HP: EVA is not dead
Vendor claims "new era" storage portfolio does not sound the death knell for EVA range
HP has insisted that its most recent storage launch does not spell the end of its EVA range.
Last week, HP unveiled its 3PAR StoreServ range at its Discover conference in Frankfurt, hailing it as "the next era of storage", but today insisted that there are no plans to discontinue EVA in 2013.
Phil Hooker, HP's chief storage technologist, said that rumours suggesting EVA has been axed are "completely false" and added that HP will continue to provide support and software for the EVA range until three years after its last sales date, which it claims has not been decided or announced.
Although HP insists the new 3PAR products do not spell the end for EVA, it claims that the range includes "EVA's DNA", which makes it easier for customers to migrate.
The new range has been welcomed by channel onlookers, which claim that HP has been losing out in the mid-range storage market over the last few years.
Scott Reynolds, HP storage specialist at VAR Logicalis, said: "Over the past three years, HP competitors have targeted [EVA's] market and HP has been losing ground. EVA is a solid product, but others are bringing out new technology which is all targeted at that mid-market space. As a result, Logicalis has lost out in the space too."
He added that 3PAR accounts for 50 per cent of Logicalis' HP storage pipline, and said that although the new range is set to replace EVA storage in the long term, Logicalis will continue to provide support to existing EVA customers.
He said: "It is the EVA replacement, let's not dress it up any other way; it is technology to fit into that EVA space, and HP has invented the tools to make it easier to migrate from EVA to the 3PAR product.
"EVA as it stands will be the last physical version we will see, but we will continue to invest in software and will do so for five or six years – it is not like we will just cut off, there will be long-term support for customers."
HP's new products in its converged storage portfolio include StoreServ, StoreAll and StoreOnce Backup, which it claims are more cost-effective for mid-market customers. StoreServ 7200 is available immediately and starts at $20,000 (£12,400), while its StoreAll product is set to start at $0.91 per GB when it launches on 20 December.
Sam Routledge, solutions director at HP partner Softcat, said that HP has positioned the new range at the right price. He said: "3PAR is the right technology at the right price, and I think it has a lot going for it and we are excited about it.
"It's fantastic that HP are making the power of the 3PAR platform more affordable. This will enable more of our customers to move towards an IT as a service model, freeing up time and resource to concentrate on the application stack and delivering what the business needs.
"We expect EVA [to be discontinued] in the next five years, and they will look to tail off sales in favour of 3PAR probably sooner rather than later."