Interviews

Storage Simplicity Redefined by HP

by VARINDIA 2013-02-19

Barun Lala
Director, Storage, HP India

In a bid to make it a smoother proposition for the companies to manage and make most of the growing amount of data, HP has, of late, announced a range of new solutions for its Converged Storage portfolio, designed for virtualized, cloud and big data retention environments. These industry-first innovations include the new HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage, HP StoreAll Storage and HP StoreOnce Backup product offerings, which will help break through complexities and inefficiencies with its single architecture for all sizes of client deployments. Barun Lala, Director, Storage, HP India, says that HP has been quick to treact to developments in virtualisation, cloud computing and big data.

The announcement of the new solutions is in sync with HP’s much-vaunted announcement of polymorphic simplicity for Converged Storage in 2011, which seeks to address legacy storage limitations exposed by the growth of human information, infrastructure convergence and the emergence of IT-as-a-Service data centers.

Through polymorphic simplicity, HP's new storage concept enables a single-system architecture to exist in all shapes and sizes for block, object and file applications - optimizing performance for both hard disk drives (HDD) and solid state disks (SDD). According to Barun, since completion vendors have different architectures, it results in problems like inefficiency, complexity and increased cost.

What’s been the highlight of 2012 for HP Storage division?

The highlight of 2012 for HP Storage is the array of new solutions and industry-first innovations for its Converged Storage portfolio that breaks through complexities and inefficiencies with a single architecture for all sizes of client deployments. HP launched a significant set of new storage innovations in December 2012 at HP Discover in Frankfurt, including new HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage, HP StoreAll Storage, and HP StoreOnce Backup product offerings.

• HP is utilizing HP IP and the power of a converged, common infrastructure to transform the storage industry with two new next generation architectures: one for primary storage, and one for information retention and protection. Both are aimed at large growth markets with higher margin and revenue opportunities.

• The vision of HP Converged Storage system is polymorphic simplicity – a new storage concept that enables a single-system architecture to exist in several forms, shapes and sizes from low to high, but retains common data services for block, object and file applications, and optimized for both hard disk drives (HDD) and solid state disks (SSD).

What’s coming up in 2013 for HP storage?

In 2013, HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 will be integrated into the ServiceOne program providing partners the opportunity to sell and deliver HP branded services and partner branded services. HP’s strategy of Converged Storage uses modern scale-out architectures, including those based on IBRIX technology. HP StoreAll is a key piece of HP’s Converged Storage and single architecture strategy. We expect this business to accelerate in 2013.

How does HP Storage Address Big Data?

With the rise of big data fueled by digital content, mobile growth and compliance requirements, many organizations are struggling to retain unstructured data while ensuring rapid accessibility over the long term. As a result, organizations are experiencing capacity, performance and scalability issues with traditional network attached storage (NAS) systems.

Organizations need storage solutions that simplify data management and offer the functionality to extract enterprise value from their unstructured data. HP StoreAll Storage, a highly scalable platform for object and file data access, provides a simplified environment for big data archive and cloud storage that reduces the need for additional administrators or hardware.

HP StoreAll Storage includes HP StoreAll Express Query, an embedded metadata database technology created by HP Labs, the company’s research arm. It allows organizations to locate files and perform file system analytics up to 100,000 times faster than previous file system search methods. HP StoreAll Express Query IDOL connector integrates with HP Autonomy Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) to streamline the processing of dynamic content across large data sets.

How does HP Storage empower the Datacenter?

HP is at the forefront of the major infrastructure trends that are radically reshaping the datacenter: cloud, converged infrastructure and the software defined datacenter. HP’s expertise spans the datacenter- understanding the sources of all this data and how the data storage environment needs to be designed and supported to deal with it all today and tomorrow. Listed below are some solutions that highlight HP’s capability in the datacenter:

• HP StoreOnce Backup, is a backup and recovery solution with federated deduplication that eliminates these challenges by using a single technology to deduplicate data only once. Deduplicated data can then be easily and efficiently replicated from remote sites and between datacenters.

• HP StoreOnce B6200 Storage has been adopted into HP Backup and Restore Service. As a result, clients can take advantage of new deduplication capabilities, meaning data can be efficiently moved from application and backup servers to target appliances, whether across client or HP-managed datacenters.

What would be your dream job (apart from your current role, of course)?

I am quite happy to be part of HP Storage at the moment. It is exciting times at Storage since it is the fastest growing business segment. Having handled several business segments and various Product Portfolio within HP, would like to get into a customer advisory role in a large Consulting company.

Which technology has had the biggest impact on your working life?

Of course, SmartPhones. It has made me always connected anywhere, anytime.

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