14 DAY TRIAL // Hewlett Pachard has just announced the availability of a new family of entry-level disk arrays with enterprise-class features. The HP StorageWorks 2000 Modular Smart Array (MSA2000) line of products is comprised of low-cost Fibre Channel and iSCSI disk arrays designed to work especially in virtualized server environments.
Easy to use, the enterprise-class systems are dedicated to small and mid-size businesses, but enterprise and corporate usage is not at all excluded. According to market analysts, the entry-level external storage market brought a revenue of $2.8 billion in 2006, and HP accounted for 21 percent market share in this segment in 2007.
"HP's market strength and experience in the entry-level SAN segment allows them to deliver cost-effective solutions that provide high levels of availability and scalability," said John Webster, principal IT advisor, Illuminata Inc. "There is a growing demand among customers with smaller storage needs for features to support high-profile data and applications, as well as deployments of virtual servers."
The new disk arrays from HP are easy to deploy in both standard and virtual environments for creating automated storage infrastructures. All the arrays are fully compatible with the most important virtualization pieces of software, including VMWare. Moreover, the MSA2000 allows its users to combine SAS or SATA drives, that makes it easier to achieve the optimal mix between performance and investments.
The HP iSCSI and Fibre Channel MSA2000 arrays can work with the company's BladeSystem. The arrays feature a built-in management console for easy setup and maintenance, that allows system administrators to configure all the blades at once instead of one blade at a time.
"Our modular storage arrays are perfect for customers who have a limited IT budget, but need a solution that is quickly scalable for shared storage environments," said Robin Hensley, vice president of Entry Storage, StorageWorks, HP. "Customers will benefit from consolidating their storage and can take advantage of features like snap and clone to protect their data and deliver value to their business."