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.
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You are a bit out of line and exaggerating here Erik. Yes, EVA is way to old and I have been the first to announce it’s death when 3PAR got bought almost 3 years ago now. And the P6000 should never have been released if the 3PAR could have been brought smaller sooner. But this is not how things go in bigger companies. Saying that they lied is not true as well as the EVA will be End-Of-Life in 2014 Q1 which has never been questioned. Software updates like bug fixes will still come through like with any other End-Of-Life product out there.
For Lefthand I do have some questions yes. It was a very good product and the first and only for a long time to do active node and site failover security (something EQL lacked). HP is now very much focussing on the fact that it works well as a VSA product too but it lacks features IMO to keep track with what is coming from multiple sides. In that opinion it does look like the EVA history all over.
BUT … if you were still negotiating in september for an EVA, you were just talking to the wrong sales guy! The smaller 3PAR has been shipped since december last year and the next version was already there in june at HP Discover with a complete software redesign for flash. Saying HP “dropped the ball when they bought 3PAR” is not correct. They had issues with bringing it fast enough to the SMB market. But the acquisition is definitely not a dropped ball. I’d even say that the StoreServ 7000 series (that new 3PAR) is today the better player out there amongst HP/DELL/EMC/NetApp/IBM. None of them have a scaleable product that starts at the 25k level and grows to tier1 in 1 product line.
Hello Hans, thank you for you response. I have to clarify the ‘drop the ball’-bit.
I’m not saying HP shouldn’t have bought 3PAR but when they bought 3PAR and LeftHand they remained vague about their place in the HP storage portfolio and quit development on EVA and offered no distinctness. This is when their storage portfolio started drifting. They could and should have profited with such a huge install base but they didn’t. Due to their drifting storage portfolio many customers left HP storage solutions. So the 3PAR/LeftHand takeover was just to mark the time. Not saying HP shouldn’t have bought 3PAR or it’s a bad product. I added some clarification to the article.
I also never said they lied but they weren’t exactly real honest/clear, trying to sell a P6000 in September 2013, and this is no incident or a rogue sales guy either.
Every End-Of-Life product gets sold until the very last day. Look at Cisco switches, they go end-of -life each year :) And there is nothing wrong with that. If you know what you buy and you are ok with the price you are offered, why not? I mean, the P6000 does have a decent bandwith and it can take quite some volume. And if you are used to buy from HP why wouldn’t you? Think about using this as a backend and running modern SDS solutions on top? If you add flash enhancements in the server this could still be a decent/cheap backend.
Nevermind. I wouldn;t buy becasue I know too much other solutions out there but my point is that your article was exaggerating to how badly HP treats their customers. That is not entirely correct or at least not in the manner you expressed it.
That’s not the point I’m trying to make here. I announced the funeral of
the EVA and wanted to point out that HP was once a leader in the
storage market but due to their drifting storage portfolio many
customers left. They could have profited from their huge install base
but they dropped the ball. And I wondered if the P4000/LeftHand is going
down the same path.
With regard to the exaggeration on how badly
HP treats their customers, I think that’s an exaggeration itself.
That’s just a small part in the whole article. But if was a HP storage
customer who just bought an EVA in July/August I would feel pretty
angry. True, EOL products gets sold until the very last day, but there’s
also the relationship with a customer for which I personally care very
much. Maybe it’s because we’re on different sides of the fence, you
working at a vendor and me working at a system integrator trying to be a
trusted advisor. (not that a vendor can’t be a trusted advisor, before
we get into a discussion about that ;-) )
just a small not on the “side of the fence” argument: I am not working for a vendor, but before that time that I did work for a vendor I was that trusted advisor as a storage solutions specialist for HP & DELL storage at a VAR. My customers didn’t get EVA offers. At least not with a decent explanation. So I know EXACTLY what I am talking about.
(DISCLOSURE: I work for HP Storage, am on Twitter as @HPStorageGuy and blog for HP Storage at http://www.hp.com/storage.blog).
Hans has covered better than I could many of the things you said – I’ll limit what I say to two points. We bought 3PAR over 3 years ago. Every EVA customer on the planet knew we were transitioning away from EVA – they figured that out back on October 2010. HP did the right thing by giving customers plenty of time to continuing using EVA or migrate to 3PAR. Saying an EVA customer that just bought an EVA in July or August is now angry is just silly.
On to HP StoreVirtual (name was changed from LeftHand close to a year ago) – there have been 5 major new releases related to StoreVirtual since last November. There were 6 new hardware based StoreVirtual products, rolling the portfolio to ProLiant Gen 8. We also added Fibre Channel connectivity. And just before VMworld we announced the latest version of LeftHand OS 11.0 that adds Sub-LUN tiering. Not sure where you were at VMworld but 2 of HP’s 4 sessions focused on HP StoreVirtual and we had a second booth where the only storage there was StoreVirtual. I’m pretty sure it was in the main booth as well but can’t remember.
The HP Storage portfolio has never stronger. I was offered early retirement not long ago and got a call from a competitor wanting me to take the retirement package and come work for them. I said no – my confidence in HP Storage has never been higher.
link to announcement?
From HP:
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx%2Fc03928905.pdf
From AVNet:
http://www.ats.avnet.com/na/en-us/suppliers/hp/Pages/End-of-Life-Announcement-for-HP-EVA-P6350-and-P6550-Storage.aspx
HP already put the EVA8000 to rest on 19-Jun-2007 – along with the rest of the old EVA4000/6000 line.
