Converged infrastructure and flash may be all the rage these days, but disk arrays still form the backbone of enterprise storage environments. And even as the information explosion continues to gather pace, strengthening that existing foundation is often preferable to embracing a completely new technology, not only from a cost standpoint but also in regard to business risk. That’s Hewlett-Packard’s pitch for the XP7, the latest addition to its XP line of ultra-reliable storage systems, which companies have been using to protect mission-critical data since the late 1990s.

“You might say… why would a customer building a next generation data center buy an XP when it could have 3PAR? The reality is that for customers building next-gen data centers, most of them are buying 3PAR, not XP’s,” explains Wikibon co-founder and CEO Dave Vellante. “But for customers who are looking to extend their existing XP infrastructure this is the 7th generation of a technology that has proven to be rock-solid – so it’s a play that allows them to leverage existing processes and minimize change.”

The XP7 crams 4.5 petabytes of raw disk capacity into a single integrated system that can pump out 3 million I/O operations per second, which is more than the combined performance capacity of three EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K arrays and triple the horsepower of the previous generation system. HP says that this increased density significantly reduces data center floor and power requirements, potentially lowering annual energy costs by as much as 100,000 compared to competing offerings.

Just as importantly, the XP7 provides up to “six nines” or 99.9999 percent availability according to the company, which translates to less than 31.5 seconds of application downtime per year. The system comes with a new disaster recovery capability for virtual environments to help customers meet that benchmark in and allows admins to isolate parts of their deployment for increased security. Also included are enhanced user authentication and access control functions that make it easier to handle sensitive information as it traverses the corporate network.

The XP7 will start shipping next month starting at $462,000.

feature image source: Hewlett-Packard