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HP Discover

HP Storage is touting unified architectures for the future

by Philip Sellers June 12, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

Its all about unified approaches for HP Storage as they push forward into the future. David Scott, senior vice president and general manager of HP Storage, has spent a lot of time during HP Discover talking about HP’s unified approach in storage architectures as opposed to competitor’s fragmented approaches.

In the StoreServe and StoreOnce product lines, HP has been working to create a full portfolio of product offerings based around a central technology – in the StoreServ’s case – the 3PAR ASIC, in the StoreOnce, based around the HP Labs StoreOnce deduplication technology, and with the StoreVirtual with a pure software approach. It has been working to deliver solutions of different shapes and sizes around these common architectures. HP calls it Polymorphic Simplicity, or multiple solutions meeting different needs around a central architecture.

3parpolymorphic

One of the key benefits of the common architectures approach is the ability to manage products with a common interface and management style, meaning less training and learning curve for administrators. In the 3PAR StoreServ lines, administrators get the same GUI and command line interface, the same OS and feature sets across all levels of the product – spanning from entry-level to enterprise. With its StoreOnce backup and recovery portfolio, HP has packed the same deduplication technology into its backup product and into its portfolio of disk to disk backup devices. In addition, all of the devices run a common OS and have a common management interface. The other key in polymorphic simplicity is data portability between solutions – achieved through Peer Motion on the HP 3PAR arrays and through deduplicated replication on the StoreOnce.

HP’s New Product Announcements

In December, HP introduced the HP 3PAR StoreServ 7200 and 7400 at HP Discover in Frankfurt. The 7200 and 7400 were meant to address customer situations “where value matters” and the existing 3PAR StoreServ 10000 class was meant for tier 1, mission-critical needs. But, as Scott says, this left a gap in between “where performance matters.” So, HP has introduced the HP 3PAR StoreServ 7450 – an all flash array to meet customer needs when performance is key.

The 7450 is capable of 554,000 IOPS (4K random reads) with .7 ms latency. This is achieved through a specialized ASIC which takes into account flash characteristics. The ASIC tunes IO and cache flushing specifically for flash. Thin provisioning and system-wide striping native to 3PAR help address flash wear issues to extend the life of the flash storage by saving writes that are unnecessary and by spreading necessary writes across all of the disks in the array.

In addition to the new hardware offering, HP also announced Priority Optimization being added to the 3PAR OS across the entire portfolio. This feature will allow for guaranteed control of IOPS across a multi-tenant array. IOPS can be allocated at the tenant and application level allowing for SLA-type guarantees or simply partitioning and isolation to occur within a single array. The 3PAR line also received integration enhancements for Hyper-V and OpenStack Fiber Channel support.

HP also unwrapped the software-only StoreOnce VSA, marrying software defined storage with information protection. The StoreOnce VSA allows customers to run the StoreOnce on virtual platform not exclusively dedicated to backup and recovery. Like its dedicated hardware siblings, the StoreOnce VSA supports the StoreOnce Catalyst protocol and deduplicated replication across all of the product line. It is architected to be multi-tenant capable, allowing for backup and a service from service providers using the StoreOnce. Some of the use cases include remote office and branch office deployments in the enterprise utilizing existing hardware and small-to-mid business who don’t want dedicated storage hardware but want to leverage standard servers with the StoreVirtual VSA and StoreOnce VSA for primary store and information protection.

Disclosure: HP sponsored my trip to HP Discover, covering all travel expenses, however HP does not control the content of the posts that I write based on my attendance to the show. The thoughts, impressions and information contained in this post are my own.

June 12, 2013 2 comments

SDR News: An HP Discover Plan

by Philip Sellers June 4, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

Andy McCaskey with SDR News invited me onto SDR News Live to talk about HP Discover, coming up next week, in Las Vegas. We had a great chat about what to expect with the show. This will be my third trip out for an HP Discover and I have a lot to soak up about 3PAR storage and other new announcements HP will have during the week.

