Good for HDS - only 11 months behind EMC. At least this will put a stop to HP's boasts about investigating solid state and letting the market know when it's ready for prime time, while in the mean time EMC continues to sell around them.

This brings up another question. DS8000 enterprise class.

I beg your pardon. Why is the DS8000 considered enterprise class?

1. because it costs a lot of money?

2. because IBM tells you it is?

3. because it connects to mainframe?

4. Because journalists like a level playing field so that they have something to write about.

Personally, I look at all storage arrays and consider them enterprise class if they have scalability and functionality. That very little new functionality has come out in the DS8000 series for 5 years makes me think that this product appears to be a dead man walking.

Oh, go on, don't hold back! Well, IBM do manage to sell a few of those pesky DS8000 into enterprise enviornments, so I suppose it fits the "enterprise" moniker, but I'd have to agree with it being behind the field. I also agree that HP have been late getting SSDs to market compared to EMC, but then again I still think the whole SSD thing in the enterprise is still getting there rather than being the norm. But EMC definately got some mindshare by looking proactive, and I still haven't seen SSDs in the EVA range yet which is where I'd want them.