Responding to recent Wall Street rumblings, Hewlett-Packard Co says that it is not buying Data General Corp, Hitachi Data Systems Ltd or Storage Technology Corp, and that its OEM relationship with EMC Corp is alive and well. We have no change to our current relationship with EMC who are our exclusive high end array partner…Our lineup continues to be: EMC Symmetrix at high end, the OEM relationship with Data General [Clariion subsystems] in mid-range and HP-designed AutoRAID and JBOD [‘Just a Bunch Of Disks’ that lack a RAID processor]. HP said it considered buying a storage company when it began re-evaluating its storage strategy around a year ago, but quickly dismissed the notion. It doesn’t know where the notion it was interested in Storage Technology came from. HP says it does plan to increase the amount of HP intellectual in its solution, probably by increasing the number of storage components it OEMs into its own solutions. HP currently OEMs Data General’s Clariion array subsystem technology but offers them under its own brand. It does not resell Clariion directly. HP says all of its current online (JBODs, RAID arrays) and offline (DLT Tape Libraries) are supported on Fibre Channel storage area networks. The Model FC30, Symmetrix arrays and FC1010D Storage System (JBOD) through direct FC connect and the Model 12H AutoRAID and all DLT Tape Libraries through Fibre Channel-to-SCSI Multiplexor. It supports multiple and cascaded Fibre Channel Hubs to form a Storage Area Networks. It also claims its FC Storage Area Network can operate over distances of 10km for disaster recovery solutions: HA clustering with MC/ServiceGuard and Microsoft Wolfpack provides support for sites up to 6 miles apart. HP’s enterprise storage solutions division is headed by general manager Marilyn Edling, who reports to enterprise systems and software group VP Bill Russell. David Scott is Edling’s worldwide marketing manager; Dave Hoover runs R&D.
