Last week, Rickatron and I had the privilege of having Dr Garth Gibson, the co-inventor of RAID technology, on the Deep Dive podcast.

To say that Garth is a legend of the technology world is an understatement. 

I’m posting this here in case anybody reading this site doesn’t know about the podcasts that I do over at http://infosmackpodcasts.com.  Hopefully the show is a great listen and may be something that you can listen to on a drive/flight/train home for the Christmas holidays (for those of us who celebrate Christmas).

I’ve not had a chance to listen to the show myself yet, but we touched on some cracking technology topics when recording.  Garth’s insight is tremendous.  This guy is thinking way way ahead and is extremely switched on.

Some of the topics we covered included -

• Future of RAID (obviously)
• Future of solid state storage
• Future of magnetic recording media – rotating rust
• Sub-LUN tiering
• Commodity Hardware with all of the smarts in software
• The rise of less and less reliable technology
• Parallel NFS (pNFS)
• Securing storage
• Technology predictions for 2012

The show is about 55 minutes long, and Rick and I did our best to raid this guys massive brain.  No small task.

Enjoy listening.

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Well…. while there I had a quick Twitter exchange with Scott Lowe and Amnon Izhar about fabrics.  This is another topic that gets the old juices flowing.

Cisco UCS Kicking Some @rse

Not that long ago I recorded a podcast on the topic of Cisco UCS.  At the beginning of the podcast, Rick and I did a goofy intro making fun of former HP CEO Leo Apotheker’s apparent comment that if Cisco were selling UCS they must be selling it on planet Zircon, because HP weren’t coming up against it in the real world. 

Well…since then I know of loads of people taking up Cisco UCS, whether it be straight UCS or as part of a Vblock.  So it’s pretty clear that Cisco have really taken the game to HP in the compute market.  And clearly, in some people’s opinions, it has advantages over and above HP’s offerings.

Yes, UCS scores points on management, but they also score technical points too.  UCS has good tech.

HP have traditionally taken a steady approach to pushing server based technologies forward.  Things like Virtual Connect FlexFabric are ….. well….. OK.  Kind of average.  But with Cisco in this market, average won’t cut it any more!

Software

No doubt that HP has to improve their software.  Now that is a task that I do not envy.  If describing HP’s software I’d have to use words like clunky, bloated, slow, cumbersome, flaky…  Making significant strides in this area will be long a hard.  Good luck HP.

The Cool Stuff – Fabrics

It’s my opinion that HP need to up their game on the server technology front.  They need to be bolder and more innovative (even if via acquisition).  HP needs to get back to being best of breed and not rely on the fact that they are HP.

One way to do this, and at the same time take the game right back to Cisco, would be to buy Xsigo Systems.

NOTE: I am in no way suggesting HP are even remotely thinking of buying Xsigo – how the hell would I know! I'm just saying I think it's a cracking technology and they would make a cracking combo!

Xsigo’s Server Fabric would really cloud enable HP solutions and put them ahead of the 10Gbps curve, as well as simplify and add flexibility to HP solutions.  And all of this to an extent not possible with average technologies like VC FlexFabric.

One of the things I like about Xsigo solutions is similar to what VMware have been doing with vMotion technology.  VM movement operations (using the fs3dm datamover with hardware offload) can now be done within the storage controller without the data ever having travel up the stack from the array, through the fabric to the ESXi host and then back down again.  As a result not only are storage vMotions faster but the load is taken off the fabric and ESXi hosts.  It just makes good sense to do things this way!

Similarly, Xsigo allows us to do things in networking and server-to-server or VM-to-VM connectivity that just make sense.  Things like server to server traffic not having to travel up and over the network -

Now I’m no stupid, yes I expect the network guys to come out with their pitchforks and tell me how this doesn’t fit with their legacy backwards current models and I expect the network security card to be played.  But hey, the best technologies are always disruptive and force us to rethink the way we have traditionally done things.  And that’s only one of the advantages Xsigo brings.     

In a nutshell Xsigo would leapfrog HP servers past Cisco UCS (yes I think UCS is probably ahead o HP on a technology front right now).

What About A PCIe Fabric

So I like the idea of that and yes I know that the number of PCIe nodes deployed makes Ethernet look niche, but when I looked into this in the past (~2 years ago) PCIe wasn;t so scalable lacked a lot of networking capability and scalability.  Server fabrics dont necessarily have have all of the features of networks, but when I looked in to it back then I didn't feel that PCIe was a great fit.  Mental note: Go and revisit this.

