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What's that rumbling sound? It's HP preparing to deliver truckload of storage products

Barcelona launch to StoreServ you right

File Persona and StoreAll

The 3PAR File Persona features a HP unique Object Access API that enables REST API-based access to files over HTTP for custom cloud applications. It includes a full set of operations to create, retrieve, and delete files/directories as well as to set attributes and custom metadata (Stephen Bacon)

We asked HP some questions to understand File Persona's positioning better, and Stephen Bacon, Senior Manager for File and Object Storage Product Management and Marketing, provided the answers:

El Reg: How does this relate to the StoreAll software from the 8800 which supports NFS, CIFS and SMB, NDMP, HTTP and HTTPS, WebDAV, FTP and FTPS, StoreAll REST API File Compatibility Mode and Object Mode. Native OpenStack Swift and Keystone are also supported.

Stephen Bacon: HP StoreAll Storage and the StoreAll OS is intelligent archive storage for established and new generation archive applications. HP StoreAll is a sibling of HP StoreOnce Backup. HP StoreAll Storage and HP StoreOnce Backup are both built from a single BURA-optimised architecture. [BURA stands for BackUp, Recovery and Archiving.]

In comparison, the HP 3PAR File Persona, a new licensed feature of the 3PAR OS, extends the primary storage workloads natively addressed by HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage to now include client workloads such as home directory consolidation, group/department shares, corporate shares, and custom cloud applications.

El Reg: Is File Persona based on the StoreAll software?

Stephen Bacon: No. The HP 3PAR File Persona is based on a new generation codebase designed for client workloads that is implemented as a licensed feature of the 3PAR OS.

El Reg: If not, where does the object storage come from and what is its feature set?

Stephen Bacon: The 3PAR File Persona features a HP unique Object Access API that enables REST API-based access to files over HTTP for custom cloud applications. It includes a full set of operations to create, retrieve, and delete files/directories as well as to set attributes and custom metadata.

El Reg: Does it use erasure coding for example?

Stephen Bacon The Object Access API provides REST API-based access to files. It does not store data as objects.

El Reg: Does HP still need the 8200 Gateway storage product which adds a 3PAR backend to StoreAll?

Stephen Bacon Yes.

El Reg: So if it does, then how is it positioned in comparison with the File Persona software?

Stephen Bacon: The 3PAR File Persona extends the primary storage workloads natively addressed by HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage to now include client workloads such as home directory consolidation, group/department shares, corporate shares, and custom cloud applications.

HP StoreAll Storage, in comparison, is intelligent archive storage for established and new generation archive applications. Customers seeking to leverage 3PAR StoreServ Storage for their archive requirements, in part or in whole, can do so leveraging the HP StoreAll 8200 Gateway. The HP StoreAll 8200 Gateway can be seamlessly clustered with HP StoreAll Storage as part of a scale-out archive storage infrastructure.

Two File Persona points

In the use cases where File Persona renders both the 8200 Gateway Storage HW/SW and the 3PAR File Services HW/SW redundant then, indeed, quite a degree of convergence has been achieved.

One thing to note with HP adding object storage access to StoreServ is that this is something that NetApp has not been able to add to its ONTAP arrays, having a separate StorageGRID product (like the StoreAll 8800) instead. EMC can add object storage to its VNX and VMAX arrays by using its ViPR product which comes with an object data service. Neither Dell nor IBM have in-house object storage technology.

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