HP has announced new storage offerings for the software-defined data center (SDDC) that simplify the deployment of scale-out storage for cloud computing and virtual server environments. HP is building on its position in software-defined storage market by featuring HP StoreVirtual Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) as a fully integrated storage option for HP Helion OpenStack and HP Helion OpenStack Community Edition. HP has also updated and enhanced HP StoreVirtual Storage hypervisor integration and released a new HP StoreOnce VSA license, which can lower backup costs by 86 percent for small and remote sites. All of these enhancements and software-defined products are designed to let enterprises and service providers get more out of existing resources, ideal for cost-sensitive environments.
HP has announced new storage offerings for the software-defined data center (SDDC) that simplify the deployment of scale-out storage for cloud computing and virtual server environments. HP is building on its position in software-defined storage market by featuring HP StoreVirtual Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) as a fully integrated storage option for HP Helion OpenStack and HP Helion OpenStack Community Edition. HP has also updated and enhanced HP StoreVirtual Storage hypervisor integration and released a new HP StoreOnce VSA license, which can lower backup costs by 86 percent for small and remote sites. All of these enhancements and software-defined products are designed to let enterprises and service providers get more out of existing resources, ideal for cost-sensitive environments.
In order to enable software-defined storage deployment with the best possible hypervisor and hardware flexibility, HP StoreVirtual VSA supports any physical server and hypervisor-attached external storage. It also now supports Linux Kernel–based Virtual Machine (KVM), VMware vSphere, and Windows Server with Hyper-V. To automate cloud services management, HP StoreVirtual Storage (which includes both VSA and physical appliances) has an updated Cinder interface to support OpenStack orchestration as well as a full set of RESTful APIs. These updates provide users with highly available, scale-out storage for cloud computing environments, allowing HP to offer fully functional, software-defined storage through the integration of HP StoreVirtual VSA software within the HP Helion cloud portfolio.
The HP OneView for VMware vCenter plug-in and HP StoreFront Manager for Microsoft plug-in enable a wizard-driven installation configuration, and monitoring of VSA-based storage. This allows VSA deployment to be set up in virtually minutes, giving users the ability to provision 32 servers in the same time it takes to provision a single server.
HP StoreVirtual Storage customers (including both VSA and physical appliances) can get immediate, granular visibility into performance, capacity and system health using the HP StoreFront Analytics Pack for VMware vCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS). Additionally, to maintain high-capacity utilization, HP StoreVirtual Storage will support space reclamation in VMware and Microsoft environments, which automatically frees up unused space after virtual machines and other files are deleted. To maximize performance of flash-based media and multi-site storage deployments, an enhanced HP StoreVirtual multipathing extension module for VMware environments increases throughput by up to 58 percent while reducing network latency as well.
To lower data protection costs HP has announced a 4TB HP StoreOnce VSA, which designed specifically for backing up small sites. Previously the StoreOnce VSA was offered in a 10TB license, so the smaller 4TB option makes it more affordable for smaller offices to embrace. The VSA is also 80-90% more cost effective in many cases than deploying a dedicated backup appliance.
For service providers that require an expansion of their cloud services, the HP StoreOnce VSA is included in a reference architecture from HP for Cloud Backup Infrastructure as a Service. In addition, HP StoreOnce VSA offers flexibility due to its expanded hypervisor support for Windows Server with Hyper-V and VMware vSphere. It also supports the HP StoreOnce Security Pack for governance and compliance, which includes encryption and Secure Erase of data.
Pricing and availability
- Space reclamation and VMware multipathing features for HP StoreVirtual Storage (including HP StoreVirtual VSA) will be available in a future release of the HP LeftHand OS.
- HP OneView for VMware vCenter plug-in is now available at no additional charge.
- HP StoreFront Analytics Pack for VMware vCOPS is now available at $200 per HP StoreVirtual management group.
- HP StoreFront Manager for Microsoft plug-in will be available in a future release.
- 4TB HP StoreOnce VSA is now available at a $1,400 U.S. list price.
