Last week HP announced their new 3PAR P10000 array, which is the next generation virtualization array. It features a number of enhancements over their previous generation, released when 3PAR was still independent. Today at VMware vmworld HP had an unveiling of the P10000 and former 3PAR CEO David Scott was present. David Scott is now in charge of the HP StorageWorks division, if you didn’t know.
Some of the enhancements of the v-Class include:
- New 4th Generation 3PAR ASIC which performs much of the controller magic. Each controller node has two ASICs, which triple the bandwidth over the previous T-class controllers.
- Support new host-facing connectivity to include FCoE, 10Gb iSCSI, and 8Gb FC. No more PCI-X slots!
- HP Peer Motion to move LUNs non-disruptively between arrays.
- Redesigned cabinet where all cabling now comes out of the rear of the cabinet for better cable management.
- Greatly increased transactional and sequential throughput.
- Future support for SAS connectivity.
- Major new software version, 3.1.1, which will support the new vSphere 5.0 VAAI and VASA extensions.
I was lucky enough after the unveiling to meet David Scott and talk with him for a few minutes, as a happy customer of 3PAR customer. I look forward to the 3.1.1 release on our T400, which will play very nicely with vSphere 5.0 and provide even better storage support.
