HP maximises storage investments

HP recently announced it is helping small and midsize businesses (SMEs) and government agencies to maximise storage investments with new offerings that include the next generation of its MSA entry disk array, enhancements to the HP StoreEasy Storage portfolio and a new programme for HP channel partners.

Limited IT resources and a lack of storage expertise can make it difficult for SMEs to deploy the storage systems needed to support applications that require high availability and performance.

The new HP MSA 2040 Storage system simplifies management and improves performance up to four times faster than similarly priced external disk storage solutions.⁽¹⁾ The enhanced HP StoreEasy Storage portfolio enables SMEs to efficiently manage and protect increasing amounts of file data without the need for special skills.

These solutions are available under HP's new Simply StoreIT programme. This programme offers training, marketing and incentives for HP channel partners to quickly address their small and midsized customers' challenges and pursue new revenue opportunities.

"Virtualisation and other emerging workloads threaten to drown SMEs in a sea of complexities that hinder, rather than support, growth," said Craig Paul, HP Storage Country Manager, HP South Africa. "Simply StoreIT allows our partners to serve their small and midsized customers who are stressed for time, budget and resources to support a growing business, with a stress-free storage solution."

Maximised SME investments with high-performance entry-level fibre channel array

Staff and budget limitations have often forced SMEs to compromise performance for affordability when deploying shared storage for new technologies such as virtualisation.

The new HP MSA 2040 Storage eliminates that compromise with the industry's best price performance when compared to similarly priced fibre channel arrays.⁽²⁾ The first array in its class to offer 16-gigabit (Gb) fibre channel connectivity,⁽³⁾ the MSA 2040 is built to support increased demand. This bandwidth, along with a high-performance controller and solid-state disk (SSD) performance, supports increasing workloads and maximises dollar per input/output operation. As a result, customers will:

* Reduce data centre footprint and energy costs with support for more virtual machines on less hardware.
* Protect existing investments and speed deployment with a unique data-in-place upgrade feature that allows customers on the previous MSA generation to simply move existing disk drives into the new HP MSA 2040.
* Maximise existing resources with a simple management interface that server administrators currently use with HP ProLiant and HP BladeSystem servers.

To help customers maximise their HP MSA Storage investment, HP Technology Services provides a proven path to efficient storage consolidation and offers a complete set of enhanced support services.

Improved SME file and application efficiency, security, availability

Integrating seamlessly with Microsoft Windows infrastructure, the enhanced HP StoreEasy Storage portfolio enables customers to store, manage and protect unstructured data for thousands of concurrent users. It also provides persistent file and application availability. New enhancements to the portfolio enable customers to:

* Reduce administrative time by simplifying creation of new volumes and optimising capacity with a new provisioning tool.
* Lower costs and improve capacity planning by examining existing file shares on local or remote systems, and predicting the capacity space savings delivered by HP StoreEasy's native deduplication.
* Ensure data availability with integrated snapshot management for quick file recovery.
* Enhance productivity with a new wizard that accelerates configuration of clustered HP StoreEasy 3830 Gateways.

Deliver turnkey data protection for HP StoreEasy 1000/5000 and manage cloud data protection needs with optional HP Data Protector and HP Autonomy LiveVault.

HP delivers an end-to-end programme for channel partners selling to SME customers

New to HP's Just Right IT programme, which spans servers, storage, networking and services, is the HP Simply StoreIT programme. This programme provides solution guides and reference architectures for HP channel partners and SME customers to accelerate solution delivery. These solution assets target specific challenges in the critical areas of virtualisation, backup and data protection, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server, and file consolidation.

The new HP Simply StoreIT programme will be launched in co-ordination with HP's distribution partners. It includes tools, resources and incentives to help channel partners accelerate time to revenue with HP storage solutions. Tools include quote and configuration templates, co-branded lead-generation assets, training and materials designed to increase sales opportunities.

Pricing and availability

Dual-controller MSA 2040 configurations begin from under ZAR100 000, with worldwide availability through HP and its channel partners expected to begin in July.⁽⁴⁾ HP StoreEasy Storage enhancements are available at no charge to existing and new customers starting in June. The HP Simply StoreIT programme is available worldwide.