Anyway, may be a blog and a podcast on Xsigo is required…

Setting the Scene

I’m not a fan of taking a legacy array technologies and shoe-horning them full of SSD. Frankenstorage springs to mind!

I am, however, slightly more of a fan of technologies like Violin Memory and Kaminario (to name just a couple). 

However, what I’ve seen at HP Discover has the potential, in my opinion, to make even the likes of todays Violin Memory and Kaminario arrays look legacy, very soon.

Let me take a really quick minute to set the scene…… it wont take long….

In many ways I like Violin Memory.  It’s been designed, almost from the ground up with SSD in mind – definitely not a technology designed for rotating rust and then fudged or butchered for SSD.  Take the lid off one and you’ll see exactly what I mean. 

It looks like a lot of thought and design effort has gone in to it.  And the technologist inside of me likes that.  However,………. I wonder if it’s too custom and too proprietary to live and thrive in todays market?  Todays market demanding commodity and all that jazz!

On the other hand there is Kaminario.  These guys take standard off-the-shelf Dell blade systems, off-the-shelf Fusion-io cards, layer some clever software on the top and out pops a high performance SSD array.  Ticks the commodity-is-king and software-is-everything checkboxes, but has its drawbacks.  Servicing the Fusion-io cards is clunky and requires you to crack the lid of the blade server open (never good in Tier 1 production data centres).

Doing things properly

So what I saw at HP Discover could well be the future of SSD and SSD arrays, and it goes by the name of SCSI Express.

SCSI Express is a protocol that is currently being independently standardised under part of INCITS T10 by the SOP-PQI Working Group and the SCSI Trade Association, with involvement from SFF Committee and PCI-SIG.  Quite a crew and quite a project, but it was suggested to me that it might be standardised in six or so months.

SCSI Express enables SCSI over PCIe (SOP), and under the hood it is a SCSI initiator talking to a SCSI target over PCIe via PQI. 

PQI stands for PCIe architecture Queueing Interface which is a flexible and extensible transport layer that is very fast and lightweight.  I’m told that it leverages the best from some of the existing proprietary SCSI over PCIe solutions available from companies such as PMC, LSI, Marvell and even HP.  The difference being that PQI and SCSI Express are being developed as open standards rather than being proprietary to the above mentioned companies.  Existing SCSI over PCI protocols such as MPI from PMC are found in silicon in most of the array controllers we see in the world today including EMC, NetApp, Hitachi…

Blah blah blah…. but what does this all mean?

Well, here we have a protocol and interface that is being designed especially for high speed SSD, not spinning rust!

Might not sound much, but when you look at some of the legacy architectures that we are currently bolting SSD drives to (it’s not uncommon to stick an SSD capable of 40,000 IOPs in an array with a backend that can support only a fraction of that) it starts to bring this into perspective.  Todays SSD drives are severely hamstrung by the legacy architectures we bolt them to and it verges on a crime to do such.

SCSI Express will release the shackles.  It will allow you to take a hot-plug 2.5-inch form factor SSD and install it into a 2.5-inch form factor drive bay on the front of an industry standard server, just like we do with hot-plug drives today.  The major difference being that the SSD won’t be hamstrung by SAS or SATA.  The drive will mate with a specially designed, but industry standard, interface that will talk a specially designed, but again industry standard, protocol (the protocol enhances the SCSI command set for SSD) with standard drivers that will ship with future versions of major Operating Systems like Windows, Linux and ESXi.

On the topic of hot-pluggable, I’m led to believe that this is not very robust on PCIe as we know it today.  However, it’s doable and the guys at HP Discover told me that this should be standardised and available by the time this is productised (somewhere around the end of 2012.

The Future of SSD Arrays

So, again, in my humble opinion, the future of SSD arrays is unlikely to look like a VMAX, VNX or even VSP……  Nor is it going to look like a Violin Memory array. 

In my opinion it is going to look like an HP Proliant, Cisco UCS…. name your industry standard off the shelf x86 server, crammed full of industry standard form-factor hot-pluggable SSD drives, running SCSI over PCIe with all of the smarts and clevers in software on top o VMware (sorry couldn’t resist throwing the VMware comment in). 

