Author’s note: This post was also cross-published on my own site as well.
I just got word this morning from a co-worker that HP has announced it will buy LeftHand Networks for about $360 million. The official HP news release can be found here on the HP web site.
It will be interesting to see how HP integrates the LeftHand offerings into their existing storage product lines—the All-in-One (AiO), Modular Smart Array (MSA), and Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) product lines. Based on HP’s news release, it looks like they envision the LeftHand products fitting in between the AiO/MSA at the low end and the EVA at the high end.
With the purchase of EqualLogic by Dell and today’s acquisition of LeftHand by HP, it looks like all the small iSCSI-focused startups are getting acquired by system vendors. Does this signal a trend?
2 responses so far ↓
1 HP Picks Up iSCSI Contender, LeftHand Networks - Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat // Oct 1, 2008 at 12:01 pm
[...] both validated their products and offered a new market of disaffected users. The bigger question is how HP will integrate LeftHand’s software with its own line of storage systems. Share this [...]
2 blackmjr // Oct 2, 2008 at 1:08 pm
For enterprise customers, I don’t think it will impact them much at all. The question that comes to mind is why do I need another array to do what the others provided by HPO should already do?
Maybe, HP can learn from LeftHand and integrate their IP into the MSA thus providing a solution similar to NetApp’s protocol stack (iSCSI, FC, and CIFS/NFS) bundle.
My point is why do I need a specific array for iSCSI and one for FC (hmmmm, will we need one for FCOE)? It makes sense from a vendors POV to have something of everthing and then sell me one of them all too. But from a customers POV, I would rather see integration and cohesive management across the platforms.
I have a beef with most all storage vendors that provide a modular and monolithic array offering where I have to use different tools for the different classes of arrays (provisioning, replication, etc.). Make it easier for me the customer, and I might give you kudos for leading the pack.
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