Features - Storage Innovations:

HP UNVEILS STORAGE PRODUCTS TARGETED AT SMBS

HP announced a new storage product family and packaged server-storage offerings designed to meet the needs of small and medium-size businesses (SMBs), as well as enterprise customers, at up to 50 percent below the prices of IBM and Dell/EMC.

The combination of the new HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array (MSA) family and industry-standard HP ProLiant servers gives growing businesses, remote and departmental offices and channel partners reliable storage solutions that are simple to acquire and deploy.

Part of HP's Smart Office initiative for SMBs, the technology packages are designed to provide customers with technology that is easy to own, works better together and comes with the right expertise from HP and its partners to help make growing businesses more successful.

"The HP StorageWorks MSA family broadens HP's storage portfolio while creating a robust, entry-level storage solution that tightly integrates the HP ProLiant server line to offer the industry's most affordable high-performance serverstorage solution," said Nigel Ball, vice president of Small and Medium Business at HP. "By combining HP storage and server offerings, we have simplified the purchase, use, management and maintenance for small and medium businesses."

With estimated U.S. list prices starting at under $10,000, the HP StorageWorks MSA and HP ProLiant server packaged solutions tackle one of the biggest barriers preventing emerging businesses from adopting external shared storage -- cost.

"The MSA1000 system was less than half the price of the EMC-Dell solution, which allowed us to buy two SAN systems," said Jorge Borbolla, chief information officer of AutoTradeCenter, one of the world's leading Internet-based automotive remarketing companies. "It all comes down to a very attractive ROI (return on investment) proposition."

Delivering "Better Together" Technology Offerings

The MSA storage products offer high-performance features for direct attach environments, clusters and entry-level storage area network (SAN) environments. Each solution is designed to maximize transfer rates and reduce management costs in order to facilitate a rapid return on investment. The MSA family is composed of three products:

• MSA30 -- a direct attach storage enclosure ideal for workgroup and departmental users who need a flexible, scalable external storage.
• MSA500 -- a direct attach storage system designed for storage consolidation with outstanding data protection and availability and that is ideal for remote sites and distributed clustered environments.
• MSA1000 -- an entry-level SAN storage array that simplifies the transition for direct attached storage (DAS) to SAN.

For customers seeking simplicity, HP has introduced affordable packaged solutions, each with one SKU, one price and one shipping container for faster deployment:

• HP ProLiant DL380 Packaged Cluster with MSA500 -- featuring two HP ProLiant DL380 servers, an MSA500 enclosure, two host bus adapters and required cables an ideal solution for remote and branch offices with limited on-site IT support.
• HP ProLiant DL380 Packaged Cluster with MSA1000 -- featuring two HP ProLiant DL380 servers, an MSA1000 enclosure, two host bus adapters, one eight port Fibre Channel switch and required cables -- an ideal solution for multiple clusters and multi-node clusters capable of supporting up to 20 servers.
• The HP MSA500 and MSA1000 Starter Kits -- offering the greatest value and simplicity by providing the necessary hardware and software for storage consolidation in direct attach SCSI or entry-level SAN environments, respectively.
• The HP MSA500 and MSA1000 High Availability Kits -- enhancing the Starter Kits by providing the necessary hardware and software for fully redundant configurations.

Integrated Approach Reduces Operating Costs, Boosts Partner Sales Opportunities

HP StorageWorks MSA products are optimized for HP ProLiant servers, enabling businesses to realize an immediate return on investment made possible by the compatibility and optimization of the Smart Array technology of HP StorageWorks with HP ProLiant servers. The MSA family and ProLiant servers share common management tools, drive compatibility and data commonality -- all helping reduce operating costs.

In addition, HP exclusive DtS (DAS to SAN) technology enables data and disk drives to easily migrate from ProLiant servers to, and across, the MSA family, helping provide tremendous investment protection.

HP's integrated approach for MSA configurations and ProLiant server clusters helps reseller partners eliminate guesswork. Now they can order complete packages designed to meet SMB customer requirements.

Delivered complete in one box, the offerings can help shorten sales cycles, reduce time to deployment and quicken revenue returns for HP's 210,000 channel partners worldwide.

About HP

HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing. For the fiscal year ending on Oct. 31, HP revenue totaled $73.1 billion. More information about HP is available at www.hp.com.