Seriously though, I can see it.  While I love SSD and some of the SSD arrays out there, I’ve has always felt like there is something not quite right about them.  I think SCSI Express/SOP is the missing magic!

And when these products ship and change the world, I plan on putting my feet up and retiring, as this will clearly solve every problem that the storage world has or ever will have!

Prototype at HP Discover

The concept box on display at Discover is an early prototype, but was an HP ProLiant server with an early Fusion-io 2.5-inch SSD drive connected to the PCIe bus (I know its not really a bus) via an SFF 8639 backplane connector (PCIe 12Gbps 6 lane).  However, this is also doable over PCIe cable implementations. 

In the prototype unit at HP Discover, the SCSI Express drives connected to the PCIe bus and bypassed the HP RAID controller similar to the picture below. 

This kind of implementation leaves a at least a couple of options when it comes to RAID - 

1. Have RAID implemented higher up the stack and utilising CPU cycles (the dreaded software RAID).
2. develop newer RAID controllers with SCSI Express and SCSI over PCIe in mind

RAID………….. now there’s another technology that could do with being brought in to the 21st Century!  but that’s another conversation.

The plug for mating with the server is SFF 8639 and the current board connects to the server via the SAS cables.

Footnote: To SCSI or not to SCSI

Interestingly, the somewhat competing standard of NVM Express is looking to do its magic without SCSI.  A bit bolder, but I have to wonder how much harder?

Half of me would love to get rid of SCSI and the legacy that it brings.  But then again three quarters of me would have liked to see Ethernet replaced with something like Infiniband.  Ethernet clearly isn’t going anywhere and I my head tells me SCSI isn’t either.  Too deeply entrenched.

On the positive side though, SCSI is battle hardened and well understood.

Footnote: Competing Standard NVM Express and EMC

No storage futures story is complete without mentioning EMC. Sorry HP and the rest of the storage industry but I like to be honest.

Interestingly EMC are not on the list of companies behind SCSI Express.  But they are on the list of those behind NVMe!

As we know, EMC are one of the biggest families in the storage Mafia, and they have significant influence over VMware, one of the biggest families in the technology Mafia.  Now, in mind (where 2+2=33) having the daddy of the storage industry behind NVMe, coupled with the interesting noises that VMware has been making about the future of storage, I can’t stop my mind running wild with what they might be up to…. I would it even put it beyond then to be planning the death of SCSI!

Anyway, enough for now.  Thoughts and comments mandatory

Anyway, now that that is out of the way….  It’s old news that HP recently announced a major refresh of it’s 3PAR line, the P10000 or 3PAR V-Class.  I despise HP’s naming conventions so I will call it V-Class.

One potentially interesting thing to note from the product branding P10000 (that’s ten thousand) is that HP have given the 3PAR a higher number than the rebadged Hitachi VSP, the HP P9500.  Generally speaking with HP storage products, the higher the number the bigger and more enterprise the array (that’s my interpretation anyway) -

P2000 = MSA.  Aimed at small businesses

P4000 = LeftHand iSCSI array.  Aimed at SMB

P6000 = EVA.  Aimed at SMB

P9500 = OEM’d Hitachi VSP.  Aimed squarely at high end enterprises

So one would naturally assume that something with a higher number than the P9500 to be… well….. more “enterprise”.

Anyway lets get to the good stuff……

The Good Stuff

For me, the major improvements that came with the V-Class are the following -

• Moving from PCI-X to PCIe
• 4th generation ASIC
• Peer Motion

Aside from the innovations listed above, the V-Class just feels more enterprise, more high performance.  Things like 2 x 4th gen ASIC per controller node, compared to the previous generation T-Class only having 1 x 3rd gen ASIC per controller.  Similarly there is 2 x quad core CPU’s per controller node versus 2 x dual core in previous generations.  Then there’s more than doubling the available control and data cache per node as well as the inclusion of T10 DIF support.  All in all, it feels like it now has the muscle to stand it’s ground against VMAX and VSP.