I have a lot of coverage planned for the blog beginning next week, so you’ll want to keep an eye out here and on Twitter. Andy and SDR News will be on-site at HP Discover next week, too, so you’ll want to head over to sdrnews.com and follow Andy on Twitter, @axmc, for all the latest from the show.

Disclosure: HP is sponsoring my trip to HP Discover, covering all travel expenses, however HP does not control the content of the posts that I write based on my attendance to the show. The thoughts, impressions and information contained in this post are my own.

June 4, 2013 0 comments

Compute Datacenter Storage

HP Discover 2012: HP introduces third generation of StoreOnce D2D backup devices

by Philip Sellers June 18, 2012

written by Philip Sellers

HP unveiled a third generation of StoreOnce devices targeted at improving backup and restore performance, StoreOnce redundancy and introducing a new interface to handle backups. The new StoreOnce B6200 was introduced last week at HP Discover. With the new B6200, customers will get a 2-node base configuration configured as a couplet (cluster) with seamless failover in case a single node fails. The B6200 can scale up to 4 couplets or 8 nodes in total with 768TB of raw storage (512TB usable). But the real magic of the new architecture if what customers will receive — improved speeds.

Still based on the industry-leading Proliant architecture, the latest generation pushes for speed in backups and recovery. In native backup mode, the StoreOnce B6200 will achieve speeds of 40TB per hour in backup and in restore in VTL mode. HP Storage vice president David Scott was quick to point out that the competition’s D2D backup devices take a 50% hit on restores versus the native backup speeds. The latest generation of StoreOnce is architected to ensure there was no performance loss for restores, when enterprise is really counting on the speed.

In addition to the impressive speeds, the StoreOnce B6200 also includes HP’s StoreOnce Catalyst software, which will allow for an incredible 150% improvement on backups speeds using the new native API, which sees the D2D devices for exactly what it is, rather than emulating virtual tape libraries. HP showcased this new technology on the showroom floor during HP Discover, last week, equating the speed of backup that would allow a customer to backup the Library of Congress three times in a single night. And those, are pretty impressive numbers.

The configurations use 2TB SAS drives in the storage enclosures. Each couplet scales up to 192TB of raw storage and 128TB of usable storage. But best of all, when fully populated, all 4 couplets are managed as a single device.

For existing customers, I spoke with engineers on the showroom floor that say the Catalyst software will likely come to older StoreOnce devices, though there is not a timeline. The Catalyst version of StoreOnce OS is based on a standard Linux kernel as opposed to earlier StoreOnce OS distributions that were based on a customized Linux distribution. HP is expected to unify these releases in the future.

June 18, 2012 0 comments

Cloud Datacenter Software Storage

HP Discover 2012: Driving better backups with StoreOnce Catalyst

by Philip Sellers June 18, 2012

written by Philip Sellers

You no longer have to think of your disk-to-disk (D2D) backup device as a virtual tape library (VTL) or a file share repository. HP has introduced a software API, StoreOnce Catalyst, to the StoreOnce backup line and this new API will see the D2D and deduplication product for what it really is. No longer will you have to wait for tape seeks and loads/unloads for VTL’s that finish in milliseconds instead of minutes.

That will have a big impact on backup routines and will decrease the amount of time needed for backups and increase the throughput of backups to the StoreOnce to benefit from the full capabilities of the hardware. Along with these new capabilities, the StoreOnce Catalyst API also allows for a tremendous amount of backup data to be pushed across to the StoreOnce devices – up to 100TB per hour in backup. The speed is achieved with the newest generation StoreOnce device, the B6200, and HP’s Data Protector 7 backup software working together.

“That is equal to being able to backup the Library of Congress three times overnight,” said HP’s David Scott, vice president of the storage division, during his keynote last week.

