Hewlett-Packard has announced a line of Internet small computer
system interface (iSCSI) storage products and made public its plans
to acquire storage virtualisation company StorageApps.
Both moves fill important gaps in HP's storage product offering,
explained Jim Porter, president of storage industry think-tank
Disk/Trend.
"They're filling in the weak spots," said Porter. "They have been
predominantly oriented to the corporate storage market, and a lot
of the [storage technology] has been in the Internet area. So I
think it is a matter of supplementing their coverage and just
beefing it up."
HP will acquire enterprise storage vendor StorageApps in an
all-stock transaction valued at $350m (£245m). Subject to standard
regulatory approval processes, StorageApps, formerly named Raid
Power Service, will become a wholly owned subsidiary of HP, the
companies said in a statement.
HP's real target is the company's storage virtualisation
technology, which HP intends to feature in its so-called federated
storage area management (FSAM) strategy, HP said.
Still being perfected, storage virtualisation allows customers to
manage multiple, mixed vendor storage devices as they would a
single, virtual storage device.
Starting in the first quarter of 2002, HP will also begin shipping
a variety of storage products centred around the emerging iSCSI
standard for linking data storage systems over IP, according to
Mark Thompson, worldwide marketing manager for HP's networked
storage division.
Many companies currently rely on Fibre Channel or SCSI technology
for sending information between storage devices and servers in a
storage area network (SAN) environment. The iSCSI standard,
however, has garnered wide industry support and should create more
options for users looking to link storage boxes with servers.
The introduction of the iSCSI standard allows storage devices to
connect to existing IP networks, making more information available
to more parts of the network. In addition, the use of iSCSI makes
it easier for administrators to manage their SAN systems
remotely.
Arun Taneja, a senior analyst with the Enterprise Storage Group,
said it was important for HP to announce that the company was in
step with competing iSCSI storage products in the works from
vendors like IBM, EMC and Compaq.
"I think [HP] needed to get a place holder in there. So now, if HP
has a particular customer, at least they know that if they want to
go in the iSCSI side, they don't have to go to an IBM product."
Both Taneja and Porter feel that HP potentially has another
acquisition in the works as it continues to fill out its storage
product offerings.
"I don't believe HP is fully done with acquisitions yet," said
Taneja. "They need a network attached storage offering real bad.
They are going to need to fill in that blank, it's a very major
piece missing right now."
HP will not abandon its Fibre Channel business in the near future,
but the vendor plans to launch an iSCSI assault early next year in
hopes of attracting customers who have yet to decide how they will
move from a direct attached to a networked storage
architecture.
HP acknowledges that some customers will always feel comfortable
dealing with Fibre Channel and will tend toward improvements made
with Fibre Channel over Internet Protocol instead of embracing
iSCSI. But the company believes users' familiarity with IP and, in
particular, Ethernet technology should make iSCSI products
attractive.
"A year ago we had the hypothesis that it was small and medium-size
companies that would go after iSCSI," Thompson said. "But now we
are seeing Fortune100 companies who get excited about it, along
with the smaller companies."
Work is still under way to refine Version one of the iSCSI
specification and make it available by December of this year or
January 2002. The lack of a finished specification did not stop IBM
from announcing one of the first iSCSI products earlier this year -
the IP Storage 200i appliance.
HP claims its broad product line can compete with the top-tier
storage vendors such as IBM and EMC, and at the same time go up
against low-cost storage players such as Dell.
Some users praise companies such as EMC for providing storage
software with a number of management features. Others, however,
tend to prefer more basic software that gets the job done at a
lower cost. HP claims it can satisfy both sets of customers by
either offering products with entry-level software or by boosting
the hardware with its OpenView applications.
"At the top level, we will compete with EMC and IBM to offer very
high-end, fully functional products," Thompson said. "At the low
end, you can also strip things back and compete more directly with
a Dell."
StorageApps products won by HP in the acquisition include the
SANLink appliance, a network storage device that integrates
hardware, software, and services providing connectivity for servers
and storage; the SANLink Storage system, a device aimed at the
enterprise market; and the SANMaster, a SAN information and
monitoring system, the companies said.