HP releases 3Par storage system, federated storage software

As part of its Converged Storage portfolio, Hewlett-Packard (HP) today announced new federated storage software, Peer Motion, which enables admins to transparently move application workloads between disk systems in virtualized and cloud computing environments.

HP also unveiled a new storage array line, the P10000 3PAR Storage System, which is aimed at supporting public and private clouds with twice the capacity and port count of previous HP products.

Peer Motion

The Peer Motion software allows applications and data to be moved between any HP-branded storage systems as well as systems from its subsidiaries: 3Par and LeftHand, according to Craig Nunes, director of marketing for HP Storage.

Similar to VMware's vMotion software, Peer Motion allows live migration of data on storage systems supporting virtual machines with no application downtime.

Peer Motion is aimed at several data center needs, Nunes said, including the balancing of workloads where an application outgrows its forecasted requirements and must be redistributed across storage systems. The software can also be used in bringing new storage systems on line when older ones are retired, and for thin provisioning of storage in virtual environments.

Thin provisioning allows applications to receive more storage capacity on an as-needed basis instead of the traditional approach of over-provisioning to avoid application downtime. As more storage is needed, Peer Motion automates the movement of data to systems with greater capacity, Nunes said.

"As a technology, I look at federation similar to virtualization. It's a hierarchical approach to doing things," Nunes said. "The difference is that federation is more of peer-to-peer technology and picks up where virtualization leaves off -- something we think will be a big deal in data centers in the future."

The P10000 array family

HP also released a new array family, the P10000 line, which is powered by HP's 3Par generation four ASIC and comes in two models - one with two controllers, the other with up to eight controllers.

"The new ASICs give us a high level of performance and allow us to mix transactional workloads, like databases, with sequential workloads, like a backup or analytics or decision support," Nunes said. "The system offers great expandability for virtualized environments or IT-as-a-service data centers with its ability to consolidate the deployment of virtual machines within one platform."

The P10000 line can automatically load balance compute and storage capacity with a single mouse click, which can raise the performance and service level availability of all volumes on the system, Nunes said.

The new controller also offers three times the performance for thin provisioning volumes, meaning it speeds up the rate with which capacity is automatically added as applications require it.

Conversely, the processors have also reduced the time it takes for the array to identify disk storage capacity not being used by applications and reclaiming it for a generally available pool of capacity - something HP calls its new "nano reclamation engine."

The P10000 also offers remote data replication that detects and eliminates unused space in traditional volumes, reducing network and remote capacity needs.

The P10000 3PAR Storage System will be available from HP or its channel partners on Aug. 29 with a U.S. list price starting at $288,633. Clients under existing support contracts for HP 3PAR F-Class and T-Class Storage Systems can upgrade their operating environments at no additional charge to take advantage of new software capabilities.

Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld. Follow Lucas on Twitter at @lucasmearian or subscribe to Lucas's RSS feed. His e-mail address is lmearian@computerworld.com.

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