ANTenna Blog -- Storage

Not too long ago, I spoke with two product managers for HP StorageWorks. One promoted disk backup. One promoted tape backup. There was some middle ground, but one thing they were in lockstep about was the small and mid-market audience for the products. Fast forward a few weeks and guess what? HP is rolling out a SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) option, yet another offering right in the wheelhouse of smaller and growing companies.

In typical HP fashion, when I asked Lee Johns, director, product management for entry storage at HP, he deftly outlined an inclusive spectrum of storage solutions; one that encompasses both the tape backup solutions championed by Bob Conway and the disk options David Rogers advocates. Banishing the specter of any infighting moved the conversation toward what Johns really wanted to discuss -- HP's triumvirate of Fibre Channel, ISCSI, and SAS entry storage arrays. As he noted, these offerings have "various degrees of sophistication" allowing businesses to select the most appropriate option and to leverage existing Fibre Channel infrastructure (if they have it), existing Ethernet infrastructure for ISCSI, the new SAS option, or select a hybrid solution.

Fibre channel is the performance leader offering 4GB and scalability for big-time growth. But that robust performance comes at a cost (both in initial investment and in ongoing management) leading Johns to suggest that "ISCSI is the place to look for first SAN." The ability to use an existing Ethernet infrastructure with ISCSI keeps the infrastructure and management costs minimal, though at 1GB, "you do sacrifice a bit of performance," Johns said.

Don't Miss: More on the Fibre Channel vs. ISCSI SAN battle

The new SAS option is targeted for small environments that need shared storage between servers. And though the storage capacity of the SAS offering is the least robust of the three, it's also the least complex to manage and requires minimal investment. Johns said, "SAS shifts away from physical media and [the HP offering] allows you to have both SAS and physical storage in the same environment. That can be used potentially to do cloning and snapshots of data on a system and maintain a continuous copy of the data -- it's a way to separate a copy of the data from the system it's running on so if a system fails you can still get your data."

Here's the approximate entry point costs for each:

• $4500 SAS
• $5000 iSCSI
• $6000 Fibre Channel

Looking at total sales (i.e., including enterprises), HP now sells about 70% Fibre Chanel and 30% ISCSCI. Johns guess at how that will shift after a year is an even split between ISCSI and SAS at 25% each with Fibre Channel representing the other half of the product pie. His off-the-cuff project specific to the small and mid market was a more even one-third, one-third, one-third allocation.

The key value, according to Johns, HP offers is the spectrum of interoperable solutions -- something he was quick to point out that competitors, such as Dell, do not provide. "The key thing is that they [businesses] now have a single products line with interconnects based upon their requirements. May have silo needs that required Fibre Channel and SAS and they can do that with the same interface. Once you put SAS in place then mix and match with exactly the same interface and user experience."