At last month’s Storage Networking World Europe (SNW-E) trade show, Hewlett-Packard announced a slew of new data-protection and archiving products and services, many of which are based on products from OEM partners. Three of the more significant product announcements are in the data-protection category and two are in the archiving space.
The HP ProLiant DL 100 G2 and DL 380 G4 Data Protection Storage Server (DPSS) NAS appliances are powered by Microsoft’s System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) and Windows Storage Server 2003 software. Microsoft’s DPM disk-based backup/recovery software is referred to as “near continuous data protection” (see “Microsoft enters D2D backup market,” InfoStor, August 2005, p. 1). HP claims that these disk-based backup/recovery platforms can reduce the risk of data loss by 96% and boost restore speeds by as much as 90% compared to traditional tape-based approaches.
Microsoft’s DPM competes with Veritas/Symantec’s recently released “Panther” CDP software (see “Symantec joins growing CDP field,” p. 1). DPM also competes to a degree with CDP products from vendors such as FalconStor, IBM (see “IBM delivers file-based CDP,” p. 1), InMage, Kashya, Lasso Logic, LiveVault, Mendocino Software, Mimosa Systems, Revivio, StoneFly Networks, Storactive, TimeSpring, and XOsoft.
Also at SNW-Europe, Hewlett-Packard introduced the StorageWorks 6840 Virtual Library System (VLS), which extends the capacity and performance of the HP 6000 VLS family.
The 6840 VLS provides a capacity of 40TB, compared to 10TB previously, and boosts performance by 40% to 575MBps. The VLS systems are virtual tape library (VTL) platforms, which emulate tape drives/libraries, based on technology from Sepaton.
HP also announced its Electronic Vaulting Services for Enterprises, which is based on Asigra’s Televaulting software and provides automated backup and vaulting to remote sites or HP data centers (vaults). The service is agent-less, but requires an appliance in the customer’s production environment that collects data based on user-defined policies. The vaulting service uses “single-instance store” technology to avoid duplication of data, and compresses and encrypts the data. Electronic Vaulting Services for Enterprises supports multi-vendor environments, as well as Windows, Linux, Unix, NetWare, and AS400 platforms.
HP’s StorageWorks File Migration Agent (FMA) allows users to move inactive data to a choice of cost-effective storage targets-including HP’s Reference Information Storage System (RISS), File System Extender (FSE), NAS, or tape devices-in a tiered storage infrastructure for information life-cycle management (ILM).
HP also announced the StorageWorks Reference Information Manager (RIM) for Database Archiving solution, which integrates OuterBay Technologies’ Application Data Management (ADM) database archiving software and uses ILM policies to automatically move database information to and from archived databases. Targeted databases include Oracle and SAP, but other databases are on the road map, too.
Other enhancements and upgrades designed to bolster HP’s data-protection and archiving portfolio include HP Enterprise Backup Solution (EBS), OpenView Storage Data Protector 5.5, StorageWorks Exchange 2003 Replication for HP EVA, StorageWorks Rapid Backup and Restore for the mySAP Business Suite, StorageWorks Replication Solutions Manager, and the Medical Archiving Solution.
Commenting on HP’s decision to launch a slew of products at once, instead of rolling them out one by one, Arun Taneja, consulting analyst and founder of the Taneja Group, says, “HP has lost momentum over the last two years to EMC and Network Appliance, and it needs to do something drastic to send a message that it’s back in the game. Announcing one or two products at a time won’t work.
“HP has been filling in many gaping holes in areas such as e-mail archiving,” Taneja continues. “It has a solid platform in RISS, which is now being presented more as a direct competitor to EMC’s Centera. For structured data, HP has the OuterBay solution, and it also has strong solutions for compliance. HP can now start competing effectively against IBM and EMC.”