HPE Alletra Storage MP - The Future of Storage

Today HPE announced a completely new storage platform called HPE Alletra Storage MP, one storage architecture that scales from entry level to mission critical environments! No more choosing between storage lines and families. Not only that but you can run virtually any storage protocol on it: block, file, object, you name it…depending only on what operating system it is running. HPE starts with two HPE GreenLake services running on HPE Alletra Storage MP: HPE GreenLake for Block Storage and HPE GreenLake for File Storage.
HPE Alletra Storage MP has the potential to eventually replace most HPE storage products like HPE 3Par, HPE Nimble Storage, HPE Primera, HPE Alletra, even hyperconvergence solutions!
This is the biggest step towards HPE truly becoming an “on-prem AWS”, since the introduction of HPE GreenLake itself. Combining all that with the renewed HPE GreenLake for Backup and Recovery and the new Zerto-as-a-service called HPE GreenLake for Disaster Recovery, the data services side of HPE GreenLake looks pretty complete to me.
Join me with this introduction to the future of HPE storage!
** DISCLAIMER! This video is sponsored by HPE **
======================
📜 Table of Contents
======================
0:00 Introduction
0:35 Executive summary
1:53 What is HPE Alletra Storage MP?
3:10 The renewed HPE GreenLake for Block Storage
6:03 The new HPE GreenLake for File Storage
6:57 My synthesis about HPE Alletra Storage MP
7:46 What's available at launch?
8:35 Thoughts about the future of HPE storage
9:03 The updated HPE GreenLake for Backup and Recovery
10:13 The new HPE GreenLake for Disaster Recovery (Zerto)
10:28 What does all this mean to HPE GreenLake?
======================
🌐 Relevant resources
======================
Official announcement landing page:
www.hpe.com/us/en/home.html?j...
HPE GreenLake for Block Storage:
www.hpe.com/us/en/hpe-greenla...
HPE GreenLake for File Storage:
www.hpe.com/us/en/hpe-greenla...
HPE GreenLake for Disaster Recovery:
www.hpe.com/us/en/hpe-greenla...
HPE GreenLake for Backup and Recovery:
www.hpe.com/us/en/hpe-greenla...
Introducing HPE Alletra and Data Services Cloud Console:
• Introducing HPE Alletr...
HPE GreenLake Explained:
• HPE GreenLake explained
======================
🎵 Music
======================
Epidemic Sound
www.epidemicsound.com/referra...
======================
💼 Business Enquiries
======================
Would you like me to review/introduce your cool data center or cloud solutions?
Contact me: markus[-at-]techenthusiast.com
======================
🔗 Follow me
======================
LinkedIn: / techenthusiast
Twitter: / markusleinonen
Website: techenthusiast.com

[@vorin1986]

Awesome presentation Markus!

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Thank you, vorin! 💪

[@stayhappylittlemermaid]

Happy people are always inspirations to the rest of the world. Be an inspiration to others.

[@alexojanen]

Super interesting and excellent overview! 💯

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Thank you, Alex! It’s a super interesting announcement! 🤩

[@erickcchiu]

Awesome groundbreaking mindset applied in storage future direction. And that unleashed hugh potential, imagination and connectivity on this new platform design. Fully agree that why not Nutanix or other potential players collaborate under this. Wonderful! And thx a lot. This is a very very smooth explanation and elaboration of technology. That is clear and interesting.

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Hi Eric! I completely agree. I really do see this as a no-brainer storage architecture that I have been waiting for literally over a decade for some major storage vendor to do. Now that HPE did it, I would be astounded if others would not follow. It is just an overwhelmingly better approach to storage from almost every point of view. Thanks for the kind words, glad to hear you liked it! 🥳

[@jmacofearth]

Great job.

