Hewlett-Packard yesterday unveiled a new line of storage systems that it said would enable customers to manage storage resources in a single environment.
Coined HP StorageWorks EVA (Enterprise Virtual Array) File Services, the new systems are an enhanced versions of the HP StorageWorks EVA and include file-servicing capabilities, said Jason Treu, worldwide storage spokesperson at HP's Technology Solutions Group. He said the file-servicing capability was previously available as a separate feature, but has now been added to the EVA systems.
The EVA File Services will be available in the market from 1 March in three configurations--EVA4000, 6000 and 8000.
According to Ashwini Bhatnagar, marketing manager at HP StorageWorks in Asia-Pacific and Japan, the EVA File Services line offer similar capabilities found in the HP StorageWorks All-in-One (AIO) Storage Systems targeted at small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
He told ZDNet Australia's sister site ZDNet Asia that the EVA File Services had the same block and file servicing capabilities and "similar kinds of deliverables", but noted that it was in "a totally different kind of environment".
Bhatnagar explained: "This EVA [File Services] environment is for richer and bigger applications; It scales much higher and has much higher throughput, but it does essentially the same thing [as the AIO systems in terms of streaming] block and file data."
He noted, however, that the EVA File Services performed such tasks differently -- through a clustered gateway, allowing users to stream both block and file data. It acted like a gateway that brought both functions together, while the AIO system performed this task at the operating system level, he said.
Bhatnagar added that the AIO systems were entry-level offerings aimed at companies concerned about keeping complexity and cost low. Larger enterprises, however, are faced with the challenge of maintaining heterogeneous environments.
"They have many things out there which they now want to consolidate into one, [while keeping] costs low [but maintaining] the scalability and simplicity," he said.
Yesterday's product announcements also included the HP ProLiant DL585 G2 Storage Server, the Cisco MDS 9124e Fabric Switch for the HP c-Class BladeSystem, as well as an enhanced HP Data Protector Software 6.0 release with 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption.
According to HP, these new releases were expected to address growing "need for unifying and managing DAS (direct attached storage), NAS (network attached storage) and SAN (storage area network) that accompany the significant growth in corporate data servers".
Lynn Tan reported for ZDNet Asia from Singapore.
