The Cloud is in the New Mainframe and the HP10000 3PAR V-Class is Designed to Meet Its "Big Iron" Requirements

The introduction of the HP P10000 into the HP 3PAR line of storage systems about three (3) months ago firmly put 3PAR systems in the realm of high end, Tier 1 storage. But the new V400 and V800 models in the HP P10000 line do more than increase the available storage capacity and performance of existing 3PAR storage systems. They indicate that the mainframe-like requirements that enterprise data centers have for storage systems persist and that, in order for HP to keep up, it needed to introduce a high end storage system that possessed "Big Iron" like attributes to meet these growing storage cloud requirements.

Since the release of the HP P10000 3PAR V-Class storage systems (the V400 and the V800) in late August, a fair amount has already been written about their new, more robust features in media outlets such as Computerworld, InformationWeek, The Register, Storage Performance Council and others. They mention that the HP P10000 models offer:

• Up to 800 TBs of raw storage capacity on the V400 and 1.6 PBs on the V800
• Up to 192 8 Gb FC ports on the V800
• Gen4 ASICS that concurrently handle both sequential and transactional workloads
• New Peer Motion software for moving or redistributing application workloads
• Over 450,000 IOPS

But what has not been examined in-depth is why HP 3PAR opted to move up the enterprise storage stack.  HP could have attempted to satisfy EDCs with its current line of HP 3PAR F-Class and T-Class model storage systems for midsize and large enterprise data centers (EDCs) and continue to position its XP20000/XP24000 to meet high end EDC requirements.

Yet HP chose to introduce an entirely new line of HP 3PAR storage systems that arguably overlaps with its XP20000/XP24000 models to compete at the high end. So what gives?

To understand that, one has to put into context:

• How EDCs think and operate
• What larger trends are impacting them
• How these trends almost forced HP to offer these new, larger P10000 3PAR models or risk losing current or prospective EDC customers to their rivals

By HP releasing these two new P10000 3PAR models it seeks to address these more subtle forces that are directly and indirectly influencing storage buying decisions in EDCs today.

Consider:

• EDCs understand storage in the context of "Big Iron." One of my best friends when I worked at First Data was "Big Iron" Brandt who jokingly scoffed at the immaturity of open systems (Linux, Windows, Unix) platforms. While we frequently ribbed each other, (I kidded him about Big Iron's inflexibility and cost and he laughed at my inability to adequately measure and manage applications running on open systems hardware,) his mindset and nickname are reflective of what enterprise data centers want their storage systems to deliver: "Big Iron."

The HP P10000 3PAR more clearly falls into that realm than either the 3PAR F-Class or T-Class ever did. When EDCs start hearing phrases like "192 8-Gb FC ports" or "1.6 PBs of raw storage capacity" AND "eight controllers with Gen4 ASICs," they understand and want them. In other words, the P10000 3PAR models meet their definition of "Big Iron."

• The Cloud is the new mainframe. Everyone talks about "The Cloud," but smart EDCs see "The Cloud" as a maturing of open systems hardware and software that has been virtualized so it can be managed and supported in a manner very similar to how today's mainframes are managed.

EDCs do not really want to manage individual hardware and software products using their management interfaces as these are operational expenses that add little intrinsic value to the organization. They instead want to manage the applications running on this hardware and software.

To do so, they must first be virtualized and included as part of the "Cloud" so they can create a policy driven data center that is more predictable and requires less specialization. It is as they virtualizing these systems and put them into "The Cloud" that they can create a mainframe-like environment.

The new HP P10000 3PAR storage systems fit into this new mode of thinking as they provide the additional scalability (increased number of FC ports, more storage capacity, higher performance, and new Gen4 ASICs) that EDCs want and need. These features coupled with the latest version of the HP 3PAR InForm OS that also extends into 3PAR F-Class and T-Class systems ensure that the increased scalability that the P10000 3PAR models offer will be used in the most optimal fashion in virtualized environments.

• Seamless upgrade path via storage federation. The new Peer Motion feature that HP announced for all of its 3PAR storage systems does more than facilitate non-disruptive data migrations between HP 3PAR storage systems. It provides a seamless upgrade path from existing HP 3PAR F-Class or T-Class systems to its new HP 3PAR P10000 systems.

Data migrations from one storage system to another are regularly needed as a result of storage system refreshes or application requirements. Yet the task of data migration remains one of the most cumbersome and time consuming aspects of managing data storage in EDCs. Further, this task becomes even more arduous and complicated to complete successfully and in a timely manner in virtualized environments.

So it is the Peer Motion feature that firmly sets the HP 3PAR family of storage systems apart from competing enterprise storage solutions. By enabling EDCs to migrate volumes from any HP 3PAR storage system to any other 3PAR storage system with minimal administrative involvement, HP 3PAR addresses and overcomes one of the largest inhibitors to wide scale virtualization adoption in EDCs as organizations can use Peer Motion to respond to real-time changes in application requirements and move workloads accordingly.

The combination of the introduction of the Peer Motion feature with the HP 3PAR P10000 get to the heart of what EDCs are looking to accomplish with what storage solution they deploy in their virtualized data centers. They want the confidence that they can start with a smaller storage system such as the F-Class, T-Class or even the smaller P10000 3PAR V400 and then easily upgrade a larger model without going through a complicated data migration fire drill. The HP P10000 3PAR storage systems with its new Peer Motion feature give EDCs the assurance they can accomplish that.

The new HP P10000 3PAR V-Class storage system models are "bigger and badder" than their F-Class and T-Class predecessors from network connectivity, storage capacity and performance standpoints. But that is only in part what EDCs care about. They also want storage systems that align with how they think and where they envision their virtualization initiatives taking them.

This to a larger degree explains the impetus behind the HP P10000 3PAR V-Class storage systems and the accompanying announcement of the Peer Motion feature. It enables EDCs to get a "Big Iron" look and feel from HP 3PAR storage, put in place a storage foundation from creating a policy-driven, mainframe-like cloud environment and create a seamless way to migrate their data to get from one platform to another to get there.