The hole in HP Matrix' storage heart HP's Matrix has a great plus over Cisco's California and a big fat minus as well. It has a hole in its storage heart. Matrix goes very much farther than Cisco in unifying storage, iSCSI storage and the servers and networking, but not so far as Cisco in unifying networking, particularly storage networking. In fact there is a …
I wasnt aware FCoE was ratified yet (although I could be wrong), probably why HP hasnt included it as of yet?
Also you are forgetting that FCoE will require a new backbone which means if you go for it you basically will have to rip and replace your entire infrastructure. This seems a little more plausible as a migration type solution (use what you currently have in a different way) and then migrate up as and when you need to as opposed to Cisco's "our way or no way"!
"Considering that virtually every mainstream storage supplier positions Fibre Channel as the SAN style for enterprises, with iSCSI the SAN protocol outside the data centre, this limits Matrix' appeal."
Not sure what this means since there is an 8Gb Virtual Connect I/O module.
As already indicated, FCoE is not yet ratified as a standard. Cisco has effectively "jumped the gun" with its FCoE offering which may or may not meet the final FCoE specification.
For those of us with long memories who recall the mess we had with fibre channel products prior to ratification, I can understand why some vendors, inlcuding HP are reticent to release products right now.
FCoE is the future - so's electric cars - but we won't all go out and buy one now will we?
It is amazing how much belief is being put into the notion that FCoE will suddenly unify and transform the data center interconnect. Do people really think that the storage network and public network will or actually ought to run over the same wire, separated solely by a differentitation based on shims and headers? Look at the breakin to the F-35 development, the only thing that saved the real secrets is the fact that they were stored on a system physically isolated from the public network. Furthermore, who thinks that existing storage and networking gear that currently does the job pretty damn well will be thrown out in favor of new hardware on a single wire? HP could quickly add FCoE to the existing solution, and when it is as secure as physically separate networks, and there is an actual need for it, maybe in 5 years, I am sure they will do it. Right now it is Cisco's marketing hook to try and sell their UCS
spoke to some attending the HP Technology Event in Belin and they confirmed that the reason why FCoE is not in the Matrix is because it hasn't been ratified and HP policy is only to support ratified standards. Once it is ratified (if it is) then it will be on the roadmap for Matrix as long as business needs it.
Yeah, HP has *never* supported anything that's not ratified. Yawn. They wouldn't happen sell any proprietary mid-range systems that they make huge margins on. Never.
Anyway, this whole announcement is yawn. If Unifying storages means a bunch of isolated disks plugged into my blade slots, then you can keep it. No thanks HP.
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