LeftHand Networks, an HP company, delivers entry-level SAN for virtualised environments

Issued by Kilimanjaro Communications for HP

Palo Alto, California, 13 Feb 2009

LeftHand Networks, an HP company, today announced an entry-level storage area network (SAN) solution that improves performance and reduces storage costs within virtualised server environments for midsize businesses.

The LeftHand SAS Starter SAN helps customers efficiently deploy their first virtualisation projects by simplifying the process of creating, accessing and managing shared storage resources.

As customers deploy virtual server environments, they frequently encounter unforeseen system performance bottlenecks. To further complicate matters, server virtualisation increases the number of required connections to a SAN. This increased system complexity makes it more difficult and costly to troubleshoot when bottlenecks do occur. The LeftHand SAS Starter SAN reduces costs and mitigates these performance issues by automatically balancing data volumes across all disk drives, network connections and processors.

The SAS Starter SAN includes management tools that provide replication, thin provisioning and snapshot capabilities. These capabilities help ensure data availability even as the environment becomes more complex. In addition, customers can purchase only the capacity they need, easily increasing both the capacity and performance of their system without experiencing any disruption. The SAS Starter SAN can scale to more than 80 network ports and 320 disk drives to accommodate business growth.

“Customers are looking for cost-effective storage solutions that help them realise the promised efficiencies of virtualised server environments,” said Bill Chambers, vice-president, LeftHand Networks, an HP company. “The entry-level SAS Starter SAN gives customers an affordable, high-performing option that allows them to start small and add capacity as their needs grow.”

LeftHand also introduced a higher capacity SATA Starter SAN that offers a 25% reduction in the cost per gigabyte (GB) of disk drive capacity than the previous generation.(1) The solution's storage capacity has increased 33% to 12 terabytes (TB) while maintaining its current list price. The SATA Starter SAN is ideal for customers who want to consolidate storage for Microsoft Windows or Linux servers.

“Server virtualisation environments require new levels of storage system flexibility, performance and reliability,” said Keith Groom, director of vendor marketing at Softchoice, an HP reseller. “LeftHand's SAS Starter SAN provides our customers with a cost-effective shared storage solution that offers these requisite capabilities, making it easier for customers to deploy virtualisation and maximise their investments.”

* Pricing and availability

The SAS Starter SAN and the higher-capacity SATA Starter SAN are available immediately through LeftHand Networks' resellers and value-added resellers in the United States, as well as value-added distributors throughout Europe.

Pricing starts at $35 000 for the 4.8TB SAS Starter SAN and $30 000 for the 12TB SATA Starter SAN.(2)

More information on LeftHand Networks SAN solutions is available at http://www.lefthandnetworks.com.

LeftHand Networks, an HP company

Founded in 1999, LeftHand Networks pioneered IP-based storage area networks (SANs). SANs built using LeftHand's SAN/iQ software are uniquely able to distribute and protect data across a cluster of storage servers. The company's patented architecture increases data availability, allows users to start small and grow the SAN seamlessly, and simplifies management. The LeftHand SAN is ideal for storage/server consolidation, virtualised data centres, multi-site SANs and disaster recovery.

HP, the world's largest technology company, simplifies the technology experience for consumers and businesses with a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com/.

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(1) The higher-capacity SATA Starter SAN offers a per-GB cost of $2.50, a 25 percent reduction from its previous per-GB cost of $3.33.
(2) Estimated U.S. list prices. Actual prices may vary.

Microsoft and Windows are US registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

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