StoreOnce Catalyst will work alongside existing fiber channel VTL backups or NAS backups to the StoreOnce device and will provide a new alternative for backup moving forward. The downside for fiber channel shops is that the backups will need to swap over to 10Gb Ethernet to make use of the StoreOnce Catalyst API’s. I suspect that many shops large enough to need multi-terabyte per hour backups would be a fiber channel shop, but 10Gb Ethernet should also be available in most of those datacenters, too.

Third parties will also be able to integrate the StoreOnce Catalyst API’s into their backup software. At the announcement last week, HP has signed Symantec on to integrate StoreOnce Catalyst into their NetBackup software and the BackupExec line of software will support Catalyst in August.

At the same time, HP also announced Data Protector 7, the latest revision of their backup and recovery software product which is the first product on the market to fully integrate the StoreOnce Catalyst capabilities into their software product. Data Protector 7 will include a number of additional new features, such as Granular Restore Extension (GRE) for Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint, supporting brick level restores from the same database level backups that were previously available. The new Data Protector 7 brings the StoreOnce deduplication algorithm to the backup software, providing for source and cell manager deduplication of data before it even streams to the D2D backup device.

Building on HP’s focus to cloud computing, Data Protector 7 adds cloud as a new backup destination, meaning companies can capitalize on cloud storage to allow offsite backups for the enterprise. These clouds are able to scale up to 50 Petabytes of storage and be managed from within the Data Protector 7 consoles.

Most interestingly for the Data Protector 7 announcements, HP has integrated Autonomy’s IDOL technology into Data Protector – allowing for contextual search of your backup sets. Aimed at helping customers provide discovery data for legal situation or even find a file based from an unknown location, the technology is also seeking to capitalize on the technology HP acquired from Autonomy last year. Integrating this into a different product line in under a year is also a sign of strengthening cooperation between teams and divisions at HP.

June 18, 2012 1 comment

Compute Datacenter

HP Discover: Proliant Gen8 pushes intelligence end-to-end

by Philip Sellers June 7, 2012

written by Philip Sellers

HP is pushing intelligence and sensors end-to-end in their newest generation of Proliant servers. The intelligence gained from their Sea of Sensors is critical to proactively predict and reactively respond to hardware conditions and causes of these conditions. By logging and analyzing the data from these sensors, HP is hoping to correlate events or conditions in one area that may cause a fault or failure in another. And by aggregating this data all up into their Insight Online cloud offering, they hope to aid customers by using the data gained from other customers.

I spoke with John Gromala, director of product marketing for industry standard servers at HP, and Keith McCauliffe, chief technology officer for industry standard servers at HP, about the innovations and features that were built into the Proliant Gen8 in the bloggers lounge.

By building all the hardware sensors and notifications directly into iLO, the system is online and monitoring the environment and hardware before the POST process completes on the main system. iLO also has its own logging built-in and the optional Insight Online will allow the information to centrally logged for analysis by the customer and HP, enabling proactive alerts and proactive service calls to prevent failures.

“Not only are we monitoring the information, we’re logging the information persistently, said McCauliffe. “In the event of a server fault, what were the pre-existing conditions before that happened?”

“Sometimes you don’t even know what changed,” Gromala added.

That sort of information is invaluable to getting the system back online as quickly as possible. As with backup, its not fast backup, but fast recovery that the user really cares about. Identifying what failed or had a fault at the hardware level may be critical to resolving the issue quickly.

“As system designers, our engineers are trying to look for cause and effect, proper behavior or misbehavior,” said McCauliffe. “We’re going to put a lot of sensors in because we want the telemetry of what’s going on, but we want useful tools to abstract that.”

And those tools are what make the information useful to end-users. The tools built into the iLO will offer context to the data the sensors are providing. And since iLO is really a separate computer on its own, even in the main server will not boot and you cannot collect diagnostic data, the data in iLO would be available for analysis.

Out of all the conversation, I was struck by how responsive many of the innovations in Gen8 are to address real-life problems of the IT administrator. There are many more innovations in the Proliant Gen8 line that are direct responses to customer requests – such as the enhanced drive carrier with indicators to show when not to remove the drive, a new Service Pack for Proliant (SPP) firmware and driver distribution.

