAR StoreServ 20850

Accelerating the move to the all-flash data center
3PAR StoreServ Storage enables organizations to accelerate the transformation to the all-flash data center with solutions that accommodate new and mixed media types in the same array while maintaining performance and enterprise resiliency. Earlier this month, the Storage Performance Council published a world record SPC-2 result for the 3PAR StoreServ 20850 all-flash array that demonstrates better performance at half the price of the EMC VMAX 400K. ⁽⁶⁾

 Introduce 3PAR StoreServ products, solutions, and services:

• 3PAR flash acceleration for Oracle – A company’s validated solution that boosts database performance up to 75% ⁽⁷⁾ while enabling legacy systems like EMC VMAX to remain in place. These flash arrays can be placed for half the cost ⁽⁸⁾ versus upgrading the legacy storage systems

• 3PAR online import software – A free, 12-month license for customers looking to move off HDD drive – bound legacy storage via simple, five-step migration from EMC, HDS, and now IBM XIV storage

• Support for 3D NAND drives – Support for this SSD technology enables customers to accelerate application performance with a low incremental investment

Lowering cost with flash-ready unified storage and next-gen active archive
Unlike pure flash systems designed for single media types or single SAN protocols, StoreServ storage features a flash-optimized design that supports both file and block storage as well as a secondary tier of HDDs. Leveraging this architecture, the firm introduced the 3PAR StoreServ 8200 Converged File and Block Starter Kit, which enables consolidation onto a single unified system that costs 26% less than competitors. ⁽⁹⁾ To help customers deploy these unified systems with more confidence, the company released several reference architectures for 3PAR StoreServ Storage, addressing VDI and SharePoint environments as well as company’s software solutions for information management.

StoreEver LTO drive

In addition, the firm is offering a refreshed portfolio of StoreEver LTO-7 media, drives and automated libraries. This refreshed product lineup delivers even more low-cost and reliable long-term data retention solutions to customers, providing 2x the capacity at nearly double the performance of previous generations of LTO technology ⁽¹⁰⁾ plus a 100x improvement in reliability. ⁽¹¹⁾ Pairing high-performance 3PAR StoreServ flash arrays with these StoreEver Tape offerings gives customers the ability to deploy a ‘tape as NAS’ solution to simply and access bulk archives on tape as if they were on disk, ideal for enabling active archive.

Reducing risk with flash – and app – integrated data protection
The company announced new solutions to help customers as they move away from traditional backup silos in favor of flash array- and application-integrated data protection, including an entirely new lineup of entry and mid-range StoreOnce systems. With up to 2.7 times more performance ⁽¹²⁾ and up to twice the density of the competition, ⁽¹³⁾ these new StoreOnce models are priced at under $0.05 per usable gigabyte (GB) of logical capacity ⁽¹⁴⁾ and support native integration with Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Veeam, and Veritas applications to improve performance, reduce network bandwidth, and eliminate dedicated backup management.

For customers on the path to an all-flash data center, these StoreOnce models include application-integrated snapshot offload capabilities from 3PAR StoreServ via StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central (RMC) software. Already integrated with VMware, RMC software enables the rapid creation and movement of SQL snapshots directly from the 3PAR StoreServ array to any StoreOnce backup target via company’s Express Protect technology. Featuring deep VMware vCenter and SQL Studio management integration, this solution reduces risk by allowing users to move data to a secondary storage tier, reduces cost by eliminating licenses for dedicated ISV backup software, and improves agility by accelerating backup and recovery. With the added integration of Data Protector and RMC, customers gain advanced VM recovery options, granular item recovery, and the ability to utilize tiers such as tape and cloud for efficient long-term retention.

Pricing and availability:  ⁽¹⁵⁾

• 3D NAND SSDs are available worldwide on December 17, 2015, with a US street price starting from $2,075 per drive and capacity points starting at 400GB.

• 3PAR Online Import support for IBM XIV is available with 3PAR OS 3.2.2 MU2 in January, 2016.

• 3PAR StoreServ 8200 Converged File and Block Starter Kit with 8x10K 600-GB SAS drives, 12×2-TB 7.2K SAS drives, OS Suite, Replication Suite, three years of 24×7 Proactive Care Support, and a 16-TB File Persona license is available worldwide on December 7, 2015 for a US street price of $36,201.

• StoreEver LTO-7 tape media, tape drives, and tape automation products are available worldwide on December 1, 2015, with a US street price starting at $4,831 for an internal tape drive.

• StoreOnce 3100 with 8TB of raw backup capacity is available worldwide on December 14, 2015, with a US street price starting at $5,931.25.

• StoreOnce 3520 starts at 12TB raw with a US street price starting at $8,128.55.

• StoreOnce 3540 starts with 24TB raw with a US street price starting at $10,950.

• StoreOnce 5100 starts with 48TB raw with a US street price starting at $25,056.

• Version 2.0 of StoreOnce RMC software, which allows native data movement from 3PAR to StoreOnce backup for data protection, is available worldwide on January 15, 2016, with a US street price starting from $540.

⁽¹⁾ HPE internal analysis; as compared to EMC VMAX 400K with 12 PB of capacity (representing a mix of 90% HDDs and 10% SSDs).
⁽²⁾ Flash-Based Array Market Proving to Be More Than Just a Flash in the Pan as Market Soars Past $11 Billion in 2014, IDC says: January 2015,
⁽³⁾ HPE 3PAR StoreServ 20850 demonstrated 62,844.45 SPC-2 MBPS, $19.93/SPC-2 MBPS Price Performance, current as of November 16, 2015,
⁽⁴⁾ HPE internal analysis based on the comparison of HPE 3PAR StoreServ 20850 Storage with 12BP usable capacity and EMC XtremIO storage, using 40TB flash bricks (a total of eight systems) to achieve 12PB usable capacity.
⁽⁵⁾ All-flash 3PAR StoreServ 8000 Storage systems are available worldwide, orderable immediately, with US street pricing starting from $19,479.
⁽⁶⁾ EMC VMAX 400K demonstrates 55,643.78 SPC-2 MBPS, $33.58 SPC-2 MBPS Price Performance, current as of November 16, 2015.
⁽⁷⁾ Based on HPE internal testing, August 2015.
⁽⁸⁾ Wikibon, November 2015.
⁽⁹⁾ As compared to a similarly configured VNX 5400. HPE 3PAR File starter kit 6U vs EMC VNX at 10U. 3PAR 8200 with 8 10K 600GB SAS drives, 12 2-TB 7.2K SAS drives, OS Suite, 16-TB File Persona license, Replication Suite, and 3 years of 24×7 Proactive Care Support.
⁽¹⁰⁾ Compared with LTO-6 technology.
⁽¹¹⁾ Based on two orders of magnitude better bit error rate compared with LTO-6 technology.
⁽¹²⁾ Based on comparison of publicly available product information for EMC DD2200 with Data Domain Boost and HPE StoreOnce 3520/3540 Systems with StoreOnce Catalyst.
⁽¹³⁾ Based on a comparison of HPE StoreOnce 3540 and EMC DD2200 using publicly available product information.
⁽¹⁴⁾ Based on the US list price for HPE StoreOnce 3540 System with 15.5TB of capacity assuming a 20:1 deduplication ratio.
⁽¹⁵⁾ Estimated U.S. street prices. Actual prices may vary.