Throughout yesterday, I was at the HP StorageWorks location in Colorado Springs for the HP StorageWorks Tech Day 2009, popularly known by the (Twitter) hashtag #HPTechDay.

It was quite informative.

For while most look upon HP as arguably the only company on earth that can provide a true end-to-end IT solution for most scenarios, to me, HP’s storage offerings weren’t as developed.

How wrong have I been!

In storage, HP has a breadth of offerings from the low end to the impressive EVA product line. Building on that, it has management and configuration software that is totally hardware-, and software-agnostic.

Furthermore, this software component, whether the EVA or the SVSP products, are so easy to use, that configuration and management of SANs is reduced to a simple point-and-clicks, leaving the storage professional with more time to do other productive tasks.

For a relatively simple task, we were exposed to an easy config scenario: create a LUN, using NetworkAppliance FAS, EMC Clariion, and HP EVA.

Ever heard of Telnet? In order to use FAS, you have to Telnet. Performing the same task in Clariion required several steps, and just a few in EVA.

I will have more on this in my summary.

Moreover, HP LeftHand is just a gem. Having John Spires, CTO and co-founder of LeftHand Networks work us through the product’s features was pretty cool, and made me realize how strategic the purchase of LeftHand was to StorageWorks’ fortunes.

Finally, we were introduced to HP’s de-duplication products.

What de-duplication products, you ask?

HP has two, yes two, de-duplication products, segmented by low-end, and enterprise.

There is so much more, and I will be posting my HP StorageWorks Tech Day report here and on SmallBizWindows, and discussing it with peers on TechVirtuoso.

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