Brian recently visited HPE’s headquarters in beautiful downtown Spring, TX. He invited Sanjay Jagad, a good friend of Storagereview.com, to join him for a detailed discussion about storage and HPE Alletra Storage MP. They discussed the factors driving the storage industry today and how MP has impacted storage system construction.
We have a full write-up and long-form video on YouTube to get up to speed on the platform.
This 40-minute podcast covers a wide range of topics, and it is well worth your time if you can spare it. Otherwise, we have time-stamped the recording so you can skip around as needed.
0:00-5:00 Introduction
- HPE Campus Visit & Introduction to Alletra MP Storage
- Brian visits HPE’s headquarters in Texas and introduces the Alletra Storage MP.
- Discuss HPE’s universal storage platform, which separates hardware from operating environments. Provides flexibility and high availability.
- Overview of business benefits and future of storage from HPE’s perspective.
- Evolution of Storage
- Sanjay explains the traditional two-controller storage system and how the market is evolving to meet modern demands, such as increased data and distributed applications.
5:00 -11:00 Introduction to Alletra Storage MP
- HPE’s Reimagined Storage Approach
- Introduction to Alletra MP, HPE’s reimagined storage solution.
- Focus on simplifying hardware designs with modular building blocks and embracing software-defined storage (SDS) for improved scalability.
- Decoupling Hardware and Software
- HPE’s strategy of decoupling hardware from software to stay adaptable to new technologies (e.g., NVMe fabrics, CPUs).
- This allows for independent scaling of compute and storage, giving customers more flexibility.
11:00 -15:00 Scale and Efficiency
- Granular Scalability and Cost Efficiency
- Granular scalability allows customers to add storage or controllers incrementally, preventing overprovisioning and optimizing costs.
- This OPEX-based approach enables customers to pay only for the resources they need at a given time, improving TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).
- Supply Chain Efficiency and Modular Hardware
- HPE’s standardized hardware platform, using non-proprietary components (e.g., AMD CPUs, OCP NICs), ensures quicker adoption of new technologies like Gen 5 SSDs.
- The modular, Lego-like design allows customers to integrate new tech without replacing entire systems.
15:00 -22:00 Availability and Performance
- High Availability and Performance Improvements
- HPE’s stateless controllers ensure seamless failover, offering high availability and performance improvements via the NVMe fabric.
- Customers benefit from dynamic scaling and minimal downtime, crucial for mission-critical workloads.
- Investment Protection through Continuous Upgrades
- Timeless program: HPE ensures that as newer CPUs, memory, and I/O modules are released, they can be integrated seamlessly without requiring a complete system replacement.
- This offers customers future-proofing and investment protection for their infrastructure.
22:00 -26:00 Ability to adapt new technologies
- Adapting to New Technologies and AI-Driven Management
- HPE’s architecture enables rapid adoption of new technologies (e.g., Gen 5 SSDs, DDR5, CXL).
- AI Ops simplifies operations by automating routine tasks such as provisioning, monitoring, and optimizing workloads. This reduces manual effort and speeds up processes.
- Dynamic Workload Management
- The system leverages AI to dynamically adjust infrastructure resources and Kubernetes policies based on workload needs, ensuring SLA compliance and consistent performance.
26:00 -30:00 Unified Hybrid Cloud Control
- Seamless Hybrid Cloud Management
- HPE’s architecture supports seamless hybrid cloud management, allowing customers to control both on-premises and cloud-based resources from a single platform.
- This provides true hybrid cloud flexibility, enabling consistent governance and security across environments.
- Operational Simplicity and Time Savings
- The architecture reduces the time required to provision and manage storage from weeks to minutes.
- With fewer classically trained storage admins, HPE’s platform is easy to use for IT teams, making management more efficient.
30:00 -34:00 Integrating GreenLake
- GreenLake Integration and Service Expansion
- HPE’s GreenLake Cloud Console enables customers to expand their storage services easily, starting with block storage and adding more services like data protection or AI services as needed.
- GreenLake offers a scalable and flexible management platform for customers to adapt their hybrid cloud strategies.
- Reimagining Enterprise Storage
- HPE’s shift from traditional SAN to a universal platform offers greater flexibility and efficiency.
- This approach caters to traditional IT workloads and modern cloud-native applications, meeting a wide range of enterprise needs.
34:00 -40:00 Wrap Up
- Customer Success and Scalability
- Strong customer adoption of Alletra MP, especially among large enterprises looking to standardize on HPE’s platform.
- HPE’s system’s modularity allows for seamless scaling, whether for compute or storage, as customer needs evolve.
- Future Innovation and Flexibility
- HPE continues to innovate with a robust roadmap, promising more functionality and scalability in the near future.
- The focus remains on future-proofing customer infrastructure and addressing dynamic, cloud-native workloads.
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