HP’s move to freeze its current relationship with flash storage provider Violin where it is, in favor of a strategic direction toward software-led storage based on 3PAR, may seem a step back from a focus on flash on HP servers. However, writes David Floyer in his latest Wikibon Professional Alert, the long-term strategy behind it makes sense.

HP recently announced, and Violin has now confirmed, that while the partnership that has seen Violin’s 3000 flash storage line offered on HP servers will stay in place for the foreseeable future, it will not be extended to include Violin’s new 6000 product line. Instead, HP’s strategic direction will focus on implementing the technology it purchased with 3PAR to create a software-led storage infrastructure.

In the short term this means that it will focus on flash in the storage array, which is supported by the 3PAR controller, rather than on expanding the presence of flash on HP servers. The disadvantage is that the software controlling arrays, not only from 3PAR but from all suppliers presently, was designed to run at the order-of-magnitude slower speed of spinning disk reads and writes. That eliminates much of the benefit of flash storage.

However, focusing on a software-led array technology increases its ability to fix the speed problem in the array in the future and developing a high-speed, flash-only storage array to compete with EMC and IBM, both of which have acquired flash-only array technology. HP’s advantage is that its array will be fully integrated at the software level with the rest of its storage line, and a software-based system is easier to update as new technology reaches the market. And freezing the partnership with Violin refocuses HP on internal flash development and specifically on its Memrister resistive random access memory (RRAM or ReRAM) based on titanium dioxide. This is one of several candidates for the next generation flash replacement for NAND flash, and HP is betting that it will be a winner both on the server and in the array.

HP is taking a medium-term view in its flash announcement. If it pays off, and if HP can bring this technology to market quickly enough, it may be able to grab an advantage over EMC and IBM, which have to integrate their flash array purchases and bring their server flash technologies forward. In the meantime, HP still has a competitive flash product built into its servers.

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