HP seeks to strike the right cord with LeftHand

Making an aggressive pitch for a larger share of the estimated $450 million plus Indian data storage market, Hewlett Packard (HP) has launched new shared storage solutions based on technologies it gained through the acquisition of LeftHand Networks late last year.

That the company chose Bangalore to make the announcement for the Asia-Pacific launch, which will be followed by a road show of 10 other cities across the country, is a recognition of the fact that India is the only market which is showing signs of healthy growth in storage solutions.

The volumes of emails, online transactions and business data are increasing at a fast rate in India as elsewhere in the world which is increasing the demand for storage which is also being driven by latest industry buzz like virtualisation, IT consolidation and cloud computing. The market for storage products and software in India is estimated to be around $450 million currently. About two-thirds of this is in the small and medium business (SMB) segment.

According to industry tracker Gartner Inc, the domestic market will grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13% through 2011, making it the fastest growing market in the Asia Pacific.

According to a senior industry professional, data usage is doubling every year in India and is estimated to have generated 60,000 terra bytes in 2008 compared with 30,000 terra bytes in 2007.

Going forward, Web 2.0, regulatory compliance, and animation and video streaming will be the demand drivers for storage products.

Clearly the stakes are high for companies like HP and IBM which are competing hard in countries like India for a larger share of the data centre space.  However, the roll out of the LeftHand Networks solutions by HP in India adds a new dimension to the competition.

Announcing the launch, Bill Chambers, vice-president StorageWorks Division LeftHand Networks, which is the new company formed by HP after the acquisition of the LeftHand, claimed the technology would change the economics of the data centre drastically providing solutions ideal for the current economic situation.

Chambers, a co-founder president and CEO of LeftHand, sold off the company in an all cash $360 million deal to HP last November.

The iSCSI or the Internet SCSI (small computer system interface), based LeftHand P4000 storage area network (SAN), solution launched by HP, allows customers scale up  storage capacities as required at cost 33% cheaper than competition and at a pricing model that allows them to pay as they grow inclusive of the software, Chambers said.

The iSCSI SAN is an internet protocol based storage networking system pioneered by LeftHand in 1999 for linking data storage facilities over computer intranets and other larger area networks. It is among the key technologies expected to bring about rapid development and deployment of virtualised storage data transmission.

The iSCSI San market is expected to increase at a 25% compounded annual growth rate through 2013 according to IT research firm IDC with server virtualisation beign a key driver of this growth. 

Significantly, HP will also offer the new technology with its ProCurve switches and ProLiant servers which will be available as bundles for customers to choose from, said Amit Malhotra, manager for volume storage of HP's StorageWorks Division, India.

Pricing will start at Rs 2.5 lakh per terabyte, he added. According to IDC statistics quoted by HP, the global iSCSI market, which was estimated at $916 million in 2007 grew to $1.375 billion in 2008 and is projected to reach $3.365 billion by 2012 growing at a CAGR of 36.7% making it the fastest growing segment of the storage market. Interestingly the largest chunk of this is in the Asia-Pacific region which will account for $433 million in 2009 and project to be $624 million in 2010.