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HP climbs up the NAS ladder
While Network Appliance is still the leader in the NAS space,
SAN major HP is trying to catch up with a focused strategy, says SRIKANTH RP
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AMIT MALHOTRA discloses that banks have been a big
growth area for HP’s NAS product portfolio because a majority of them
are looking at NAS devices for backups at the branch level |
THE Indian NAS market accounted for $16.77 million out of the total external
storage market of $87.15 million in 2003. But unlike other segments of the storage
market, NAS is completely dominated by leader Network Appliance. None of the
SAN majors have had much luck in tapping this segment. However, HP believes
that it can reduce the gap between the leader and itself in the NAS market through
its current product positioning. The strategy of using its SAN strengths—along
with the alliance with Microsoft—has meant that HP has moved into the number
two position in the NAS segment (Source: IDC).
Says Amit Malhotra, business manager, Nearline and NAS, Network Storage Solutions,
HP India, “Last year we were hovering around the number five or six mark
in the NAS segment. However, with a new product line aimed at the SME segment,
we have gained market share at the expense of other players.”
Consolidation boost
As more enterprises started looking at consolidating servers, HP was quick to
announce a product line which would enable enterprises to consolidate Exchange
Server 2003 data based on Windows Storage Server 2003. The new products announced
were HP StorageWorks NAS 2000s and 1200s, targeted at companies in the SME segment
looking to consolidate their file, print and e-mail servers. Malhotra says that
the 1200s and 2000s have been a big hit in the SME segment as these companies
can back up and store data from file, print and e-mail servers on to a single
NAS device.
Additionally, according to IDC, Microsoft dominates the messaging
market in India with a 60 percent share. Against this backdrop, HP’s decision
to standardise its entire StorageWorks NAS portfolio on Windows 2003 has paid
off in a big way. The company, along with Microsoft, is pitching entry-level
NAS boxes as a plug-and-play platform for dedicated file and print services,
disaster recovery or backup, and for file server consolidation. The exploding
amount of data related to e-mail is making SME customers look out for cost-effective
options for storage and retrieval. HP wants to position the NAS boxes as a viable
backup and retrieval medium for e-mail. The importance of the HP-Microsoft alliance
can be seen from the fact that HP along with Microsoft is targeting 5,000 Microsoft
Exchange customers in India through a focused campaign.
SAN edge
Since HP is also active in the SAN segment, the company is trying to use the
installed base of its SAN products to push its NAS products. For example, for
existing SAN customers, HP recommends NAS boxes for non-critical applications.
The biggest growth areas for HP have been sectors such as BPO, banking and software
development. Malhotra says that banks have been a big growth area for HP’s
NAS product portfolio because a majority of them are looking at NAS devices
for backups at the branch level. As HP offers NAS boxes from 320 GB to around
27 TB, SME customers can easily scale their storage needs without having to
re-design their data network or replace existing NAS boxes. HP believes that
by using the strategy of consolidation, SME customers can reduce costs by 50
percent.
Reseller power
Apart from the product positioning, HP has also more than doubled the number
of resellers focused on the NAS segment from 110 to around 250 today. Additionally,
the company is also trying to educate resellers to focus on giving the end customer
a complete storage solution. Since HP plays in almost all the segments of the
storage industry—from tapes and optical media to NAS and SAN— the
company wants its resellers who are focused on a particular segment to start
focusing on other segments. For example, the company is educating resellers
focused on the tape business on the value proposition of NAS devices.
In the current storage environment, HP’s strategy of
positioning SAN for mission-critical applications and NAS for non-mission critical
applications gives the company a win-win strategy in both the markets.
srikanth@expresscomputeronline.com
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