Dell EMC recently announced PowerStore[1], their new mid-range storage platform intended to replace Unity, SC Series and XtremIO[2]. They spotlighted features including multi-array clustering, data-in-place upgrades and automation – features that we agree are important, but are also table stakes, as HPE Nimble Storage has been delivering them for years. And despite positioning PowerStore for the data era, it’s not doing nearly enough to deliver what enterprises need today from their storage platform.
That’s where HPE Nimble Storage shines and that’s where Dell EMC PowerStore falls short.
1. Running business-critical apps
Enterprises are increasingly reliant on applications to handle everything from back-end operations to the delivery of products and services. That is why proven availability, protecting data, and ensuring applications stay up are more important than ever before.
But Dell EMC has the market[3] and HPE scratching our heads – with PowerStore only supporting RAID 5, old technology that can lead to catastrophic data loss with more than one drive failure. In comparison, with HPE Nimble Storage, an enterprise can sustain 3 simultaneous drive failures with Triple+ Parity, protection that’s several orders of magnitude more resilient than RAID 5.
PowerStore is also marketed as “designed for 6x9s” availability[4]. But being “designed for” availability versus actually having a measured track record in customer production environments are vastly different. HPE Nimble Storage has 6x9s of proven availability[5] based on real, achieved values (as opposed to theoretical projections) and is measured for its entire installed base. And as enterprises entrust their data with us, we guarantee 6x9s availability for every HPE Nimble Storage customer.
2. Eliminating application disruptions
Enterprises need to be always-on, always-fast, and always agile. They don’t have time to fight fires and react to problems. But with countless variables and potential issues across the infrastructure stack, IT continues to be held back reacting to problems and dealing with disruptions.
The only way to get ahead is with intelligence. Intelligence that predicts problems. Intelligence that sees from storage to virtual machines. Intelligence that takes action to prevent disruptions.
Dell EMC attempts to answer the call for intelligence with CloudIQ, an application that “provides for simple monitoring and troubleshooting” for storage systems[6]. But with the complexity that lives in IT today, this is simply not doing enough as it leaves customers with more questions than answers.
HPE InfoSight, on the other hand, is true intelligence. Since 2010, it has analysed more than 1,250 trillion data points from over 150,000 systems and has saved customers more than 1.5 million hours of lost productivity[7]. It uses machine-learning to predict and prevent 86% of problems before customers can be impacted[8]. And, its intelligence goes beyond storage to give deep insights into virtual infrastructure that improves application performance and optimizes resources.
The intelligence that enterprises can count on to ensure their apps stay up is HPE InfoSight.
3. Delivering the cloud experience
PowerStore has fewer knobs than Unity – a much needed improvement. But it’s not nearly enough. Our customers tell us they want to deliver services and get out of the business of managing infrastructure. This requires having the right foundation for their on-premises cloud with the simplicity of consumption, the flexibility to support any app, and the elasticity to scale on-demand.
HPE Nimble Storage is a platform that goes beyond making storage “easy to manage” – to be a foundation for on-premises cloud. HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is that foundation, a category creating, disaggregated HCI, delivering the HCI experience but with the performance, availability, and resource efficiency needed for business-critical apps. And as announced last week, enterprises can have an on-premises cloud by consuming HPE Nimble Storage dHCI as a service through HPE GreenLake.
But what about a cloud experience for the edge? The edge is in need of modernization as enterprises look to streamline their multi-site and remote IT environments. Dell EMC positions PowerStore AppsOn here[9], but it’s not purpose-built for the job. HPE SimpliVity is an edge-optimized HCI platform with simple multi-site management, a software-defined scale-out architecture, and built-in data protection, making it the ideal choice for remote sites.
4. Unlocking the potential of hybrid cloud
Every IT leader today looks at hybrid cloud as a potential enabler of innovation, only to realize the overwhelming challenges that exist with fragmented clouds. With data at the center of innovation, realizing the potential of hybrid cloud requires an architecture – a fabric – that provides a seamless experience with the flexibility to move data across clouds during its lifecycle from test/dev, production, analytics, to data protection.
HPE delivers that seamless experience by extending HPE Nimble Storage to the public cloud with HPE Cloud Volumes. HPE Cloud Volumes is a suite of enterprise cloud data services that enables customers, in minutes, to provision storage on-demand and bridges the divide between on-premises and public cloud. It brings consistent data services, bi-directional data mobility, and the ability to access the public cloud, unlocking hybrid cloud use cases from data migration, data protection, test/dev, containers, analytics, to running enterprise applications in the cloud.
While Dell EMC can connect their storage to the public cloud, HPE Nimble Storage goes further with a true cloud service, consumable on-demand, that helps our customers maximize their agility and innovation and optimize their economics with no cloud lock-in, nothing to manage, and no more headaches.
5. Delivering an experience you’ll love
On top of everything – from being a better fit for business-critical apps, being more intelligent and predictive, delivering on-premises cloud, to making hybrid cloud valuable – HPE Nimble Storage delivers a customer experience that simply excels.
A perfect example is support. Multi-tiered support that shuffles customers from Level 1 to Level 2 to Level 3 is reactive and too slow to resolve problems. This isn’t the case with HPE Nimble Storage, as customers have direct access to Level 3 with Level 1 and Level 2 support cases predicted and automated. That means no more escalations, 73% fewer support tickets, and 85% less time spent resolving storage problems[10]…and not to mention the friendliest support engineers who help you solve problems even if they’re outside of storage.
Rethink what Storage needs to do for you
HPE Nimble Storage reimagines enterprise storage with a unique solution that simplifies IT and unlocks enterprise agility across the data lifecycle. It transforms operations with artificial intelligence and it gives you an experience that you’ll truly love as you can see here from this video.
If you are a current customer of Dell EMC midrange storage products, we would welcome the opportunity to show you how HPE Nimble Storage can elevate your experience. Here are a dozen reasons why organizations are moving from Dell EMC to HPE Nimble Storage. And we can help make the investment in HPE Nimble Storage easier with financials offers that generate cash from your existing storage assets.
Join us at the HPE Discover Virtual Experience in June to learn more.
Sandeep Singh
Vice President, Storage Marketing
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
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[1] https://corporate.delltechnologies.com/en-us/newsroom/announcements/detailpage.press-releases~usa~2020~05~20200505-dellemc-powerstore.htm#/filter-on/Country:en-us
[2] https://www.crn.com/news/storage/dell-s-midrange-next-storage-launch-delayed-to-address-feedback-
[3] https://www.architecting.it/blog/dell-powerstore/
[4] https://www.dellemc.com/en-gb/collaterals/unauth/data-sheets/products/storage/h18234-dell-emc-powerstore-data-sheet.pdf
[5] “Redefining the standard for system availability - How Nimble Storage uses predictive analytics to achieve more than six nines availability across its entire installed base”
[6] https://www.dellemc.com/sl-si/collaterals/unauth/white-papers/products/storage-2/h15691-emc-cloudiq-overview.pdf
[7][8] https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/a00043401enw
[9] https://blog.dellemc.com/en-us/inside-dell-emc-powerstore-appson-delivers-groundbreaking-application-flexibility-mobility/
[10] Assessing the Financial Impact of HPE Nimble Storage Powered by HPE InfoSight, ESG, May 2019
Sandeep_Singh
I'm the CMO of Zerto and VP of HPE Storage Product Management. I'm a 15-year veteran of the storage industry with first-hand experience in driving innovation in data storage.
