HP Unveils New ILM Gear, Software

In accordance with its plan to offer a more complete portfolio for information lifecycle management (ILM), HP has rolled out new storage devices and management software.

HP officials said new products from the company’s StorageWorks line include a management software refresh, a new array, HP’s first third-generation tape drive and an optical storage system.

ILM is the practice of managing stored data, such as e-mail files and spreadsheets, from the time they are created until they are ready to be destroyed. ILM is attractive to customers because it proposes to match data with the most appropriate mode of storage.

For example, seldom used documents may be shunted off to low-cost Serial ATA , while more frequently accessed files can be maintained on high-performance Fibre Channel arrays.

ILM is attractive to companies like HP and rivals like IBM and EMC because it gives them a holistic way to sell more products to cost-conscious clients.

Rick Luttrall, chief technology strategist for the Nearline Storage Division at HP, said StorageWorks Data Protector version 5.5 has more than 200 new features to help shuttle data across various storage tiers.

Advanced media perks in the software obviate the need to restore an entire tape or disk during back-up practices, saving time and effort. Migration and consolidation from disk to tape and between different tape types is also possible.

New backup to disk technology provides transaction log file backup and slow client backup, allowing tape virtualization with easy backup resource sharing. Finally, new backup technology mirrors media sets over unlimited distances, improving disaster recovery.

Frank Harbist, vice president and general manager for storage, software and ILM, said the new StorageWorks Modular Smart Array (MSA) 1500 cs provides tiered storage within a single system, supporting SCSI and Serial ATA (SATA) disk enclosures behind a single controller.

Harbist said integrating low-cost, SATA hard drives and enclosures with SCSI drive enclosures offers clients multi-tiered storage in one system, through one pane of glass. Clients can split up data between classes of storage according to performance and reliability.

The MSA1500 supports up to eight attached SATA enclosures and supports 24 terabytes of raw capacity. The HP StorageWorks MSA 1500 cs is available now, starting at $8,995.

HP also unveiled its third-generation Linear Tape-Open (LTO) system, which will compete with LTO drives from IBM and Certance. StorageWorks Ultrium 960 Tape Drive features Write-Once Read-Many (WORM) capability to meet compliance regulations. The drive offers 800 gigabytes (GB) of storage to go with a 160 megabyte per second data transfer rate.

The Ultrium 960 also offers one-button disaster recovery (OBDR) to narrow recovery time. The new Ultrium 960 will begin shipping December 13, with an estimated starting price of $5,549.

Lastly, HP is sprucing up its optical storage offerings with the new StorageWorks Optical 700ux and 1100ux Jukeboxes Optical Jukeboxes, geared for storing files for long retention periods to satisfy compliance regulations. The systems offer direct attached or Fibre Channel connectivity for archival storage from 720 GB to 1.1 terabytes in either WORM or rewritable formats.

The new HP StorageWorks Optical Jukeboxes are available now, starting at $7,975.

Article courtesy of InternetNews.com