LAS VEGAS -- Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) customers at the vendors StorageWorks conference here seem excited about new capacity and performance in the much-hyped additions to the family of Enterprise Virtual Arrays (EVAs). (See HP Hoists New Storage Products.) But they're reserving judgment on the overall series.
Scott Erkonen, the managing officer of networking at Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Premier Bankcard, is already planning to consolidate the work of four older HP Enterprise Modular Array (EMA) devices onto a single EVA 8000.
The benefits? Capacity, performance, and, ultimately, cost, according to the exec. Erkonen explains that the EVA 8000 has a capacity of 70 Terabytes, compared to a combined total of 18 Tbytes on the EMAs. The EVA controllers, which govern access to the disks, are also higher performing, according to Erkonen. They can perform more processing and I/O per second, he says.
But consolidation is not just about performance, and Erkonen predicts that a single 8000 could slash his companys support costs. Over the [next] three years, that will save us just over one million dollars, he says.
Kevin Pollock, manager of data center and network services at guitar manufacturer Fender, has also got capacity in mind. With the firms databases growing at a volume of 65 to 70 Gigabytes a month, Pollock is considering usurping his existing EVA 3000 with the 8000 box.
