Accelerating the mainstream adoption of flash for more workloads, at greater scale, with less risk
Today, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced new data 
storage solutions to help customers unlock the value of the all-flash datacenter. Updates to the HPE 3PAR StoreServflash portfolio include the world’s most capacity-dense all-flash system,[i] persistent storage for containers, unified storage enhancements, and flash-integrated data protection.
Data is at the heart of digital disruption; the ability to accelerate how data is stored, analyzed and protected can be an advantage. This is why customers are moving to flash at record speeds and exploring software-defined storage options.
HPE’s consistent strategy has been to simplify storage with systems optimized for all-flash, and software-defined storage deployed as a data fabric across form factors. Response has been positive, with HPE being the only major vendor to gain share in each of the last two years.[ii]In fact, in the most recent quarter HPE was the market share leader in total storage while both Dell and EMC continued to decline.[iii]The solutions announced today expand HPE’s lead in the all-flash datacenter and assure customers a clear path to what’s next.
“The era of the storage-only vendor is over and has been replaced by the era of the best-integrated IT stack,” said Joybrata Mukherjee, Country Head, Storage, Hewlett Packard Enterprise India. “Underpinned by flash and software-defined storage, HPE has the unique infrastructure and software innovation required to power hybrid IT across any form factor and consumption model.”
Enabling a 16x boost in all-flash density to shrink datacenter costs
All-flash storage has enabled business transformation for a large number of customers and HPE’s focus on speed, affordability and enterprise-class data services have led to rapid growth for the 3PAR family of all-flash arrays.
To extend this trajectory, HPE announced support for new 7.68TB and 15.36TB 3D NAND solid state drives (SSDs) across the 3PAR StoreServ family. With these drives, HPE 3PAR StoreServ is the most dense and scalable all-flash array in the industry, now supporting up to 24 petabytes of usable SSD capacity in a single system[iv] and 12x better density than EMC all-flash systems.[v]Over the last 24 months, HPE 3PAR has delivered 16x flash density improvements and 40 percent lower dollar per usable gigabyte.[vi]New and existing customers can choose from different SSD drive types and sizes to optimize deployment flexibility.
Support for these large capacity SSDs is enabled by two key technologies: 3PAR Adaptive Sparing, a patented 3PAR technology which assures that any SSDs, regardless of size, can be used without compromise and with 5x the media endurance.[vii]3PAR Express Layout is another enabler that provides concurrent access from the 3PAR storage controllers to the SSDs for higher throughput.
Cloud-native apps with tier-1 data availability via Docker integration
Container technology is a new approach to increase application development and deployment flexibility but as enterprise customers embrace DevOps methodologies it has become clear that highly available, persistent storage is a key requirement in production operations.
To meet these requirements, HPE already provides Docker-OpenStack drivers through collaboration with ClusterHQ as part of the official OpenStack release and now has released an official Docker-Integrated Volume Plugin for HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage. Integrated with Docker Engine, this driver adds the ability to provide persistent storage for containers and enables the use of flash-optimized HPE 3PAR StoreServ arrays as the underlying storage for virtualized or bare-metal container deployments using Docker. With this integration, containerized applications can take advantage of advanced data services data encryption, quality of service, snapshots, replication, and deduplication.
Enhanced unified data access and flash-optimized data protection
As flash expands across the datacenter, protecting and securing data at speeds not possible with traditional methods has become a critical requirement. HPE Recovery Manager Central (RMC) solves this by directly moving application snapshots from 3PAR flash to secondary protection storage up to 23x faster than traditional storage backup.[viii] This not only reduces risk, but applying HPE StoreOnce deduplication to the process reduces capacity requirements by 95 percent or more.[ix] Today, HPE expanded the HPE RMC application ecosystem to include Oracle Databases, SAP HANA, and 3PAR File Persona. These new applications join existing application-integrated protection for VMware, Microsoft SQL, and any Microsoft VSS-enabled application running as a virtual machine.
One of the industry’s most established flash platforms, 3PAR has supported unified file, block, and object access for over 18 months and is now enriching these capabilities with security and archiving capabilities including:
- File Lock for 3PAR File Persona which protects data consistency and supports governance by making files immutable, enabling policy-based retention, preventing file deletion and supporting data validation.
- NTFS security mode and cross-protocol locking for 3PAR File Persona enhance security for Windows environments and deliver more seamless group file sharing between protocols including SMB and NFS.
HPE StoreEver Archive Manager software which lowers the cost of retaining 3PAR file data to be archived on tape yet enables data to be accessed transparently as if still online.
HPE offers a comprehensive set of technology support and consulting services to help customers navigate their data management and protection journeys. HPE announced from Technology Consulting a new TCO Analysis for all-flash storage quantifying hardware, software, and energy savings and benefits by adopting all-flash. Additional offerings also include HPE Flexible Capacity for instant on-demand resources at a cost per GB allocation and engaging with HPE’s technology consulting team for transformation services that include current state advisory, design and integration, data migration and end-to-end protection services.
Availability
- 7.68 TB SSDs available worldwide starting June 6, 2016.
- 15.36 TB SSDs will be orderable and shipping 2H 2016.
- The Docker-Integrated Volume Plugin for HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage will be available in June from the HPE Storage GitHub page at https://github.com/hpe-storage/python-hpedockerplugin.
- HPE Recovery Manager Central (RMC) with support for SAP HANA and 3PAR File Persona is currently available worldwide at no additional charge to customers who have an existing RMC licenses and a valid support contract.
- HPE Recovery Manager Central for Oracle (RMC-O) will be available in July. Customers with an existing 3PAR Recovery Manager for Oracle license and a valid support contract can upgrade at no additional charge.
- HPE 3PAR File Persona enhancements will be available in 2H of 2016.
