Mark H., Now that SUNW/HDS seems to be getting close it might help some to reread this HWP piece from the archives again to see how this will hurt them. T3s are loop. This should move a lot of ports from HWP to SUNW. A few % increase in market share for the Q in both HBAs and SAN interconnects.
Message 15877537
From the archives.....
TUESDAY, JULY 11, 2000 8:15:00 PM EST
Jul 11, 2000 (Tech Web - CMP via COMTEX) -- Hewlett-Packard opened a war on two fronts Tuesday, attacking Sun and EMC with new storage services and a new high-end storage array from OEM ally Hitachi Data Systems.
On the Sun front, HP HWP is tightening the compatibility of its storage hardware and software with the Solaris operating system. HP also is opening a data center equipped with Sun SUNW servers for use in hosting disaster-recovery services, making it the newest commercial provider of rival Sun services.
On the EMC front, HP continued the assault on its former storage partner by unveiling the XP512 storage array. The XP512, from Hitachi HIT, is a follow-on to the XP256 array HP released in May 1999 after its split with EMC EMC.
"We are targeting customers with dedicated Sun or EMC storage," said David Scott, general manager of HP's Extended Platform Storage Organization. "We are also targeting service providers."
HP plans to offer a full set of consulting services, including some aimed at critical support, for Sun Solaris environments, Scott said.
HP's disaster-recovery data center is aimed at Solaris customers who do not have and do not want to build a second site on their own, Scott said. He said the services are ready for delivery now, but he is unsure whether such services will be available for integrators.
HP is working with third-party software vendor Veritas VRTS to support Sun clusters to add intercluster failover capability to Solaris and plans to offer failover to remote locations late this year.
In addition, HP's OpenView management application is now integrated with Sun's Management Center, allowing OpenView users to get a total view of their Sun environments, Scott said.
HP has added Solaris to its list of operating systems supported by its SAN backup solutions.
HP's new XP512 was introduced two weeks after OEM partner HDS offered its version, the Freedom Storage Lightning 9900. The XP512 offers 6.4-Gbyte-per-second performance thanks to the use of its crossbar interconnect, which both HP and HDS maintain is superior to traditional data busses found in most storage devices.
The architecture is suitable for the enterprise space because of its support for multiple applications and for the service-provider space because it supports multiple companies as users, Scott said.
The XP512 has better performance than the 9900 because of HP's own firmware, said Scott. It also supports HP CommandView and Web-based monitoring.
Both Sun and EMC were probably watching Tuesday's developments, said Mike Kahn, chairman of the Clipper Group, a consulting firm in Wellesley, Mass.
"It is HP's services and their marketing that will cause Sun to focus on defending its turf," Kahn said. "EMC will focus on the box. [EMC is] behind in capacity and the potential capacity. EMC, IBM IBM, and others will catch up, but the H-guys have the lead for now."
Sun's customers are open to vendor competition, Kahn said.
"If the supplier is serious, Sun customers will give the vendor consideration," he said, "and HP is serious."
HP is not unique in offering Sun services.
"IBM Global Services may be the biggest buyer of Sun servers in the world," Kahn said, "but in [HP's] case, the marketing profile is higher, and the attack is more direct."
Integrators say they are interested in working with HP products and services aimed at the Solaris market.
Dan Carson, vice president of marketing at Open Systems Solutions, Yardley, Pa., said he would be interested in selling HP's Solaris disaster-recovery services.
"Most of our customers are using Sun or NT," he said.
Sun has a tough time with high availability, said William LaFlamme, senior HP product manager at Forsythe Solutions Group, Skokie, Ill.
"HP sees a gap in Sun's offering, and they have some products to fill it," he said.
EMC fired its own salvo at HP, noting that HP's Business Critical Computing Unit is still one of its partners.
EMC officials said Tuesday that, with HP's support, the company has extended the automatic failover capabilities of its Symmetrix storage systems with HP's MetroCluster software.
techweb.com
Copyright (C) 2000 CMP Media Inc.
From this piece, almost a year old now HWP had a high priority to sell into SUNW space. Now if SUNW sells the same HDS lightening, and does a good job of integrating it into SUNW color purple, and at a good price, who would buy HWP storage for the SUNW space anymore? SUNW has just filled the gap in the storage line that has allowed others to feed off of their table.
What is HWP to do now? |