The Stuff Thats Missing

Of course it’s not perfect.  On the Negative side the following are disappointments -

• No 2.5-inch drive form factor. Only option remain 3.5-inch. This is behind the curve and a disappointment.
• No SAS backend.  The backend remains switched FC-AL and while I appreciate that this allows large distances between the controllers and disk cabinets I’m unsure how enterprise this is.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea, but I’m not sure I’d want to bet my entire array on a single FC cable routed under the floor and across to the other side of the data centre hall!?  Also, the switch to SAS as the backend of choice is well under way.
• No de-duplication or compression. Not that anybody else does this either, but with the knowing that the 4th gen ASIC was on its way I wondered whether we might have seen these features. If HP/3PAR had come to market with this then that would have seen them widely recognised as a leader again.

PCIe

I won’t spend long on this.  I think it speaks for itself.

While I’ve been a long time fan of the 3PAR architecture, I’ve always been a little embarrassed of the PCI-X architecture.  It’s old technology and has no place in a modern and innovative high performance storage array.  Anyway, its gone, so let’s never speak of it again.

4th Gen ASIC

Why do I care about ASICs, FPGAs and things like that?

While I agree that I shouldn’t really care as long it performs well and stays on its feet, knowing what is under the hood and how something is put together helps you in all kinds of ways.

For me, custom silicon (ASIC) has its place in high end of storage arrays for at least another 5 years.  Offloading certain functions to ASICs is more efficient and allows for higher performance.  Not too dissimilar to the approach VMware has taken of late where it offloads functions through VAAI to the storage array.  The concept is simple, offload specialised tasks to the expert – VMware offloads storage tasks to the storage array, similarly within a 3PAR array, InForm offloads certain storage related tasks to the specialised silicon (ASIC).

Hitachi agree with this approach and the VSP (P9500 in HP parlance) has taken a very similar approach.

For deep technical discussion on the use of custom ASICs in storage arrays listen to the recent “Odds and SODs” episode of the Infosmack Deep Dive podcast that I host.

Peer Motion: More Than a Get Out of Jail Card

At a high level, Peer Motion promises to simplify migrating data between arrays, and potentially federate those arrays into teams of loosely coupled arrays. 

The hope from customers will be that Peer Motion will allow them to dynamically and non-disruptively move workloads between arrays – similar to the way that auto-tiering products dynamically move extents between different tiers of storage…. 

One immediate use case may be as a get out of jail card that allows for more aggressive overprovisioning.  The worry about overprovisioning has always been “what do I do when I can no longer add capacity to my overprovisioned array?”.  I for one would feel a lot more comfortable aggressively overprovisioning if I knew I had a technology their that could migrate apps to another array and thus free us space on the old array…..

Another no-brainer use case will be tech refresh.  Many large organisations struggle hugely with tech refresh. They buy technology and cant get off it.  And this isn’t always vendors trying to lock them in. Many times organisations can’t even seamlessly move to the next gen architectures from the same vendor!

If HP/3PAR manage to nail this in true 3PAR style (simple and efficient) then I will be extremely impressed and HP can expect many happy customers.

At day 1 it looks like Peer Motion will allow non-disruptive migrations between any 3PAR systems.  Roadmapped, no doubt, will be heterogeneous Peer Motion.

Summing It Up

If 3PAR didn’t have a truly enterprise class high performance model before, they do now!

If VMAX and VSP didn’t see 3PAR as competition at the high end before, they will now!

If you wouldn’t consider 3PAR in the past, may be you should now.

All in all this is a good move forward.  While like the move to PCIe and the 4th Gen ASIC, the real killer feature is Peer Motion.  If HP/3PAR nail this they are on to a winner.

However, most of the work that went in to this refresh will have been well under way when HP bought 3PAR.  So this should be seen as a true 3PAR array with probably very little HP influence (good or bad). 

Now the onus is on HP to invest and give 3PAR the space to continue to innovate.  On the other hand, the worry is that HP may starve and strangle 3PAR.

Comments welcome, and don’t forget to tune in to the Deep Dive podcast I do over at infosmackpodcasts.com.  We try and generate high quality technical discussion on a broad range or enterprise tech topics.

Nigel

With that in mind, the Infosmack Deep Dive team have worked extremely hard to put together 1 hour and 15 minutes of no nonsense deep dive podcasting with some of the most recognised experts on the topics.  We’ve done our best to cut through the crap and deliver technical content that you will find hard to find anywhere else.

