Decks organization is using HP Storage Essentials to forecast storage growth by analyzing specific usage points and capacities across its company to help control costs.
"As storage becomes a commodity business users and developers and application owners tend to look at storage, as if we need more theyll get it. But the cost of keeping that [information] in an enterprise class SAN is tremendous," said Deck.
"Where I see consolidation happening is weve moved away from silos of storage. People arent reducing storage, what were trying to do in a tiered architecture is use it appropriately and looking at the value of storage."
For example, if data must be stored online but seldom accessed, a question being asked by storage administrators is just how much cost is an organization willing to absorb for usage, access and performance of its stressed storage capacity, note industry analysts.
To help alleviate that problem through storage consolidation measures, HP has built concurrent iSCSI and Fiber Channel connectivity into its EVA and XP disk arrays, said sources close to HP.
In conjunction with new 4GB SAN support for EVA arrays, HPs StorageWorks business unit has also doubled the existing cache size of its XP hardware for improved partitioning and will offer support for customers that want to attach their EVA arrays to both XP12000 and XP1000 XP arrays.
For backup consolidation, HPs new MSL2024 tape library is geared toward SMBs (small and midsized businesses). Capable of storing up to 9.6TB in a 2U form factor, the product offers Web-based remote management, a bar code reader and removable magazines for bulk loading and offsite storage.
Larger sized enterprise backup consolidation will be addressed by HP boosting the maximum capacity of its 6000 Virtual Library System to 70TB through support of new 500GB drives.
Click here to read about how HP is banking on continuous protection for storage.
IT administrators desperate to corral remote branch office backup operations can look forward to new software capabilities and multiple fail-through NIC (Network Interface Card) in HPs EFS WAN Accelerator.
Within HPs Storage Essentials Suite, Backup Managers reporting functionality has been extended to HP-UX and Linux deployments, while the suites Provisioning Manager tool has new support for third-party disk arrays and switches from IBM, Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, Xiotech and QLogic.
Deck admits that 4GB support for his EVA and XP boxes is not an immediate need but will be very important on the horizon. He added that he would like to see HP emphasize a bit more backwards capability into its storage products to mesh with his year-old investments.
Still, he said HP is headed in the right direction with its storage strategy and consolidation is just one bump in the road it must smooth out.
"Weve always been asked to do more with less and that includes less people … the world is moving toward saving everything and HP is listening to what storage users are requiring," Deck said.
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