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Thanks, John! 🥳

[@adityajain1989]

HPE/Dell released unified storage in 2014, They could not scale out/up like HPE Alletra MP ,Reason could be not have distributed OS like VAST. On cloud field day 25 I read Even IBM has accomplished this SAN+ NAS + S3 in 1 box (Scale out + resilient). Looks like this is the way HPE is really transforming itself, I see many people inside the company upgrading themselves everyday. No more talks about boxes. Fight with Hyperscale's is on. Hope you cover how HPE employee's are changing themselves as per industry need's

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Yep, there's been numerous attempts over the years by all major vendors. But one correction: Alletra Storage MP is not unified storage, as per definition. It can't run (for example) block and file at the same time from the same hardware. It either runs the GRL4BS OS *or* GRL4FS OS, you can't have both at the same time. So, calling it unified storage would be wrong. HPE Alletra Storage MP is a common storage hardware platform for all storage. It is "only" hardware that supports running any imaginable storage workloads. You can start small and scale to the stratosphere. You can also run whatever protocol/software on it, as long as it's x86. In a sense unified storage is appealing but it has its challenges that can't be overcome. Independent scaling for each persona maintaining the high performance, low latency and mission critical availability, is one that is very difficult if not impossible to achieve with unified storage. I completely agree with the last point! HPE sales is transforming and it *has to*, there's no choice. The CEO with the whole executive management is repeating the same message that HPE is basically equal to GreenLake, there is no other future for HPE but GreenLake. Wherever I talk to HPE people, the transformation is tangible. It's incredible how fast it has happened and HPE people are genuinely excited about this!

[@davidhut3670]

@@TechEnthusiastInc Nutanix does the very difficult trick of delivering a cloud platform with the capabilities to deliver unified storage from within their cloud platform or a unified storage stack. With high performance, low latency and mission critical availability support. And it can run on HPE too!

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Yes, Nutanix is brilliant at what they do and what it is meant for. But it’s not comparable to HPE Alletra Storage MP. Two different things.

[@thomasstergaardnielsen4282]

Great video and presentation :)

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Thank you, Thomas! 👍 Are you working with storage?

[@thomasstergaardnielsen4282]

@@TechEnthusiastInc Yes, HPE Storage since 15 years, MASE for 10+ years :)

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Wow! Respect. I used to have my MASE too but I’m afraid it might have expired… 😬 You must be excited about the announcement? It’s really cool stuff.

[@thomasstergaardnielsen4282]

@@TechEnthusiastInc Its super exciting, looking forward to working with it in the near future

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Likewise. Can’t wait to see Alletra Storage MP in action! 🤩

[@pulla3829]

👍👍👍

[@timeagaljager9855]

👏

[@zafart7404]

Markus, I'm a little confused, if someone can answer this for me. So MP is only storage.. NOT HCI .. you don't get Compute I:e where you can run VMs? servers still needs to be connected to the front end of MP block storage ..correct?

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Hi Zafar! Thanks for the good question. Yes, HPE Alletra Storage MP is purely storage. If you think of the traditional 3-tier architecture with compute, storage and networking, HPE Alletra Storage MP is the storage tier only. It has nothing to do with compute, you still need to have separate servers to run your apps, connected to the MP. Now, as I thought about your comment, I realised that it must be a bit confusing when I wrote that "compute node" on the lightboard. But that's how HPE officially calls it when you have an MP chassis with only processing power, without storage capacity. But that "compute node" is meant to act as *storage* controllers, not to run VMs or apps in any other form. For now anyway. If you allow me to speculate...to my understanding, there's nothing technically preventing HPE from installing VMware, Nutanix or anything else similar to the Allerta Storage MP "compute nodes". After all, it's just x86 hardware. At that point...things would get REALLY interesting. Maybe that's the reason they call it "compute" and not "controller"... 🤔

[@zafart7404]

@@TechEnthusiastInc That is good and very clear. Thanks Markus... love your videos. You clear so much confusion with your videos.

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

My pleasure! And thanks for the compliments. Good to have you around! 👊

[@userspylife]

Is there a direct migration capabilities from current primera/alletra 9k or nimble (Alletra 6k) to this new mp platform? Or can we replicate from those array to the mp, or it will be a full forklift again?

[@kenyang0810]

It supports peer motion to 3par storage at first release, and then support migrate to Primera/Alletra 6/9k in the future release.

[@userspylife]

@@kenyang0810 you mean peermotion from 3par/primera/alletra 9k as "source" ?

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

As ken yang mentioned, at launch there will be Peer Motion from 3Par to HPE GreenLake for Block Storage only, no support to migrate from Primera or Alletra. While I don't have 100% knowledge, I am quite certain peer motion from Primera and Alletra to GRL4BS will be added when they publish the support for JBOF's and multiple compute nodes.

[@kongkeaphim]

Does it support with peer persistence? (metro cluster storage for Active-Active Data center)

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Yes, it does. Well, to be more precise, the HPE GreenLake for Block Storage OS (running on HPE Alletra Storage MP) supports active peer persistence, not the hardware platform per se. Almost all data features come from the software, hardware can support virtually anything.

