Hewlett Packard Enterprise has rolled out a new licensing model and new features for its 3PAR all-flash storage solutions.
Under the new licensing scheme, 3PAR customers get all of the software features associated with a new solution for one flat rate, instead of having to order specific add-ons and capabilities on an item by item basis. According to Palo Alto, Calif.-based HPE, that all-inclusive licensing reduces purchasing costs for 3PAR systems by up to 30 percent.
The new licensing structure applies both to existing 3PAR software and to the new systems and functionality that HPE announced today. First among those is an enhanced version of HPE’s Recovery Manager Central (RMC) application that backs up data 23 times faster, restores it 7 times faster, and consumes 9 times fewer CPU resources than a comparable competitive offering from a leading unnamed competitor, according to internal HPE testing.
The updated RMC release will also include new snapshotting technology that lets administrators replicate data on 3PAR arrays to either physical or virtual HPE StoreOnce backup appliances. A new edition of StoreOnce for Microsoft Azure will enable businesses to replicate 3PAR backups to the cloud as well.
Also new to the latest edition of RMC is a component called Peer Copy that lets businesses protect software-defined data on system-defined hardware by enabling bi-directional movement of snapshot data between HPE’s StoreVirtual VSA software-defined storage solution and 3PAR arrays.
Both Peer Copy and RMC’s snapshotting enhancements will be available in the second quarter of 2017, HPE says, while the new Microsoft Azure version of StoreOnce VSA will be available during Q1 for $1,400 and up.
Arriving in Q1 as well is a new 3.3.1 release of 3PAR OS, the operating system that powers 3PAR arrays, which HPE says will reduce latency over iSCSI connections by up to 40 percent. That update will also include an enhanced version of 3PAR’s File Persona technology that delivers automated provisioning, cross-protocol file sharing, and significantly greater scalability.
HPE also unveiled a new 3PAR feature called Adaptive Data Reduction today that utilizes a combination of deduplication and compression to reduce storage capacity requirements by as much as 75 percent.
The new StoreVirtual functionality introduced today follows a series of scalability, file storage, and networking capabilities added to HPE’s StoreVirtual 3200 storage system last month. Equipped with 64-bit ARM processors and dual controllers, that product is designed to bring features found on products aimed at large businesses within reach of SMBs as well.
