What is HP 3PAR?
HP 3PAR, now part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), is a family of storage systems known for their high performance, scalability, and efficiency. The full name of HP 3PAR is 3PARdata Inc.. The name “3PAR” comes from the initials of its founders: Jeffrey Price, Ashok Singhal, and Robert Rogers. It was later acquired by Hewlett-Packard (HP) and is now part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).
Architecture and Underlying Technology
HP 3PAR’s architecture is built around a few core principles:
- Multi-Node Design: The system uses a clustered architecture with multiple controller nodes, ensuring redundancy and high availability. This design allows for seamless scalability and load balancing.
- ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit): HP 3PAR systems use custom ASICs to accelerate data movement and processing, enhancing performance and efficiency.
- Thin Provisioning: This technology allows for the allocation of physical storage only when data is written, optimizing storage utilization and reducing costs.
- Wide Striping: Data is spread across many disks, improving performance and reliability by reducing the impact of any single disk failure.
How It Works
HP 3PAR systems work by leveraging their multi-node architecture and ASICs to handle data efficiently. Here’s a simplified analogy:
Imagine a library where books (data) are stored. Instead of having a single librarian (controller) managing all the books, there are multiple librarians, each responsible for different sections. They work together to ensure books are quickly found and checked out (data retrieval) and that new books are efficiently placed on the shelves (data storage). The library also uses a smart system to only allocate shelf space when a book is actually placed, saving space and resources.
Practical Use-Cases
HP 3PAR is widely used in various IT and telecommunications platforms due to its robust features:
- Virtualization: HP 3PAR is ideal for virtualized environments, providing rapid provisioning and high performance for virtual machines.
- Cloud Services: Its multi-tenancy and scalability make it suitable for cloud service providers who need to manage large, diverse workloads.
- Database Management: The high IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) and low latency of HP 3PAR systems are perfect for database applications requiring fast and reliable storage.
- Telecommunications: In telecom platforms, HP 3PAR can handle large volumes of data with high availability, ensuring uninterrupted service and quick data access.
HP 3PAR’s combination of advanced technology and practical features makes it a powerful solution for modern storage management needs.