As the Flash memory era of storage continues to progress, it’s starting to become apparent that rather than fewer storage systems, there will be more tiers and classes of storage than ever.
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) today unveiled a bevy of updates to its Flash storage portfolio that span everything from the midmarket to the enterprise. Those updates include an HPE 3PAR StoreServ 9450 array capable of accessing up to six petabytes of data at speeds that are 70 percent faster than previous generations of HPE 3PAR StoreServ systems. That system also provides access to 80 ports as well as support for HPE 3PAR 3D Cache software that enables 3PAR StoreServ storage systems to be configured as an extension of DRAM deployed on a server via an NVMe interface.
In addition to the new HP 3PAR offering, HPE added HPE MSA 2050 and 2052 storage area networks (SAN) to its lineup that can be configured with 1.6 TB of solid-state disk (SSD) capacity, while at the same announcing that an array originally developed by Nimble Storage that allows IT organizations to make use of Flash memory to copy and backup data is now generally available. HPE completed its acquisition of Nimble Storage last month.
Finally, HPE unveiled StoreOnce CloudBank, backup software that reduces the cost of transferring data into a public cloud by reducing the amount of network bandwidth consumed by over 99 percent, and updated HPE Recovery Manager Central (RMC) software in a way that makes it 15 times faster to recover data. RMC has also been integrated with backup and recovery software from Veeam Software.
Patrick Osborne, senior director of product management and marketing for the HPE Storage Division, says that while there’s still plenty of magnetic disk storage in use today, most new IT projects make use of all-Flash arrays.
“We think 50 percent of data centers will be all-Flash by this time next year,” says Osborne.
A big reason for that shift, says Osborne, is that as data continues to grow exponentially, it becomes more important to tier data in different levels of storage depending on the level of performance required. Because of that issue, Osborne says most IT organizations will wind up managing multiple types of Flash storage spanning everything from a cache connected to memory to hybrid arrays where Flash is used to enhance backup and recovery. The challenge, of course, is not only going to be figuring out what type of Flash storage to deploy when and where, but how to consistently manage it all.
