HP fleshes out faster, flashier 3PAR storage gear HP is opening its Discover Conference in Barcelona today with a revved-up deduping backup array; a faster-searching array; and a faster flash 3PAR array: a StoreOnce, StoreAll and StoreQuicker, if you like. We’ll look at the 3PAR arrays first with a second article looking at the updated StoreAll and StoreOnce products. …
Not sure who gets their numbers from where, but I am staring at an IDC chart right now showing protocol market share and it shows that FC is the fastest DECLINING protocol and by the end of 2013, which is now, it will be overtaken by NAS (NFS, CIFS and SMB). Additionally iSCSI is increasing significantly as well in the chart. This makes more sense as with 10Gb E you can run your applications that require block on iSCSI and everything else on NFS, CIFs, SMB. With the cost of dedicated FC SAN and specialized skills it requires, I find it hard to believe HP's statement that "FC SAN is the the largest and fastest growing mid-range protocol". It just makes no sense at all and the IDC chart I am looking at says the same thing. Sounds like the the HP spin doctors have overspun their analysis.
"..dedicated FC SAN and specialized skills..."
FC is extremely simple compared to almost any IP network. That is partly the reason why we never see any sort of downtime in our SAN. The story is not so bright when it comes to IP where the ever growing complexity leads to a lot of human errors. Also it seems that the FC manufacturers(except Cisco) are not so eager to release shiny new functionality with a lot of bugs.
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A few more comments on HP Spin Doctors statements.
“Looking at products in the midrange FC market, HP 3PAR is gaining massive market share with 296.2 per cent growth YoY - yes, no kidding, last year 3PAR's market share was 2%, so simply by converting your EVA install base to 3PAR by attrition would give you better numbers than this. They are simply converting share from EVA to 3PAR. It is not like they are taking share from EMC, IBM, NetApp, Dell Hitachi etc.
In this area (FC), HP’s 3PAR arrays have overtaken NetApp - No kidding here either - NetApp is 50% FC / 50% NAS sale with their products, where 3PAR is 100% block, this is not a surprise either as they are comparing apples to oranges. If you look at the current IDC open networked storage chart which combines NAS and SAN. EMC is #1, NetApp is #2, IBM is #3 and HP is, wait for it, #4 with Dell and Hitachi bringing up the rear at #5 and #6.
HP is comparing thier FC share to everyone else's, not all networked (FC, iSCSI, NFS, CIFs, SMB FCOe) to everyone else's. If they did that they are #4. (from #2, 5 years ago and have been declining ever since)
"They are simply converting share from EVA to 3PAR. It is not like they are taking share from EMC, IBM, NetApp, Dell Hitachi etc."
This assumes that all of those thousands of EVA Customers are all clamoring to replace their EVA's and are so loyal to HP they immediately roll in a 3PAR arrays. Whereas the vast majority of EVA's still have plenty of life and very few Customers hand over a PO without some form of competitive bid, so growth is either net new or someone else's Customer. As for the above, I've won deals with 3PAR against all in many cases where EMC & Netapp have been long term incumbents.
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While I don't doubt that you have displaced EMC, IBM, NetApp, Dell Hitachi etc. with 3PAR, the numbers tell the tale. EMC and NetApp market share for open systems SAN and NAS have both steadily increased over the past 5 years, while IBM and HP have declined and Dell and Hitach have remained flat. That said, HP is losing share to someone and according to the chart it is EMC and NetApp.
EVA's go back many years and while many EVA's have "plenty of life" left in them, when any storage, HP or otherwise, gets to years 4, 5 and beyond in maintenance, it is generally less expensive to refresh than to continue maintenance on a 4 year or older box. That said, there are definitely enough 3 year or older EVA's out there to generate the sales growth 3PAR is touting, especially considering HP storage used to be #2 in market share even though they have now declined to #4.
"That said, there are definitely enough 3 year or older EVA's out there to generate the sales growth 3PAR is touting"
Repeating it won't make it true, your'e judging the growth of a product (3PAR Storserv 7000) that has been on the market for <12 months and hence HP's growth over that period vs what EMC and Netapp have achieved over a 5 year period. 3PAR didn't have a competitive midrange product before that point, so of more interest is what's happened in the last 9 months and where that will lead in the next 12-18.
Netapp are stuck between 7 mode and cluster with no flash story in sight, EMC have a huge aging and disjointed portfolio yet somehow manage to maintain a straight face whilst marketing Clariion era tech as new product. 3PAR StoreServ provides HP with a single family that is extremely competitive from SME through high end. as such HP are very well positioned to accelerate growth.
EMC have a huge aging and disjointed portfolio yet somehow manage to maintain a straight face whilst marketing Clariion era tech as new product. - I do agree with your EMC statement, not sure how they continue to have the market share they have with products like VNX, VNXe which are basically Frankenstein style of the old Clariion product and other products.
Netapp are stuck between 7 mode and cluster with no flash story in sight. - A few comments on this; NetApp has the EF540 all Flash Array and is currently #2 in Networked Flash Storage market share with that product behind Pure. Also while 7-mode is still supported and shipping for the foreseeable future there is nothing stuck, Cluster is generally how any new implementations are installed and where 7-mode customers are migrating to when they refresh their storage.
Last one for now. HP claims #2 on the latest IDC Storage Tracker, the third quarter one, rates suppliers on total disk storage revenue market share percentage. Problem is again that they are comparing apples to oranges as this includes direct attached and internal storage. HP sells far more servers than Dell and IBM and EMC and NetApp don't even sell servers at all, so a big chunk of this share goes to HP. It's like saying HP sells more laptops than EMC and NetApp, no kidding because EMC and NetApp don't sell laptops. Nice try again HP spin doctors, but according to IDC, where everyone competes on a level paying field Open Networked combined NAS and SAN markets, you are still #4 and have declined from 9.8% share this time last year to 8.1% now, according to the latest IDC chart.
I suspect it is so that they can recover the expense from the bidding war they had with Dell to acquire 3PAR. Dell's initial accepted bid for 3PAR was $1.15B and after the bidding war HP paid $2.35B, so sounds like they overpaid by about $1B, so they have to pay for that somehow and also keep their profits up to make up for their 7% decline in storage market share over the past 5 years.
Because 3PAR is in a different class to EVA, it is a much more powerful system, (4 controllers tend to cost more than two) has many more features (which are optional) that just aren't available on EVA and in many cases aren't available or to the same standard in competing products
Don't include all of the bells and whistles and you'll see similar pricing to EVA. Similarly if you compare 3PAR to its direct competition and you do a true apples for apples comparison then you'll see very similar pricing. All of the vendors operate in the same market segment, so if pricing is way off, then your doing apples to oranges or someone's pulling the wool over your eyes.
It's mostly because they can -- you get SIGNIFICANTLY more out of a 3PAR system than you can an EVA system. Massive consolidation is possible.
Per unit parts may cost more, but you should end up saving quite a bit(or at least break even) because the # of those parts you have to buy to serve a given workload is significantly less.
And for the AC posting - note that 3PAR has had iSCSI support going back at least 7 years now, in the past year or so they added 10GbE iSCSI+FCoE.
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