Advertisment

"No single vendor can provide all the elements of ILM"

author-image
CIOL Bureau
New Update

Jean-Luc Chatelain helps craft the overall Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) strategy for HP through customer interaction and by serving as an ILM ambassador to HP subsidiaries such as IPG and HP Labs.

Advertisment

The evangelization function involves numerous worldwide engagements to educate customers and analysts and promote HP's holistic approach to information assets management.

Speaking to Rahul Gupta of CyberMedia News, Chatelain spoke about HP's ILM offerings vis-à-vis its competitors.

Advertisment

How does ILM present a shift from data storage as of now?



Information Lifecycle Management defines a process for automatically managing information across its lifecycle, typically separated into operational, transitional, and records management phases. A well-designed ILM strategy will enable an organization to capture, manage, retain and deliver information and includes integrated, coordinated, management of data across the lifecycle, from discovery, classification, data protection, and migration, to long-term archival. Data protection and continuous data protection are the primary objectives during the operational phase of the lifecycle. Migration of data between tiers of storage, which optimizes the quality of service and minimizes cost of storage are the key TCO and business drivers during the transitional phase. During the records management phase, long-term archival, search by content, and retention management assume critical importance. At the very end of the data lifecycle, data is automatically disposed of based on the retention and disposal policies defined during the discovery and classification process.

What are the norms to lay the groundwork for ILM by deploying a unified storage environment with policy-based data management?

Developing policies and deploying data management strategies, including ILM, requires that an organization understand and be able to manage data across its infrastructure. One must first comprehend their infrastructure, then understand the information that resides on that infrastructure. Only then can effective ILM policies be developed and implemented.

How do you differentiate your ILM offerings from those offered by others?

HP has built one of the most detailed and comprehensive ILM portfolios in the enterprise IT industry spanning arrays, tape, magneto-optical, NAS, archiving, data protection, services, and data and infrastructure management software. No other vendor can match the breadth, depth and knowledge of ILM. A key element of this portfolio is HP Storage Works Reference Information Systems Storage (RISS). RISS is a highly adaptable object model disk-based solution. It is based on HP smart cell technology using the HP Storage Works Grid architecture. RISS as a highly scalable solution, creates an open platform for all manner of archival, migration, and back-up solutions that an enterprise customer might encounter.

Advertisment

RISS does not support Web services and common Internet and network file systems. Neither does it offer specialized support for vertical markets. How are you going to tackle this?

RISS is scheduled to support common Internet file system and network file system in the first half of 2006. We have also publicly announced development for Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) connectivity for picture archival communication system (PACS) vendors in the healthcare vertical.

How does HP ILM help customers convert corporate data with the help of RISS?

HP provides both the ILM consulting expertise and the ILM products to help customers implement an ILM-managed environment. Further, HP utilizes industry standard interfaces to seamlessly integrate with third party ILM ERM, ECM, and data management applications. HP also provides a set of data management utilities which are specifically integrated with HP's ILM archiving and compliance platforms and offer continuous data protection and migration capabilities for files, database rows and tables, and Exchange and Lotus Notes email environments.

What does your migration strategy accommodate?

HP's migration strategy includes data migration utilities for migration of email, files, and database tables to lower tiers of storage or the archive. For e-mail message migration and compliance archiving, HP offers RIM for messaging, a capability that selectively mines email messages and/or attachments from Exchange or Notes environments to the HP archive. For file migration, HP offers the File Migration Agent (FMA), which enables files to be selectively migrated off file and application servers to secondary storage devices or an HP archive platform based on IT specified policies. For database environments, HP offers RIM for databases, which selectively migrates static rows or tables out of production databases to lower tiers of storage, or converts them to flat XML files, which can then be archived. HP's migration utilities are designed to optimize resource utilization and provide significantly increased email, file, or database server performance and lower management costs and reduced back-up windows.

Advertisment

What's HP's ILM partner program all about?

Partner products fill gaps in HP's ILM portfolio and, depending on the level of partnership, enable HP to offer a solution faster than internal development would allow, offer a solution in a niche market with minimum effort and expense and, thirdly, offer a solution using an accepted best-of-breed technology. HP has developed a three-tier partner program to work closely with partners on API development against storage solutions, certification and qualification as well as the ability to do joint go-to-market efforts of a HP+ Partner-based solution. Partners benefit because HP supports their products in a variety of ways. For example, Gold Business partners receive free access to many of HP's ILM softwares, technologies and services while Platinum Business partners may also participate with HP in specific events and avail access to HP labs for integration testing. Elite Business partners stand to receive still greater benefits.

EMC has significantly expanded its footprint in the software market. What's your take on EMC as a competitor and its ILM strategy?

EMC has some good assets acquired via multiple acquisitions contributing to their market share. The same, however, require integration into the company. This takes time and effort away from customers and development. We believe that customers generally want choice as well as reliability. Further, we believe that no single vendor can provide all of the elements of ILM. That's why we work closely with leading technology players to deliver and end-to-end solutions. Remember, ILM is a strategy for customers, not a single product. It's a combination of technology, processes and services. That's why HP also launched seven new services to help customers in their short, mid and long-term information management strategies. We use the experience we've gained with Microsoft Exchange wherein HP has installed more than 14 million MS-Exchange seats, SAP and Oracle (roughly 50 percent of the SAP installations and over a third of Oracle databases worldwide run on HP equipment) to help our customers achieve their strategic ILM goals. In addition, because a vast amount of data lives in the physical world, not a digital one, we believe we have the competitive advantage in the real world requirements of information management offering customers the ability to capture, manage, retain and deliver information according to their business value and reduce a company's TCO and improving ROI.

tech-news