HP positions All-in-One storage for SMBs

HOUSTON, Texas — People say don’t put all your eggs in one basket. But in the case of storage solutions, All-in-Ones are now making a dent in the market, especially with the idea of storage consolidation now sinking in.

While data storage has become a challenge for companies of all sizes in all industries, there is no question that it can be a disproportionate burden as well on small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). 

SMBs are also now deploying storage-intensive technologies such as customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning and business intelligence. But unlike large corporations that often have extensive resources such as specialists dedicated exclusively to storage efforts, SMBs may not have the time, resources or available expertise to develop effective, long-term storage strategies.

This is the premise for HP’s development of a line of storage solutions for SMBs that are comprehensive and easy to implement and could bridge the gap between the ever-increasing data storage requirements and the capabilities of the IT systems in place.

In Houston, the base for HP’s storage business particularly entry-level storage, the company is making an aggressive pitch for its current line of All-in-One (AiO) storage solutions. Under the Simply StorageWorks product and service category, HP’s AiO family of storage is designed as an end-to-end solution approach for SMBs. It features Network Attached Storage (NAS), Storage Attached Network (SAN) and back-up solutions designed to make possible storage consolidation for SMBs.

“Storage consolidation is a big concern for SMBs looking for backup, restoration and protection solutions. They are concerned about business continuity to which IT and storage are at its core,” says Amit Malhotra, manager for volume storage of HP’s StorageWorks Division for the Asia-Pacific and Japan. “When you have servers frequently going down, it’s one sign that it’s time to do storage consolidation. Across the Asia-Pacific and Japan, companies with four to five servers are definitely looking for shared consolidation, with emphasis on applications,” he adds.

Houston, we have a problem

Currently, the amount of digital information being generated worldwide is doubling every 18 months that pundits are saying it would reach a staggering volume of 988 exabytes by 2010.

In 2007, a total of 1.6 million text messages were sent all over the world. It’s a testament to how consumer-generated content has exploded in the last couple of years, thanks in part to the proliferation of online social networking sites that offer people ways to store their digital pictures, videos and other files, usually at no cost.

A case in point is Snapfish, an HP photo service that currently stores six perabytes of content for its members around the world. Next year, Snapfish is preparing to host 15 perabytes of user-generated data.

Aside from the astounding rate by which consumers create data, legislative moves to digitize information and make it available for a longer period of time also put a strain on the storage infrastructure of companies, especially Internet and multimedia companies as well as those in the financial sector.

With mounting data to manage, IT departments must provide better support and service to their companies.

“But how will they do it when the amount of data keeps increasing at 70 percent year-on-year?” asks Lee Johns, marketing director for entry storage and storage blades of HP’s Enterprise Servers and Storage.

You know his answer: HP Simply StorageWorks. Johns says it brings together the tools, solutions, products and services to help small- and mid-sized companies navigate the storage landscape. He also points out that because expertise in storage technologies is different from IT expertise, HP’s AiO storage products favor SMBs which usually don’t have IT experts, much more storage experts.

The AiO 1200 model, for example, has application management capability based on HP’s AiOSM (All-in-One storage management) software, a front-end box to do file and application back-ups and which can also use storage as a gateway, explains Johns.

Meanwhile, HP is also focusing a lot on storage blades to give organizations modular, scalable and simple storage components. 

“Storage blades are the next big thing. Companies are looking for help to manage data explosion and to secure and back up data. Overall, our direct attached storage market is growing and we’re moving more and more toward blades,” says Johns.

In addition, HP is deploying creative solutions like de-duplication technology to prevent redundant copies of similar data that is aggravating companies’ storage problems. The company also made available services such as HP Upline and HP electronic vaulting to push the concept of storage as a service. HP Upline is a new HP Total Care service designed to help companies readily access, share, back up and store their digital content over any Internet connection. A limited version of it is offered at no cost for one year.

LeftHand acquisition

Furthermore, HP has signed a definitive agreement to acquire for $360 million LeftHand Networks Inc., a provider of storage virtualization and iSCSI storage area network solutions.

Stephan Schmitt, vice president for marketing of HP’s StorageWorks Division, said the technologies of LeftHand Networks will boost HP’s storage offerings for mid-sized companies and remote offices of large corporations.

LeftHand’s portfolio will extend HP virtualization solutions to the mid-market with software that runs on both existing storage and industry-standard server hardware, explains Schmitt.

But just how big is the SMB market in the region? Schmitt estimates it to be worth $7.07 billion next year or a projected 5.9 percent more in total revenue than this year’s level.

Japan is said to be the biggest contributor to the overall revenue growth, followed by China, Korea and India. Market research conducted for HP by AMI-Partners found that these markets account for 73 percent of total SMB storage spending and represent 53 percent of the total 22.3-million SMB customers of HP in the region.  

Tape storage and fiber channel SAN are reportedly the biggest contributors to the overall storage revenues in the region. In terms of storage architecture, IDC reports that most companies in the region deploy low and external storage, while for connectivity majority choose iSCSI over NAS.

HP delivers its storage solutions through 3,500 resellers and 50 distributors across the region. Aside from the HP StorageWorks AiO Storage System, HP is also offering the low end of the market — its HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array (MSA) product lines. The high end will be addressed by the HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) line.