Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co. further extended its focus on both network attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN) environments with Thursday’s announcement of “across-the-board” enhancements to the HP StorageWorks NAS portfolio.
The new HP StorageWorks NAS solutions and storage services are part of the Mississauga, Ont.-based company’s ENSAextended strategy, which enables users to extend their SAN and NAS investments into a scalable, single, managed storage resource environment, HP said.
Specifically, HP has enhanced its entire HP StorageWorks NAS portfolio via improved connectivity with SAN infrastructure and has slashed prices on most of its offerings. The HP StorageWorks NAS b2000, b3000 and e7000 now utilize the latest technology from the HP ProLiant family of servers, HP said, claiming that this move provides performance increases of up to 20 per cent.
HP unveiled its new storage services – Critical Services for SANs, Data Migration Service, Enhanced SAN Solution Service and Enhanced Backup and Recovery Solution. HP noted the services will assist customers in developing storage architectures. HP also announced a new multi-pathing software in HP NAS Data Path Manager. HP said the software boosts connectivity into SAN environments by allowing path fail-over between host bus adaptors and through load-balancing and performance-monitoring support.
In separate news, HP announced Thursday an Internet protocol (IP) storage solution that enables server and storage connectivity to Fibre Channel storage area networks across an Ethernet network. According to HP, the solution provides a low-cost entry point to IP storage by extending the benefits of existing SANs to isolated “stranded” servers through IP networks.
More HP details can be found at www.hp.com/storage/infrastructure.