I had a meeting with HP whilst I was out at SNW where we discussed their storage strategy, or rather I gave opinions on their storage strategy. I hope that they weren't expecting anything different!
Of course, I had to ask the question which everyone keeps asking; now that you've got 3PAR, what is the future of the EVA. I must admit I find HP's answer just a little amusing; 'We'll let the customer decide!'
What!? Are they going to stage a phone-in? Phone this number to vote for EVA, phone this number to vote for 3PAR? It seems a little mad to me, you don't overpay for a company and then say, we'll let the customer decide whether it has a future or not. 3PAR for Cloud/Service Providers and EVA for mid-range? It is this kind of wooly thinking that has left HP with storage strategy with more in common with a 'Fighting Fantasy' novel than a strategy.
HP get off the fence and start making some decisions quickly; stop piddling about and give yourselves half a chance in the market.
1) Ibrix or Polyserve
2) 3PAR or EVA
3) 3PAR or Hitachi
Personally, I'd do something along the lines of concentrating on scaling the 3PAR range both up and down for block. And then concentrate on Ibrix for file. At that point, HP have a storage strategy and not the storage equivalent of 'X Factor'. I might be tempted to keep Lefthand around for the time being but I'd look at how much of that functionality I can move into the 3PAR range.
Start working with your EVA customers to plan a migration into 3PAR technology; make it a slick-packaged offering. Plenty of your competitors are putting together migration proposals to their technology from EVA; time for you to do the same.
And if you really want to run an 'X Factor' type competition; Farley and Zito can go toe-to-toe!
Sounds similar to what we went through at EMC when Data General was acquired, in terms of confusion over positioning. Took years for that to be worked out. Of course HP doesn’t have someone like Moishe & his Symm Engineers fighting turf wars against Tucci & the CLARiiON Engineers. I don’t think there is much doubt in HP that 3PAR is better mid-range system than the EVA.
I think HP should just go ahead and make the InServ architecture the centerpiece of their storage technology, i.e. phase out the EVA as their SAN platfrom and integrate Ibrix with InServ to make it their NAS platform.
Of course, if they succeed in doing so, they will finally have a true unified storage platform, like the Pillar Axiom! 😉
I don’t care about the indecision (choice is good) IF they make all this crap talk to each other. My biggest problem with the HP portfolio right now is there is no way to replicate data between a P2000/P4000/EVA/XP. If simplifying on the 3PAR line makes that headache go away I guess I’m all for it.
Hi Martin,
For a guy who likes to give Netapp such grief, it seems you have borrowed a page from their “Dummies Guide to HP Storage” pamphlet in this post!
EVA will co-exist with 3PAR in HP’s product line for several years for two big reasons: 1) There are a lot of EVA customers that have been promised an updated EVA. 2) HP has put a lot of effort into fulfilling that promise.
Does it mean that HP will produce EVA systems forever? (No) Does it mean HP won’t have upgrade paths from EVA to 3PAR? (of course they will) There is no rush for EVA customers to panic about their storage futures. HP intends to give them plenty of time to plot their own storage strategies.
Let’s change the perspective on this just a little. Should HP force their loyal EVA customers to make a change just because the company has a new storage strategy? That wouldn’t be very nice!
But what about new customers that don’t have any HP storage? It turns out there are a lot of THOSE in the world. The acquisition of 3PAR was not done to grow HP’s storage business organically through its EVA install base, but to take market share away from HP’s competitors. Of course, the competitors are all very much aware of that and so they would rather frame the 3PAR acquisition as an EVA versus 3PAR sort of thing. Rest assured, this is not a soap opera starring EVA and 3PAR – its a campaign to get as many people as possible on HP storage.
So – in that vein Martin – here’s a question for you: what is your opinion of HP’s X9000 scale out NAS storage platform? As a newbie to HP storage, I’m impressed with what I’ve seen so far, but – you know – I also have the paycheck bias.
Okay Marc; I reckon that the new EVA is pretty much ready to go but that gives you a generation to plan for converging the product lines and I suppose it would be a marketing fail if you discussed killing the EVA prior to the new EVA shipping. But kill it, you will.
I would be surprised if HP push EVA at those customers who do not have HP storage at the moment. For one, competing against yourself is a recipe for disaster. But this does send a message to the market; you are selling the future to new green-field customers and the past to your loyal customers. So it’s wise to make sure that your loyal customers do have a great path to follow to get them to the future promised land.
X9000 scale-out NAS; iBrix is an okay scale-out product but Isilon & SONAS are probably better at present. But it’s certainly an interesting product and one, if HP can learn how to sell it which has a bright future.
What is the managment interface for the X9000? Is it a single pane of glass or is there a separate interface for the Ibrix powered head and another one for the underlying EVA storage?