If you want to know the craic with vSphere 5, this is the best place to find it…

In the show we cover what we feel are the hottest topics, and we spend time on them.  Topics such as -

• Virtual Hardware version 8
• Storage DRS
• The new HA engine
• VMFS 5
• 64TB LUNs
• ESXi
• Virtual Center 5

Joining us on the show this week we have some of most recognised professionals and experts on the topics -

Frank Denneman – Consultant Architect at VMware

Duncan Epping – Principal Architect at VMware

It’s fair to say that Duncan and Frank wrote the bible on VMware HA, DRS and Clustering.  There first book VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical Deepdive is honestly one of the best tech books I own.  And I’ve ordered my copy of their new book – VMware vSphere 5 Clustering Technical Deepdive.

Michael Heffernan – Chief Technologist at HDS.  Heff is responsible for HDS integration with hypervisor products and has some deep hooks in to VMware.

Add to the above, Rick Vanover and myself and we have a team of people doing our absolute best to give the information that you want!

I hope you enjoy the show and learn something. I did.

Listen to the show via the player below, or visit Infosmackpodcasts.com

If you enjoy the show, we have plenty more planned and plenty more already on the shelf an waiting to be listened to.  Go see for yourself at Infosmackpodcasts.com.

The short and skinny of this is that I've started doing Deep Dive podcasts for Infosmack.  And the whole point of them is to be interesting and useful to technical junkies like me.  So if you’re like me at all, you will want to read this.

Why?

First up, I’m a huge fan of audio podcasts. 

I swear I get more than half of what I learn from blogs and podcasts (worrying, I know). 

The problem I have with blogs is that my blog reader has well over 100 blogs that I haven’t had a chance to read yet, and also little chance of having enough time to properly catch-up. 

The audio podcast on the other hand allows me to consume technical content while; driving, gardening, working out, mopping the kitchen…. you get the picture.

The second reason being – while I really enjoyed most of the Infosmack podcasts, occasionally my technical appetite wasn’t satisfied.  So I talked with Greg about adding a Deep Dive brand to the Infosmack portfolio.  Greg loved the idea and I went ahead and started recording shows.  Shows that I personally would like love, figuring that there are other people out there who crave technical material in the same way that I do.

So…….. If you’re anything like me and love technical content, then you’re gunna love the Infosmack Deep Dive podcasts!

Blades vs Rack Servers

Cutting to the chase, the first show is up and available on The Register.  It’s titled Blades vs Rack Servers, and we (myself, Rick Vanoever, Kevin Houston and Bob Plankers) discuss blades vs rack servers.

You can listen to it directly from the Register site using their Reg media player, or by downloading the MP3 here (also linked from The Register).

We are planning tons more shows including things like – Designing for VMware, Flash memory, Deduplication, Protocol wars and a ton of other cool tech related topics.

As well as those, we’ll do speciality shows such as a vSphere 5 Deep Dive (when it comes out), VMAX vs XIV and a ton more.  And that’s just the Deep Dive side of Infosmack.  There’s more than just Deep Dives planned.

What Happened to Greg

Those of you who already know the Infosmack show may wonder what has happened to Greg Kneireimen, founder and host of the show for the last two or so years.  Greg puts it best in his own words on his own site.  I know both Greg and Marc personally and have huge respect for both of them.

The Deep Dive podcasts were planned with Greg over the past couple of months and Greg was hugely supportive of me bringing them under the Infosmack brand, so I’d publically like to thank him for that.  Ass kissing over!

Feedback

Some quick stuff before I finish.

If you've listened to one, do me a favour and vote on the poll over on the right hand sidebar of the website.

Yes, I know there are other technology podcasts out there, of varying quality both on content and recording quality.  But the plan is to make this the best.  Infosmack scmacks of quality.  Hopefully thee will be a little bit different.  Thats the plan anyway

If you do Twitter, the hash tag for the DeepDive series is #DeepDive

Also, the whole reason for me doing the shows (other than the fact that I have a great time doing them) is to deliver something of worth and interest to the technical community.  With that in mind, I’m more than happy to take suggestions for show topics and advice on what you think may add to the show – just add them as comments to this post, or contact me on Twitter, I’m @nigelpoulton.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully you will listen to the shows and enjoy them!

As you might expect, the HP guys were top notch engineers, the type I could spend all day talking to.  While we were chatting, they were obviously passionate about the involvement HP engineers and architects in the design of the XP/P9500 (HDS VSP).  However, they also threw out some shots at EMC.  And not wanting to simply swallow what they feed me, I thought I’d open up the debate on here in case anybody has any opinions…..

