HP adds cross-bar switch to SAN

HP targets Solaris market with new product, service offerings

SINGAPORE - HP Asia has launched a new initiative for storage consolidation, an offering including disk arrays, tape libraries, web-based storage area network (SAN) management tools for the Solaris environment, where it had previously only catered to the Windows NT and HP UX environments.

HP also released the XP512, which is scalable to 512 disks, 24 tera-bytes (with 47 GB drives) and 928 host connects when used in a switched SAN configuration. The XP512 also comes with an internal 6/4 GB/s crossbar switch and 32 GB fully mirrored cache.

Cross-bar switching is technology taken from the server world, incorporating the use of electromagnetic switches which link front-end server connections to back-end disk arrays. It is expected to double or even triple the speed of disk storage arrays, replacing conventional bus-based technology.

HP said that its storage system will allow clients to support multiple companies, because the cross bar provides dedicated bandwidth for different applications, something that bus-based systems were not able to do.

Also packaged in the offering is a web-based graphical management interface (HP SureStore E Command), leveraging off Java technology, in addition to providing high-availability clustering and zero downtime backup solutions/services for the XP disk arrays.

HP makes use of hardware technology from Hitachi, but said that it distinguishes itself from the company in its use of software management tools as well as services provided.