ESG Lab Review: HP P4000: Affordable, Scalable, Reliable Storage The Bigger Truth


The use of server virtualization technology is on the rise among organizations of all sizes and in all industries around the world. In a recent ESG survey of IT professionals, 70% of organizations indicated that they have deployed server virtualization technology (51% in production, 19% in test/development), while 17% plan to do so.4 Given the impressive economic benefits of server virtualization, the glut of affordable and under-utilized processing power, and growing power and cooling concerns, ESG predicts that the brisk adoption of server virtualization will continue for the foreseeable future.


Asmore and more applications rely on a server virtualization technology, IT managers are increasingly concerned about the cost, scalability, and reliability of the shared storage infrastructure relied upon by virtual servers to keep applications online. IT managers within small to medium-sized businesses are particularly concerned as they struggle to justify the time and costs of re-architecting existing IT infrastructure. Rock solid reliability, high availability, online scalability, and ease of management are vital concerns as more and more applications rely on a consolidated pool of shared storage.


ESG Lab has verified that the hyper-redundant clustered architecture of the HP P4000 SAN is ideally suited to address these concerns. HP’s Virtual SAN Appliance Software, distributed as an industry standard VMware appliance and available for a free 60 day trial, lowers the cost of getting started. An all-inclusive licensing model, combined with the free VMware ESXi server virtualization stack, lowers the cost of entry even more. ESG Lab leveraged the pay as you grow scalability of the P4000 architecture to upgrade from a cluster of two virtual appliances to four virtual appliances and then again to four physical P4000 Series appliances. A recently published ESRP report that was approved by Microsoft and audited by ESG Lab proves that a single cluster of P4000 SAN appliances can scale to meet the needs of 152,000Microsoft Exchange 2007mailboxes. Last but not least, ESG confirmed that the hyper-redundant P4000 SAN architecture can deliver levels of fault tolerance that are not possible with traditional dual controller disk arrays as the SAN transparently rode through catastrophic node and network failures.


ESG Lab has tested dozens of storage solutions over the past five years. From our first evaluation in 2006 at LeftHand Networks through this most recent review in 2010 at Hewlett Packard, we’ve been impressed with the affordability, scalability, ease of use, and fault tolerance of the P4000 architecture. In particular, ESG Lab is extremely impressed by the 152,000 Microsoft Exchange ERSP result and the ability to non-disruptively upgrade from a virtual to a physical P4000 SAN. Most recently, ESG Lab noted that HP began shipping the G2 version of the P4000 Series hardware platform in February 2010. Once again, HP has made it easy for customers to take advantage of the latest advances in industry standard x86 motherboard and processor technology.


A scale-out clustered architecture that leverages industry standard hardware to create a shared pool of storage is a


simply elegant approach that makes great sense. With a free software trial, an affordable, pay as you grow pricing model and advanced fault tolerance, HP lowers the traditional barriers to entry, cost and risk—of getting started with the HP P4000 SAN.


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4 Source: ESG Research Report, 2010 IT Spending Intentions Survey, January, 2010. 4AA0-9217ENW


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