[@brtoneal6339]

may i know the difference between 3par, nimble, premaria and this alletra MP? i know that all of them is available on greenlake platform, but what's the really the difference? Do they just work for either one protocol? and can this MP storage run both protocol at the same time?

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Hi brt! This is actually a really good question as it must seem quite confusing for many. So, 3Par, Nimble Storage and Primera are primary storage arrays, hence, meant for block storage. Where they differ is in features, performance, availability and scalability. 3Par is meant for mid-range to high-end with lots of scalability options, HPE Nimble Storage is more positioned towards mid-range with limited scalability but superior availability features for its price range. Primera targets high-end customer environments with 100% availability guarantee. In addition to these, there's still the entry-level HPE MSA with more limited feature set and performance and HPE XP for mainframe environments. So, there's no denying, this is complex. *REALLY* complex! The confusing complexity of storage portfolio plagues the whole industry, not only HPE. And that's when HPE Alletra Storage MP steps in, simplifying all this radically. It will replace most of those storage systems in HPE's current portfolio as it is using one and the same common hardware platform that can run different operating systems. It can also scale from very small to virtually infinitely large. At launch MP can run block or file storage OS. But not at the same time - it is not a unified storage system. Also, while the rest of the storage arrays can be bought without GreenLake, HPE Alletra Storage MP can only be bought thru HPE GreenLake and combined with a GreenLake data service like HPE GreenLake for Block Storage. Hope this helps.

[@brtoneal6339]

@@TechEnthusiastInc I see, thanks for the detailed explanation!! So can I say so far there's no particular product for file storage? and now clients can choose the Alletra storage MP to start with, whether it's for file storage/ block storage. Can they switch to run the other storage if they have purchased the device? I am actually not too familiar with how storage works although I have done some research on that. Could you please help to elaborate a bit more? Thank you! I am actually preparing an interview for that and would love to know more about this special product. Hope you don't mind answering my questions :)

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

HPE has traditionally not been big on file storage. They do have StoreEasy which is meant for smaller, more simple scenarios, 3Par has something called "file persona" but that's just bolted on top of 3Par native block storage system. When serious business critical file storage is needed, HPE offers their partner's solutions like Qumulo. Now, HPE GreenLake for File Storage offers file storage for large, demanding environments from HPE's own portfolio (powered by VAST Data OS and HPE Alletra Storage MP hardware). No, you can't re-install the OS on the HPE Alletra Storage MP. I know this is a bit backwards but this is important: HPE Alletra Storage MP is just the engine that runs HPE cloud storage services. You can't buy Alletra MP as a stand-alone storage array, it _always_ comes with a HPE GreenLake cloud service. When you start using, say, HPE GreenLake for Block Storage service, HPE commits to provide you state-of-the-art block storage capacity *as-a-service*. And that's that. Now, the service will indeed run on HPE Alletra Storage MP hardware but you don't really have to worry about it or even know about it. Just like with AWS or Azure. You just focus on using the service and let HPE worry about the rest. So, if you later on realise you don't need block storage but file storage, then you just end the HPE GreenLake for Block Storage contract with HPE and make a new service contract for HPE GreenLake for File Storage. Then HPE takes away the previous Alletra MP hardware (with VAST Data OS installed) and brings in new HPE Alletra Storage MP hardware (with HPE GreenLake for Block Storage OS installed). This is very different to how "traditional", "non-cloud" storage works but that's why I am genuinely excited about Alletra MP since the imaginable possibilities are immense. Almost everything imaginable is possible. Including unified storage, no problem. Will HPE do it? Doubt it. There's just no good argument for that in the cloud. But it's certainly possible - just install some Unified Storage OS on HPE Alletra MP and off you pop. No biggie. Hope this helps and good luck with the interview! 🤞

[@brtoneal6339]

@@TechEnthusiastIncThis is a very detailed elaboration. Thannks so much for sharing a lot of info with me! Would you mind also briefly talking about what makes it different from how traditionally as you mentioned in the last paragraph? Are you referring to the scalability of the device? After understanding more about it, it seems to me people still need two MP devices if they need both file storage and block storage. But what's special about it is the scalability and the agility together with HPE GreenLake cloud service is limitless. Am I right?

