HP have been pretty [...] ]]> So there we have it.  A week after Dell announce their intention to acquire 3Par, HP put their cards on the table and trump the Dell bid with an updated offer of $24 a share.  This represents a 1/3 increase over the Dell $18/share offer.

HP have been pretty acquisitive in the storage arena over the last few years, acquiring LeftHand, Ibrix and others.  Why now would they want to acquire 3Par?

• Defensive positioning – 3Par being acquired by any of the major vendors could weaken HP’s position in the mid-to-enterprise market.  EVA is a fading product and unlikely to be the first choice for many organisations when choosing a mid-tier storage array (unless you’re an out and out HP shop of course).  Maybe HP felt they had to protect their existing mid-market position.
• Technology Replacement - As I just mentioned, the EVA looks long in the tooth.  Should HP replace or upgrade it?  Acquiring 3Par could be the answer to that problem – use InServ as the EVA replacement.  Goodbye EVA.  Alternatively, 3Par could be a replacement for the XP range of devices that HP OEM from Hitachi.  HDS are being brought closer to the Hitachi family (and making acquisitions of their own) so perhaps this is another defensive move on HP’s part, in case the Hitachi deal unravels.

Whatever the reason, HP & 3Par would create a large overlapping portfolio of similar products.  I’m not sure where the clear strategy would be, or what the marketing message would say; which product is best for enterprise, mid, SME and so on.

Final thought:  Will Dell rebid at a higher price?  Will anyone else come into the bidding?  Storage is clearly still hot acquisition territory.

HP already offer server, storage [...] ]]> Barely a day has gone by since EMC, VMware and Cisco announced their partnership, and now we have a view on HP’s strategy.  Today, HP announce their private cloud offering – Converged Infrastructure Architecture (CIA), putting them squarely head-to-head with the VCE coalition.  So what’s it all about?

HP already offer server, storage and networking infrastructure.  The CIA (nice acronym) brings those technologies together and leverages some of their recent acquisitions.  There are four main “innovations”:

• HP Infrastructure Operating Environment
• HP FlexFabric
• HP Virtual Resource Pools
• HP Data Center Smart Grid

Looking specifically at the Virtual Resource Pools, there are three storage-related offerings:

StorageWorks X9000 Network Storage Systems Family. This is the technology acquired from IBRIX and is being sold in three flavors; X9300 gateway – essentially a NAS head; the X9320 appliance, using SAS/SATA drives; X9720, the high-scaling model.  What’s nice here is that any and all of these offerings can all exist under the same namespace, with options to rebalance and move data dynamically between nodes.

StorageWorks SAN Virtualisation Services Platform. I have to admit I know little nothing about this product, however it looks like an IBM SAN Volume Controller equivalent, pooling and representing fibre channel storage resources.  I first saw mention of it on Stephen Foskett’s blog about the HP Tech Day (had I been able to make the event, I’ve heard about it in person).

StorageWorks Cluster Extension EVA Software For MS Hyper-V Live Migration. This feature provides support for Live Migration – the equivalent of VMware’s VMotion.

Opinion

HP is clearly setting out their position to compete head on with the VCE coalition.  What’s interesting is that this first announcement discusses new storage technologies, rather than the existing XP and EVA ranges.  I’d expect these are not going away, but it would be good to understand how they fit in the overall strategy.  Even more telling is the lack of comment regarding integration at the hypervisor level.  Does this mean HP will offer both VMware and Hyper-V?  Note that the first O/S announcement related to Hyper-V support…

IT is moving to the converged model.  We are seeing a ‘”land grab” for the customers hearts and minds and for the large players to entrench their solutions in the data centres of the future.  What’s not clear is where some of the other big players sit.  IBM can do stuff alone; but what about HDS and Netapp?  At the moment they seem left out in the cold.

I look forward to finding out more on these products in the coming months as all the vendor strategies start to pan out.