HP Extends Windows-based NAS Portfolio

HP plans to announce another expansion to its network-attached storage machine line next week at Microsoft’s Tech-Ed 2003, where it will unveil the StorageWorks NAS 1000 product for remote offices and small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

The news reinforces HP’s longstanding partnership with Microsoft . The Palo Alto, Calif. vendor’s NAS device is tailored to run on Windows operating environments, the dominant platform in the industry.

HP’s product expansion also illustrates the growing trend among vendors to sell enterprise-strength product lines to entry-level markets, providing capacity of higher-end products at prices for smaller business budgets.

HP StorageWorks boxes, such as the NAS 1000, deliver a key part of HP’s
ENSAextended strategy to providing storage hardware that carries out the
elements of HP’s broader “Adaptive Enterprise,” where business needs are met
by more intuitive computer systems that are automated, intelligent and
operate on the fly.

StorageWorks NAS 1000 offers multi-protocol file support and remote storage
management for workgroups, small businesses and remote locations. Its
software provides snapshot capability, replication and volume expansion to
help systems administrators manage and view data flow more easily.

HP Global Services provides continuous availability support for those who
purchase the NAS 1000, which is important for companies who need remote
office deployments involving many StorageWorks NAS 1000s devices replicating
to a single NAS head at a central office. NAS 1000 will also be supported by
HP’s partner network.

The NAS 1000 is $2,999 for the 320GB, $4,999 for the 640GB and $6,999 for the
1TB model. HP StorageWorks products and solutions will be showcased in the
HP booth at TechEd in Dallas, including a demonstration of NAS/SAN fusion
with Microsoft Exchange 2000, showing how they integrate NAS and SAN
infrastructures into a seamless IT environment.

In related news, HP also completed the North American leg of an
international road show with Microsoft to launch its Stor
ageWorks NAS b3000 machine, which enables customers to consolidate their Microsoft Exchange server environment by fusing storage area
network (SAN) and NAS into one storage pool.