First up, a quick picture of the P9500 that HP had on display on the show floor –

EMC FAST is Apparently Based on a an HP Research Paper

Ayman Abouelwafa, Array Lead Architect for the XP and P9000 system at HP Storage told me about a paper he wrote and published back in 2007.  The paper was posted on Research Disclosure website in 2008 and outlines at a high level what we generally refer to as sub-LUN tiering today.  Such technologies can be found in most major storage arrays on the market today, but not back then. 

NOTE: Apparently all major technology companies have free logins to this website, I don’t but I have managed to obtain a copy of the paper, it is titled Thin Provisioning with Native Hierarchical Storage Management and the link to a copy I’m hosting on my website can be found here. 

Apparently due to some political reasons within HP at the time (cutting back on R&D and investment in such things etc) HP never did anything with the work.  However, and this is the interesting part…… Ayman firmly believes that EMC took this paper and based their FAST/FAST VP technology on it.  A bold claim I know, but Ayman is adamant.  And anyone who knows Ayman knows that while he is technically as sharp as just about anyone, he is also passionate and doesn’t hold back with his opinions.

Now I personally have no idea if this happened, however, the paper is a short but interesting read, and I would recommend it to anyone specialising in the HP XP/P9500 or HDS VSP.

After finishing up at HP Discover (which by the way was an excellent event) it was time to grab a taxi and head to the airport to fly home.

Taxi!

This is a ~10 minute off the cuff audio podcast hosted on Chris’s website – Click here to jump to Chris’s site where you can listen to the podcast.

With this in mind I’ve put myself about as much as possible, including gate crashing David Scott’s (SVP of HP Storage) lunch table and firing every question I could think of at him…

NOTE: In the interests of disclosure, HP have paid for my travel, hotel and some of my food while attending HP Discover. However, the cheapscates only paid for me to fly in economy class. Something tells me Dave Donatelli and David Scott dont fly such distances in economy class!  Anyway….

Why I’m Sceptical about HP and Storage

Experience has led me to the point where I don’t trust HP with storage.  For as long as I can remember, storage been to be a very poor relation in the HP family.  I have also been pretty unimpressed with the way HP handled EVA after the Compaq acquisition/merge.  EVA is a great technology that was way ahead of its time, but HP’s handling of it was nothing short of a train wreck.

  5th Gen EVA in all her glory

Where HP Storage is Today

There is little doubt that HP have modern and innovative storage technologies – not least among these are the technologies they have acquired – LeftHand, IBRIX and 3PAR.  And personally I feel that some of these are best of breed.  But even those that I don’t consider best of breed are still noteworthy technologies with a ton of potential.

Modern architectures matter.  They enable faster speed to market for new features and tend to better address today’s modern business workloads and demands

Best of breed matters.  You’d have to be crazy not to deploy on best of breed.

So that’s a tick in the technology box.

But they need a lot more than just the technology….

HP StorageWorks becomes HP Storage

David Scott, former CEO of 3PAR, now heads up the HP Storage business.  And I can vouch that there are no flies on him, he understands technology and storage, oh and business.

As a side note, HP have retired the StorageWorks brand in favour of simply HP Storage.  A good move, considering it has not had the reputation its engineers deserved for a very long tim.  However, it will take a hell of a lot more than a simple name change.

Having David Scott at the helm of the good ship HP Storage is a good thing and HP will do well to keep him.  He came across as hugely passionate about the 3PAR product and its future, and seemed genuinely excited about the future for HP Storage.  And importantly, In his own words, he is “calling the shots in HP Storage”.  After the conversation with David I felt reassured that HP plan on exploiting the full potential of the 3PAR technology.

David talked of plans for native peer based federation.  This is already available on LeftHand  and is being worked on in 3PAR.  At a high level (and no details were revealed) it sounds like this will be co-operation/teaming of peer arrays, without the need for an additional appliance such as VPLEX (the last bit about VPLEX was confirmed by David Scott).  This type of technology promises to be huge! 

Talk is cheap, but it sounds like HP are committed to keeping 3PAR best of breed, building on its best in class extent/page based architecture and leading Thin Provisioning technology, and adding peer based federation..