[@ayyaswamythangavel1550]

What is the minimum number of HPE Alletra Storage MP compute nodes and storage nodes to start with and how scalable is it at this launch?

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

At launch only 8-core and 16-core compute+capacity versions are available with no expansion (or capacity) option. You can populate the chassis with 24 NVMe's. So, at the moment the options are very limited but it will not take them long to push out the capacity versions (JBOFs) and 32-core compute nodes. Even the switched mode is not too many months away.

[@friedrichjaeger7749]

minimum start with 1 Compute Enclosure (includes 2 nodes) and 1 Storage Node, online Expand to 8 Compute and 6 Storage Node for Performance, or 2 Compute and 12 Storage for capacity at the initial launch release, more expandable in the future release

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Hehe, Friedrich is correct too. ;) This is getting a bit complicated but bear with me. So, I assumed you meant HPE GreenLake for *Block Storage* and Friedrich was talking about the HPE GreenLake for *File Storage*. Both are running on the same HPE Alletra Storage MP hardware but since software/OS defines their capabilities, Block and File also scale differently. Hope this makes sense?

[@vincentlim8795]

Tell me more about this cool new VAST Data SDS

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Have to admit, I am still learning myself. I think people from @VASTData like @rosscooper-smith8304 could be way better to give us all an introduction to their super interesting solutions. Anyone? :)

[@DeepStorage-VAST]

VAST Data's software uses a new scale-out architecture we call DASE for Disaggregated, Shared Everything to provide efficient, multiprotocol, all-flash file services. The AlletraMP storage chassis connects the SSDs it holds to front-end protocol servers (I think HPE's compute chassis) over 100 Gbps Ethernet. These servers talk directly to the SSDs in the storage chassis so every server can access data, and metadata, on any storage chassis in the cluster. That means you can scale compute chassis, for performance, independent from storage chassis (for capacity) and scale the whole thing to 100s of PB of capacity and millions of IOPS. We do highly efficient erasure-codes, and best in the industry data reduction to bring the cost of all-flash down to where mere mortals can afford it. I wrote a little whitepaper (OK, not so little) at www.vastdata.com/whitepaper if you want more details. Howard Marks - Technologist Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary - VAST Data.

[@senate014]

What about us poor people that can only afford ‘refurbished’ SAN’s? One of the defining reasons why HPE are the leading Server and Storage vendors is that their can be ‘reused and refurbished’. It sound like HPE Alletra will lock the poor 99% out and cater for the 1%.. I’m to rethink my business model!

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Hi senate014! First of all, there will be other storage options still for a long time, not all is going to be MP, at least anytime soon. But if we only focus on MP, that is an interesting question. While I do not have an official answer for you, let me speculate. After being in production with company A for, say, 5 years, when it is time to decommission that storage, what prevents HPE/company A from selling the used MP to company B for a dramatically lowered price? Company B would still need to pay the monthly subscription fee for DSCC management but at least they'd get the hardware cheap. However, as far as I know, even new MP hardware is going to be VERY attractively priced (its the subscriptions where HPE wants to make their revenue) so don't know how dramatic the difference would be.

[@CarlosVazTecnologia]

When they announced the new alletra MP I was expecting an unified storage that could do file and block in the same array (like the powerstore from dell or even most netapp arrays). Cool to have this product nonetheless. However, I am not a big fan of the new bezels (gen 11 and alletra mp). Best regards!

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Hi Carloz! Haha! I'm not the biggest fan of the new bezel design either. They've done better. I know, unified storage certainly is appealing, it is simple, compact and efficient for SMB and midmarket customers. But it has its drawbacks too like securing independent scaling of performance and capacity for all personas while maintaining mission critical availability and efficiency. One thing to remember, that I think I did not emphasise in the video enough, is that HPE Alletra Storage MP is designed to run HPE GreenLake services *ONLY*. You can't just buy Alletra Storage MP and start using it like you'd use any other array. You will always subscribe to some GreenLake service, that will then be powered by HPE Alletra Storage MP. Keeping that in mind, I highly appreciate it that HPE focuses on providing the best possible dedicated block storage service and separately the best possible file storage service. This guarantees HPE GreenLake users the absolute best available performance, scalability and availability that are beyond any unified storage. And having said that...as I mentioned in the video, it's all about software. Today, HPE is offering block and file. Next week they might add object. Who knows, one day there might be a HPE GreenLake for Unified Storage service running on HPE Alletra Storage MP if they see enough customer demand for it. And that's the beauty of this new platform that no-one else on the market has. And the reason I said this might be industry shaping announcement.