Particularly with the SPP, HP directly addresses complaints of many server administrators that firmware and driver updates are very disruptive and hard to deploy in their production environments. The SPP offers a way to manage and push updates, many of which no longer need reboots, and stage them in a way that they are activated by a scheduled reboot at a later time. The center of this innovation is a new version 5 of the Smart Update Manager. This tool allows an administrator to download a repository of firmware and drivers, which were developed and tested together (another change), and then scan and patch multiple servers from a single console.

The message that this sends to customers is pretty clear, though. HP is listening to customers and their issues and trying to address them in the best ways possible. That a good thing to hear as an HP customer, like myself.

June 7, 2012 0 comments

Datacenter Storage

HP Discover 2012: Decrease time to value with HP AppSystem solutions

by Philip Sellers June 5, 2012

written by Philip Sellers

Five click and you’re in business. That’s the value pitch for HP’s AppSystem product offerings for various database and software products I received from Martin Whittaker, Vice President of Systems and Solutions Engineering. And given the amount of time that I’ve invested and seen my coworkers invest into bringing various solutions online, there is an incredible amount of value to be had for deploying systems using purpose-built solutions. Five clicks.

Of course, this is all accomplished through the incredible amount of work that HP has done in investing in automation and these solutions are built on the expertise that they have gleaned from hundreds of thousands of implementations of these various software packages under their belt.

HP AppSystem products are single SKU product solutions that are vertically integrated hardware, storage, networking and software which is purpose-built for a specific application. Just as benchmark systems are carefully built to specifically perform well on the benchmarking tests, these solutions are purpose built to provide the best performance and improved time to value.

HP has released two new AppSystem offerings – AppSystem for Apache Hadoop and AppSystem for SAP HANA. Both of these new offerings are centered around the difficulties of storage and analytics of big data sets. Apache Hadoop is an implementation of Google’s MapReduce and Google File System papers that tackles the issue of storage for large data sets across multiple nodes and then allows them to be interpreted into usable information. The SAP HANA solution is about doing in-memory database analytics at near-realtime results of large data sets.

These new solutions joins an impressive set of specific use-case solutions for Microsoft SQL Server for consolidation of database servers and for data analysis, Microsoft Exchange messaging solutions, Microsoft Lync unified communication, and Vertica data analytics solutions. To learn more about AppSystems and the ideas behind all of them, check out this video from HP:

June 5, 2012 0 comments

Datacenter Storage

Book the HP Discover conference in Vegas and save $300

by Philip Sellers May 24, 2012

written by Philip Sellers

HP Discover is fast approaching and will be held in Sin City for the second year. For an HP customer, like myself, this event is high on my list of priorities to attend. And, I have an offer for my readers – $300 off the registration fee if you book HP Discover using this link and the promo code “BLOG”.

I’m all set to attend thanks to a gracious invitation from HP, but again this year, I’ll be joined by two co-workers on-site for the event. There are lots of other conferences out there, so why does my employer choose to send 3 people to HP Discover? In short – it really is the best event of the year for HP customers and partners to see HP’s roadmap for enterprise, to get access to some of HP’s brightest and best resources on the showroom floor, and to hear presentations from the engineers and technical staff of HP for many of the products we use.

You see, my employer has been an HP customer for many years and most of our datacenter solutions are from the HP portfolio. And given the amount of HP gear we run, there is a variety of topics that we need to stay informed with. HP Discover presents the unique opportunity to see where our product lines are going and what is happening in development for new versions of the software and firmware for our products.

May 24, 2012 0 comments

Compute Datacenter Software Storage Virtualization

Step onto the cloud with HP CloudStart

by Philip Sellers September 14, 2011

written by Philip Sellers

HP is looking to make it easy for companies to step on the cloud. They are offering a solution called HP CloudStart that will deliver a fully functional cloud onto your site in 30 days or less. For companies looking to give cloud technology a spin, CloudStart is an easy first step with the ability to grow as cloud adoption grows in your company.