HP Storage Leadership Team

David also mentioned that following the acquisition of 3PAR, HP have managed to hang on to most of the original 3PAR engineering team.  This is crucial as well as a sign that the passionate 3PAR engineering team believe that HP will do the right thing with their creation.  This apparently did not happen with the EVA engineers and is one of many reasons EVA stalled while under HP’s command.

Sticking to the people theme, David reports in to Dave Donatelli, former Chief Sitting Bull of all things Symmetrix at EMC. Donatelli’s storage pedigree is clearly not in question. Nor is his reputation as a ruthless task master and man who gets results.  He has a reputation of getting results and that’s a good thing for HP Storage.

People and Good leaders matter. HP Storage has the right people at the top and leading from the front.

Scott also talked about important changes that have been made to the sales structure within HP.  Changes that mean key people report in to Donatelli, allowing Donatelli to keep the sales folks focussed.  While boring and not technical, things like this are crucial, especially to massive organisations like HP.  If the sales force aren’t on song then it doesn’t matter how good your tech or your strategy is, you will fail.

Marketing

I don’t think HP has good marketing, and marketing is important.  It pains me to say it, but in today’s world good marketing is as important, if not more important, than good engineering.

Like it or not, this matter A LOT!  I’m not convinced that HP has good marketing, so this will need to be addressed.

In Summary

Talk is cheap and everything looks good on PowerPoint.  But I came here to see what HP are doing to sharpen up their storage act.  I can honestly say that I am coming away from the event really impressed.

HP have the technology, the leadership, the engineers, the focus, the vision.  And they sure as hell have the wonga! 

However, executing in the field is hard,  and it takes a lot of effort to turn a big tanker like HP. But the ship appears to be turning, and oh my goodness….. if they start executing, they could shake this market up like nobody else!

On the other hand, they could stutter on as they have in the past and remain an also-ran in the high margin storage business.

Thoughts and comments welcome.

This week I’m in Vegas for HP’s premier showcase event.

Why have I bothered to travel half way around the world in coach class, messed up my body clock and had my luggage go missing……?

I’m not a gambler, so it certainly isn’t to try and make a penny or two on the tables.

Storage

If I thought I was coming for deep technical storage sessions I’d be disappointed.  Of the million sessions available there is not a single session that meets the search criteria of “Storage + Technical Advanced” :-S  A bit gutted, but I’ll live.

From a storage perspective I’m here to find out what is different NOW about HP and HP StoreageWorks that means they will be more than a storage “also ran”.

I want tot know what has changed that means they won’t do what they did to the EVA with technologies like 3PAR, IBRIX and LeftHand.

In my personal opinion, EVA was years ahead of its time.  Native disk pooling and wide-striping.  Advanced core virtual RAID engine.  Native backend re-balancing…..  HP should have wiped the floor with the competition, but clearly did not.  Damn shame, but hopefully lessons have been learned.

In my heart of hearts I’d like to see HP turn up the heat in the storage space like they have in the networking space!  We’ll see.

So just a few questions:

What the heck do HP have to do to be leader in storage?  Is it people, is it technology, is it focus, is it price, is it services, is it integration….?  Or….. do they have no hope?  I'm interested in your thoughts, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Networking

That brings me nicely on to networking.

I have to say I’m impressed with how HP are shifting through the gears in the networking space.  The networking market has needed some genuine competition for a long time and HP are starting to provide that.

I’m hear to learn HP’s vision and goals for networking and how they are going to be a significant player in the future. 

I’m specifically interested in things like HP FlexFabric and network convergence.

Servers

HP pretty much own the server market, both rack mounts and blades. That’s all well and good, but that’s a hard position to maintain.  I want to know what HP are innovating in this space to maintain that market share and to keep ahead of the competition.

Other Stuff

To be honest, the above are that major reasons I’m here.  Anything else is a bonus.

I will say that one thing I have zero interest in is their webOS and mobile device story.  I open to being convinced, but I have registered zero interest in any webOS related sessions.

Anything technical and interesting, I will post about.  Everything else will be zeroed out and the extents in my head reclaimed and added back to the free space pool.  So……. will I come back from HP DISCOVER with a lot more cool stuff in my head, or will my background cleanup process that runs in the background while I’m sleeping on the flight home just clear out a load of rubbish?????

Oh and finally a little bit of HP storage porn to feast your eyes on -

And I wonder which array is missing in action here?  Is it a late arrival, or has it been shifted to the stage for a big announcement?