Everyone suspected HP to replace the EVA with 3PAR but nobody within HP ever wanted to confirm that. They even renamed the EVA to P6000 claiming the EVA was not dead, look we have a new EVA-ish solution, named it P6000 and we’re still developing it. Sure …
So stating that customers knew this and had plenty of time to change to 3PAR is plain false. Not only in the Netherlands but I’ve also spoken with US based HP personnel on numerous VMworlds and other events and they all evaded the question or stated that HP is not going to kill the EVA/P6000. Maybe you’re such an honest person and told them this NDA information. Sure customers changed to another storage solution, but not an HP one.
Regarding the LeftHand/P4000/StoreVirtual (this is a nice side-effect of HP’s drifting storage portfolio), Alex visited the HP booth and asked the booth staff on the LeftHand/P4000/StoreVirtual ….. the silence was deafening.
I’m glad you’re enjoying your retirement you deserve it, as does the EVA. But I do not share you confidence in HP Storage, as you may have noticed.
If you expected to get notification 3 years ago that HP would retire the EVA, then you have totally unrealistic expectations. Can you give me one example of a storage vendor publicly announcing a platform’s retirement more than a year in advance? Please share with me who that was. HP doesn’t share HP Confidential information without an NDA and just because you asked doesn’t mean you get the answer. Again have unrealistic expectations.
I didn’t see Alex at VMworld so he must not have been there. I attended the HP booth briefing prior to VMworld – we had over 50 demos in the booth and as I said, we had a second booth where we had HP StoreVirtual. If your expectations are that every employee that did booth duty (probably close to 100 people) knew everything about every product from every business in HP … again, your drawing wrong conclusions based on unrealistic expectations.
You sound like you aren’t willing to listen to reasonable explanations but want to grind your axe so I’ll leave you to that.
And BTW, as I said, “i work for HP”, not “worked for” so no retirement in my future. And since I have worked for HP Storage for 20+ years, (like Hans) I know exactly what I’m talking about.
If you ever want to have a reasoned conversation about what HP Storage is doing, I’d be happy to talk to you.
I’m trying one last time as you say you’re open to a reasoned conversation. You are focusing on a small piece of the article. Yes I’m disappointed when HP not informing its partners, how can we advise customers when the vendor doesn’t share valuable information. I have/my company has a signed NDA agreement with HP so they could have told me/us.
But again that’s not the point I’m trying to make here. My main point here is that HP was once a leader in the storage market but due to their drifting storage portfolio (my opinion) many customers left. They could have profited from their huge install base but in my opinion they dropped the ball. As you’re so concerned with HP quality maybe you could try to do something about it. I believe you when you say you know exactly what you’re talking about but just because it didn’t happen to you or that’s not the way your HP department does business, doesn’t mean it’s not true.You can mock Alex all you want and try to discredit me by stating that I have unrealistic expectations but I never asked HP to publicly announce the EOL of the EVA 3 years in advance. Instead you could take notice and try to improve on HP’s communication and openness to partners who in the end try to sell their product.
“HP was once a leader in the storage market but due to their drifting storage portfolio”. “They could have profited from their huge install base but in my opinion they dropped the ball”,
HP end of life the EVA which massively simplifies their portfolio whilst offering their EVA install base a simple migration path with online import included in the 3PAR platform. They even let EVA Admins drive the migration from the familiar EVA Command View interface. End of life only means end of production and active selling, HP will continue to provide a minimum 5 year support beyond the end of life date for the EVA. In fact I was still seeing EVA5000’s being migrated out last year, 7 years after their end of life and 12 years since their product launch. So I doubt existing EVA Customers have much to worry about from a support perspective.
The EVA architecture will be ~15 years old by the time it goes end of life vs VNX & Netapp both at 20+ years. So HP could have put it on life support indefinitely as the above two have done and people still appear keen to purchase these older architectures. But they didn’t, they’ve made a clean break, been honest with their Customers and said the old dual controller architectures no longer cut it. At some point in the near future both Netapp and EMC will need to cross that bridge, but they won’t inform their Customers of the fact until they have all their ducks in a row, as to do so would open up their install base to their competitors.
HP have simplified their portfolio whilst making migration simple for existing Customers, and ensuring long term support for those wishing to stay with EVA. I’m not sure what they could have done differently other than rename 3PAR to EVA-2 and pretend it’s a continuation of the platform.
I find it odd for you to state that if you haven’t seen me at VMworld in San Francisco, I must not have been there. I very much doubt you welcomed and know every single one of the 22,500 attendees that were present at VMworld in SF this year. Specifically, if you have never seen me, how can you tell I have not been there. Especially if you are not at the HP storage booth (which was to the right of the HP server stand when you enter the solutions exchange, by the way) all the time. I actually have an HP t-shirt to prove I was there ;)
I talked to two guys at the HP Storage booth at two separate moments. Both didn’t know anything about Lefthand or any demo being on the stand for that matter. Now, if there was, I’d say the instructions weren’t clear enough for them to remember. Good thing there is a second shot at VMworld EU next week. I’m sure the boys will check it out!
Alex – it was a form of irony. I apologize if my American humor came across as insulting – that wasn’t my intent. I’m very sure you were at VMworld – so no need to show me the shirt. Our booth with StoreVirtual was across from my friends at Nexenta. In fact, six people from our StoreVirtual team were there. A couple of them are going to be in Barcelona – if you’re interested in trying to meet up with them (one is an engineer from the lab, the other on the product management team), drop me a line and I can try to help make it happen. They both have a session but hopefully they could work it in. My email is hpstorageguy at hp dot com.
A very interesting post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!