HP finally killed the EVA

Today Alex discovered a public secret HP has been denying for some time but now they finally killed the HP EVA.

When HP bought 3PAR back in 2010 the rumors quickly spread that HP would replace the EVA with their newly acquired 3PAR storage solutions. But until a month ago HP sales was still actively pushing EVAs, denying it being End Of Life.

Less than a year ago, December 2012, HP launched its 3PAR StoreServ range at HP Discover in Frankfurt but insisted that there are no plans to discontinue EVA in 2013. Between then and now similar quotes from other HP sources told the same story.

 

“Rumors suggesting EVA has been axed are completely false and HP will continue to provide support and software for the EVA range.”

“Although the new range is set to replace EVA storage in the long term, HP will continue to provide support to existing EVA customers.”

“The HP EVA is NOT dead.”

“EVA as it stands will be the last physical version we will see, but we will continue to invest in software and will do so for five or six years – it is not like we will just cut off, there will be long-term support for customers.”

 

So long term in HP vocabulary is 9 months, completely false is a little bit true and NOT dead is walking on its last legs, about to be euthanized. The EVA is not dead but we’re already planning its funeral on January 31, 2014.

This may not come as a huge surprise because the HP EVA or P6000, as it is called at last, lacked all the features provided by any other modern storage solution and competitors were replacing EVAs by the dozen. But, HP sales trying to get customers to expand their existing EVA or even buy a new storage system in August when you know you’re going to kill the EVA by mid September, it is not decent in my opinion to saddle a customer with a legacy storage system.

I know that every bird is known by his note, a man by his word, but this is not decent to put it mildly.

For HP EVA customers considering either a technology refresh or new application deployments, according to HP the replacement product for EVA systems is HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 Storage. They even came out with migration software to move from EVA to 3PAR. But in the last 3 years many of my customers have criticized the HP storage portfolio roadmap and its utter lack of vision, development and distinctness and left.

HP owned a huge portion of the storage market when virtualization came around. According to HP they shipped 100.000 EVA-systems over the years. They were the de facto standard when virtualizing your environment. But they dropped the ball when they bought 3PAR and LeftHand and remained vague about their place in the HP storage portfolio but quit development and offered no distinctness.

Another eyeopener for Alex was the positioning of the HP P4000 or LeftHand as it’s still called by many. HP now positions the P4000 as the storage solution for the SMB market and below, dropping down from its former position as mid-range and SMB (I wonder what is below the SMB market). At VMworld 2013 Alex already noticed that the P4000 was not mentioned or displayed at the Solutions Exchange and when he asked the booth staff he got an evasive and worrying answer.  I get the feeling that the P4000 is going to be the next HP EVA, just months away from being euthanized.