
Executive summary
Every two years, the data we generate roughly doubles. By 2015, the total worldwide cumulative digital archive capacity is projected to be at 300,000 petabytes. As the amount of information we generate grows, and as our relationship with information grows more complex, the race to innovate new products and services to help us harness information, manage it, and tap into it more easily intensifies. This paper discusses the continuing development of HP’s strategy for delivering Converged Storage that improves the ability of your business to capitalize on information. Building on the foundation provided by fusing industry-standard technologies, federated scale-out software, and converged management, HP is now extending Converged Storage into new solutions and segments with a new initiative that introduces the next evolution of this HP Converged Storage strategy and vision.
The changing role of IT
Every seven to 10 years, technology delivery undergoes a tectonic shift—one that opens up new business and access models. These shifts change the way that technology is consumed and the value that it can bring, and change what is possible by removing inhibitors to innovation. Examples of these shifts are all around us today—mobility, social media, big data, and the advent of cloud computing to name a few. These shifts offer new opportunities for solving our most pressing challenges, including speeding innovation, enhancing agility, and improving financial management. These shifts can unleash the power of IT to not only support but also help shape business.
However, these shifts also present challenges. In order to derive the most value out of your IT investment, your business must not only have a strategy in place for coping with the massive data growth that faces today’s IT organizations, but one that allows you to exploit these new technology areas. Within the context of the data center, this means that your data center today needs a lot more from storage than simply serving your data. In fact, your storage requirements are likely to span all three of the following needs (figure 1):