HPE Brings File Storage to Alletra Storage with Help from VAST Data

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is advancing the storage management capabilities of HPE GreenLake with a new scalable file storage offering. Besides introducing file storage to its Alletra Storage portfolio, HPE has enhanced its block storage and added data protection services.

Until now, HPE’s Alletra Storage MP didn’t support file storage. To bring file storage to Alltera, HPE on Tuesday announced a partnership with VAST Data. HPE has integrated VAST Data’s Disaggregated, Shared-Everything (DASE) scale-out platform with Alltera Storage MP.

According to Vast Data, its NVMe-over-Fabrics (NVMe-oF) transforms commodity data center networks into scalable storage fabrics that combine the performance of NVMe-based direct-attached storage (DAS) with the efficiency of shared storage infrastructure.

“By using VAST Data software within HPE GreenLake for File Storage, we are able to deliver a scale-out file service, designed to accelerate data-intensive workloads, which can be managed via the HPE GreenLake platform,” HPE executive VP Tom Black said.

HPE is running VAST Data’s software on its Alletra Storage MP hardware. HPE describes VAST’s DASE as software that provides a disaggregated, shared-everything architecture designed to scale to exabytes of data. According to HPE, the software can eliminate hardware silos.

With the new release, HPE GreenLake can manage both block storage for structured data and file storage for unstructured information.

HPE’s Omer Asad

“This allows us to give you a simplified single-pane-of-glass data management experience,” said Omer Asad, general manager of HPE’s cloud data services and storage, during a media and analyst briefing. “Because it brings an integrated cloud operational model to all those services, administrators can manage them from anywhere,” he explained.

Administrator Options

Administrators don’t have to log into each block and file storage system, Asad continued, though they have the option.

“A majority of our customers are moving to a cloud operational model,” Asad said. “HPE GreenLake platform gives them a very simple pane of glass to manage across their architecture from a single environment.”

HPE product marketing executive David Yu noted that HPE GreenLake for File Storage adds performance and scale to data-intensive workloads.

“For file-based, data-intensive applications, IT leaders need a different approach to storage — one that delivers a cloud experience everywhere, runs all workloads on a single infrastructure, maximizes performance at scale, and expedites setup and job completion,” Yu noted in a blog. “HPE GreenLake for File Storage uses precisely this approach to empower organizations to speed data-first modernization.”

Meanwhile, the block storage enhancements added to HPE Alletra MP include the ability to deploy it in mission-critical environments. It’s a usage-based service where customers pay based on consumption with a 100% data availability guarantee.

“It’s built on top of the industry’s first scale-out disaggregated architecture,” Asad said.

HPE now gives customers a 100% data availability guarantee with standard support.

A Partner-First Platform

Patrick Osborne, general manager of cloud data infrastructure storage, said partners would almost exclusively deliver the new offering.

HPE’s Patrick Osborne

“The GreenLake cloud platform is designed from the ground up as a partner lead and partner-first platform,” Osborne said.

Because the platform can scale, Osborne said it’s suited for SMB customers to the largest of enterprises. He said that partners familiar with HPE’s Aruba Central would find the delivery model for its latest services similar.

Osborne emphasized that HPE wants its partners to build their own life cycle and data services from HPE GreenLake.

“Many of our partners not only transact and help customers purchase and acquire these solutions and install them, but they also help manage them,” he said. “We want our partners to be able to manage their customers through the portal.”

Osborne noted HPE is rolling out new sales tools for customers that manage their own storage, including its “opportunity engine.” Osborne said the sales would simplify procurement with new architecture and sizing capabilities.

“We are 100% in on our distribution partners and our reseller partners,” Osborne said. “With the GreenLight cloud platform, we imagine that almost the entirety of our business will be partner-led in this in this segment.”