HP Stirs Midrange Mix

The midrange storage array mlée just got a little more fierce: Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) announced a number of enhancements to its EVA family today, including extending capabilities once limited to its high-end EVA5000 array to the midrange EVA3000 array (see HP Enhances EVA Family).

The Palo Alto computer giant announced that it has extended the long-distance asynchronous replication and disaster recovery functions available with its StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) 5000 to its midrange array as well.

“This is not available on most arrays, at least ones the size of the 3000,” says David Fitch, lead of HP’s EVA product marketing.

HP’s announcement is another thrust in the battle for midrange storage systems, which is the fastest-growing segment of the market (see HP, IBM Muscle Up Midrange). According to the latest Byte and Switch Insider report, HP is trailing IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) and EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) in terms of the capabilities of its midrange storage products (see Home on the Midrange).

HP's new offering could be a step in the right direction. By offering continuous remote copying capabilities on its EVA3000 as well as the EVA5000, Fitch says HP is enabling companies that haven’t been able to afford remote replication the opportunity to do so. And since the EVA3000’s new remote copy functions work with the same functions on the EVA5000, large organizations can also now use a mix of the two to more cheaply replicate data between their primary site and smaller branch offices.