HP's SAS BL Switch Demonstrates the System-Vendor Advantage in Integrated Solutions

In light of the current economic climate, integrated IT offerings have once again become a market focus. Many IT planners are considering packaged offerings for their specific IT requirements over assembling custom solutions in an open and standardized fashion with best-of-breed technology components. While integrated solution packages, once negatively perceived as “proprietary,” may increase single-vendor dependency, they also typically bring a higher level of out-of-box optimization and often certified service-level assurance.

Such integrated IT offerings are specialized solution packages that provide all the hardware, software, and services elements in a pre-integrated delivery. These offerings often break the traditional boundaries of the IT vendors’ various product lines. For example:

• IBM’s XIV System features an unconventionally designed hardware frame with distributed cache and CPU in disk modules (up to 15 multicore CPUs with an 1:12 CPU to disk ratio) that are managed by a grid-based software.
• HP’s StorageWorks 9100 Extreme Data Storage System (ExDS9100) integrates a blade system and storage into a rack using the PolyServe Matrix Server cluster (up to 16 blade nodes with direct data I/O to disks).
• EMC’s Atmos Cloud Optimized Storage integrates servers and storage into Hulk or Titan racks (with server to disk ratios of 1:15 to 1:60). The solution runs MAUI software, which is architected for global cloud computing.

The renewed interest in proprietary approaches also creates an opportunity for system vendors to leverage their integration expertise and sophisticated server-side technologies as a competitive advantage to overcome storage vendors. In fact, HP has just provided the perfect example of this notion with the newly introduced HP BladeSystem SAS BL Switch, another I/O module option in its BladeSystem Virtual Connect solution.

The SAS BL Switch not only directs SAS I/O from blades to HP MSA2000sa disk arrays, but also enables the virtual sharing of an MSA2000sa array among up to 16 blades (the native hard-partitioning of the MSA2000sa only accommodates two SAS hosts per array). The SAS BL Switch represents a step forward in direct-attached storage (DAS) implementation. It delivers the ability to virtually share  resources  – similar to the ability provided by SANs, but without the holistic, network-based storage management. Further, on the day of the HP BladeSystem product release, the SAS BL Switch was also added into the solution delivery of the ExDS9100. The SAS BL Switch is now part of the standard ExDS9100 solution configuration, which further enhances the overall cost-effectiveness of the ExDS9100 solution.

Note the practical cost-effectiveness of these specialized solutions would vary per customer environment and storage vendors may still be able to deliver superior value in many cases. However, the rapid integration of the latest server-side innovations into existing solutions from system vendors does provide an edge in some competitive sales encounters, as well as a general comfort level to customers, especially those who favor the proprietary solution delivery today.