HP, HDS Slim Down Storage Virtualization

Hewlett-Packard Co. and Hitachi Data Systems Corp. are shrinking their respective storage virtualization offerings to help midtier businesses squeeze better return on investment and performance from storage environments.

Last week, HP unveiled the StorageWorks XP10000 Disk Array, a slimmed-down version of the companys XP12000, released last year.

Geared toward a wider range of smaller customers that lack either traditional enterprise data centers or IT expertise, the XP10000 provides virtualization capabilities for partitioning, dividing and managing multiple tiers of storage through a single StorageWorks XP platform, said James Wilson, XP product manager for StorageWorks at HP, in Palo Alto, Calif.

"We sell systems along with the XP that can scale up to [several hundred terabytes], but not everyone needs that much in terms of capacity and performance," said Wilson. "What people do need is always-on capacity and disaster recovery protection at a price point they can start with."

Featuring a simpler power supply approach and smaller cabinet size, the XP10000 is due at the end of this month and ranges in price from $150,000 to $300,000.

Pat Burke, manager of IT services for Psion Teklogix Inc., of Mississauga, Ontario, currently deploys the larger HP XP12000. "Im pretty confident that had that XP10000 been available last October, it wouldve sufficed [for] our needs as well," said Burke.

Burke added that the XP12000s management interface is difficult to grasp and could be improved.

For its part, HDS, a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., last week unveiled the TagmaStore Network Storage Controller Model NSC55, a slimmed-down version of HDS virtualization-driven TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform, which was released last year.

Available now for approximately $150,000 in a 5TB configuration, the entry-level virtualization array manages up to 16 petabytes of externally attached storage and supports midrange storage systems from EMC Corp., IBM, Sun Microsystems Inc. and HP, said officials of the Santa Clara, Calif., company.

HDS also rolled out the SATA (Serial ATA)-based and channel-optimized next generation of its Thunder 9500 V Series. On the lower end, the company introduced the smaller WMS100 for its Workgroup Modular Storage line.

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