CloudStart is a fixed-engagement service from HP’s to deliver a fully functional cloud and system library to your site. As a starter kit, it is fully functional and allow you the basic building blocks to begin deploying systems in a fully-automated cloud on your premises.

The CloudStart option comes with the CloudSystem Matrix software package that ships with CloudSystem (covered here, earlier). One of the major values of HP CloudSystem and CloudStart are the pre-defined workflows to setup and deploy applications on the cloud, something HP called CloudMaps. HP has spent a considerable amount of time with their software partners developing the CloudMap workflows to deploy their software successfully in a fraction of the time normally required. As part of the services engagement, HP will also work with you to bring up four fully functional applications on the cloud.

CloudStart and CloudSystem delivers a multi-vendor cloud system natively, with support VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix. During the HP Discover this year, I was able to talk with one of the CloudSystem architects about the CloudStart option in more detail. Something I found surprisingly refreshing, is that HP is supporting third party server and storage hardware with CloudSystem, making it truly multi-vendor at all levels, so customers have choice. Although CloudStart is more of a fixed delivery, customers are free to choose your hypervisor, storage, and x86-based servers in the future and avoid vendor lock-in.

CRN reports that the all-inclusive price for a CloudStart system is $450,000. For an all-inclusive set of servers, storage, networking, it doesn’t sound like a bad price to me.

September 14, 2011 0 comments

Compute Datacenter Storage

Win this HP Proliant Microserver for your home or business

by Philip Sellers June 24, 2011

written by Philip Sellers

From my week at HP Discover, HP and Ivy Worldwide have awarded me one HP Proliant MicroServer to give away to ONE lucky reader. So, I want to award the MicroServer to someone who can come up with an innovative way to use the server in their home or office. There are just two steps to enter the contest:

1) Leave a comment below with how you would use a HP Proliant MicroServer in your home or business. The winner will be randomly selected from the approved comments using SQL and a seeded number I have pre-chosen.

2) Tweet one (or both) of the following during the contest to promote it.

Win a #HP Proliant MicroServer from Tech Talk & @pbsellers with the most inventive idea how to use it. http://wp.me/p1zPhE-kf #techtalkgiveaway

I want to win a #HP Proliant MicroServer from Tech Talk & @pbsellers! I know how I’d use it. Do you? http://wp.me/p1zPhE-kf #techtalkgiveaway

The prize will be awarded on July 8, 2011. Contest ends at midnight, eastern daylight time, on July 7, 2011. All project plans should be posted in the comments, below, before that date. Please include an email address in the field required so that I may contact you (the email address will not be publicly available).

The HP Proliant MicroServer is a home or small/medium business server with a small footprint. It is energy efficient, quiet and scales up to 8GB of RAM and 8TB of storage. The giveaway includes an upgraded model with a dual-core 1.3 Ghz AMD Athlon II NEO processor, 3GB of RAM, a DVD-ROM drive, 250GB hard drive and 3 years of 4 hour response 13 x 5 support from HP. This package is valued at $600. For more information, see the HP Proliant MicroServer Datasheet and the video below.

June 24, 2011 38 comments

Cloud Compute Datacenter Software Storage

A potential service provider’s take on CloudSystem

by Philip Sellers June 14, 2011

written by Philip Sellers

Day to day, I work for a telephone company, though we are really much more – we sell cable TV, wireless, landline, Internet, security and home automation. [Disclaimer – these are my views and not theirs.] We have tossed around the idea of becoming a public cloud provider more than once. Last week, during HP Discover, I got my first full view of how we might realistically do that. We are not currently a HP CloudSystem customer, but I could see it fitting our needs.

HP unwrapped CloudSystem during the Discover conference in Las Vegas. CloudSystem is a full stack solution from storage, to networking, to servers and software to enable the cloud, whether it be private, public (service provider) or hybrid. So, where to begin on discussing CloudSystems – lets start with a definition.

June 14, 2011 1 comment