Industry major HP has rolled out an ambitious storage strategy with the aim
of capturing the immense potential that lies in emerging markets like India. The
company’s strategy comes close on the heels of an Aberdeen Group study, which
states that the worldwide storage management market will grow at a compound
annual growth rate of 27% and will reach $21 billion by 2005. The report is a
clear pointer that storage-related investments would consume much of enterprise
IT spending in coming times. Not surprisingly, storage vendors like HP are
gunning for a major marketshare in this segment.
A storage federation
Storage, despite being a critical factor, has never found its rightful
place in the MIS policy of companies so far. This is mainly due to lack of
awareness about storage options and the fact that it is not considered a
mission-critical element. In fact, it is often a crisis that leads to
a storage policy. However, there’s a growing consensus now among CIOs about
the need for a proactive storage policy, and many consider it as a key
component of the organization’s IT infrastructure. But evolving a storage
policy is not an easy task–it involves taking stock of the companies’ entire
IT hardware and software infrastructure, and issues like the consolidation of
disparate systems into one storage repository can be quite daunting. Here’s
where HP’s Federated Storage Area Management (FSAM) strategy comes in.
The FSAM Advantage |
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Explains Subroto Das, marketing manager, Network Storage Solutions Operations
(NSSO), HP Asia Pacific, "The federated storage area management strategy
consists of three components — storage management, storage virtualization and
storage capacity. If these three aspects are managed properly, it increases
storage efficiency by 10 times," adds Das.
The very aim of the FSAM strategy is to bring in consolidation and continuity
in the storage demands of the enterprise. The key feature of the strategy lies
in the scale-out architecture, which enables easy scaling up and down of storage
capacities as per the requirement, without disrupting operations. Scaling is
considered as a major challenge before modern day storage, the success factor
here depends on creating a flexible yet robust architecture that facilitates
easy scaling. The FSAM agenda then is to integrate a network of modular
appliances through storage software, subsystems, and services. Here, the key
binding factor is the storage virtualization aspect, which enables storage to be
managed as a single logical entity even when the storage capacities are
physically distributed across various geographies. This ideal storage network is
termed as the federation of storage resources.
According to an analyst at Aberdeen Group, " Federated storage assumes
significance for HP, because it scales beyond a storage area network. FSAM
builds toward an infrastructure that includes an efficiently administrated group
of appliances and subsystems that is integrated with the storage management
services. This creates a scalable environment of multi-platform storage
resources."
Strategic moves
To become a one-stop storage vendor through FSAM, HP has made some strategic
moves. The company has acquired Storage Apps, a storage virtualization company,
and teamed forces with Adaptec for iSCSI (IP Small Computer Systems Interface)
Ethernet storage area network (SAN) connectivity. With an ambitious strategy
under its sleeve, HP is consolidating its channel partner network across India,
with a renewed focus on storage solutions. The company has identified software
houses, SMB’s (small and medium-sized businesses), financial institutions and
defense establishments as major storage buyers.
The FSAM strategy has given HP a major fillip. Observes Avijit Basu,
marketing manager, NSSO, HP India, "With FSAM in place, we are firmly
positioned to deliver storage products, solutions and services that will enable
enterprises to achieve a stress free storage environment."
G Shrikanth in Chennai