By Lee Johns

I often get asked why HP BladeSystem and StorageWorks are such a compelling combination.  There are multiple reasons and it starts with the cost of connecting to existing fibre channel storage which can be reduced by up to 50% with the reductions in cables, single failure points and administration when you use a technology like HP Virtual Connect.  You of course also benefit from the infrastructure savings you get from implementing blade servers in terms of time, energy, change and cost.  

Today there is a new reason.  Direct connect storage!  Think the simplicity of DAS with the resource sharing of a SAN.  With HP BladeSystem you can now implement up to 192TB of shared storage across 16 blade servers using a simple, but high-performance 3Gb SAS interconnect.  What's more the Storage offers all the management features and capabilities of the HP MSA 2000 but without the requirement to manage a fabric (Fibre Channel or iSCSI).   

Now don't get me wrong.  Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage are every bit as important as they were yesterday with BladeSystem.  In fact HP also announced a technology called Virtual Connect Flex-10 for BladeSystems today that will offer great benefits for future iSCSI storage solutions for our EVA and MSA as well as future products from our acquisition of LeftHand Networks.  The difference today is that if implementing Fibre Channel or iSCSI was not the right choice for me as a customer, I now have an alternative that offers breakthrough simplicity.   Direct connect storage is perfect for Server Administrators who want to implement a simple shared storage environment for boot infrastructure or other server administrator controlled data.  It is ideal for small and medium businesses or remote sites who are looking to implement there first SAN but want a simpler solution.  It is great for VMware infrastructure and supports VMotion. It is great second tier storage for Enterprises.  

Customer excitement in HP early previews has been very strong.  In fact it has so much utility for new implementations or existing SAN environments it make me wonder why the traditional storage only vendors are not offering it.  After all it simply offers customers more choice. 

Lee Johns, Director of Marketing for Entry Storage