[@userspylife]

What abt pure storage new unified storage something that is gonna be announced? Seems like need to have two seperate storage stack one for block and one for file since its vast based

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Indeed, you need to install one persona per hardware, you can’t run block and file on the same hardware. So, Alletra MP is not unified storage. This is by design since there are significant advantages to this in the form of optimal scalability and performance. Having said that, Alletra MP is all about software. So, if one day it makes sense, HPE can introduce a unified storage OS for Alletra Storage MP. I doubt it, but there’s technically nothing preventing this.

[@yuvaraja82]

Alletra Storage MP, what does MP stands for..?

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Great question! I should have mentioned that in the video. MP means Multi Protocol...for its ability to run virtually any storage protocol. It is only up to the OS/software what storage protocols are supported in what configuration.

[@yuvaraja82]

@@TechEnthusiastInc 👍 Thank you

[@lixi-qing5310]

Nice job, HPE! It seems like the Huawei OceanStore from 5-6 years ago. Now, HPE's portfolio is fully fragmented with MSA, Simplivity, Alletra 5K, Alletra 6K, Alletra 9K, and XP. The new platform just means that customers who invested money in 3Par, Nimble, or Primera have just wasted it. IBM FlashSystem 5200 or 7300 may cover 80% of market needs.

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Hi Li! Thanks for the comments. A couple of further questions/comments. I am not familiar with Huawei OceanStor but WOW, you got my attention! So, you are saying OceanStor has been doing the same for at least 5 years as the just announced HPE Alletra Storage MP? After quick googling it doesn't seem like HPE Alletra Storage MP at all, at least how it is today. So, could you please provide me with a link to some webpage/document/video explaining Huawei OceanStor? I would be very interested in learning more! Spot on! Though, you forgot (all the versions of) HPE Nimble Storage and HPE Primera from the fragmented HPE storage portfolio. ;) And this is exactly what's wrong with storage, with all vendors, including HPE. And, as I mentioned in the video, HPE Alletra Storage MP was designed to fix *exactly* this...eventually replacing everything else but XP and _maybe_ MSA. So, are you saying that people who bought a BMW a year ago wasted their money the moment a new model is introduced? I am not sure what you mean by IBM FlashSystem 5k/7k covering 80% of market needs. Could you elaborate?

[@lixi-qing5310]

​@@TechEnthusiastInc Long story short the world is divided into macro-regions. You can't buy HW in the US or Europe. Why really care? Huawei used the same OS from the midrange Oceanstor 5K to the High End 9K. System was able to scale out by adding controllers or scale up by upgrading controllers. RoCE scaling was supported about 5 years ago. Moreover, the ARM controllers in the shelfs allowed to offload the main controllers. IBM XIV storage used about the same architecture. HPE is a marketing company... I think in reality HPE engineer may choose something between Dacia of 5y owned Ford )

[@obtFusi]

As great as it is, like many other Data Center Infrastructure, it's sad that on prem is dying because of big cloud providers like Azure, AWS, ...

[@og_myxiplx]

On prem isn't dying, especially for large data analytics workloads. There's huge demand for these solutions at the moment.

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Public cloud is great for a lot of workloads but now that the “cloud first” dust has settled, companies are realising how expensive and inconvenient it is to run their business critical workloads in the public cloud. Some of the workloads are better off on-prem. Actually most of them, believe it or not. But all locations are needed. That’s why I’m absolutely convinced that the future is hybrid. And seems even AWS, Azure, GCP and other hyperscalers agree since they have lots of solutions for on-prem and more are coming. So no, on-prem is not dying. It’s more alive than for years.

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

@rosscooper-smith8304 Spot on! That’s a great example. Are you working with some analytics stuff?

[@og_myxiplx]

@@TechEnthusiastInc I joined VAST Data about a year ago, and have been almost constantly amazed by them ever since. This partnership is a very, very smart move by HPE. But I totally agree with you, the future is hybrid for almost every estate. Even for the large data customers VAST has, whilst cloud is too expensive at these scales, there can still be benefits in being able to burst to the cloud for ad-hoc workloads.

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Awesome! I must admit I'm not too familiar with VAST but with this HPE announcement, I am eager to know more. Maybe we could have a chat? If you're interested, email me.

[@joellindberg3012]

This is basically what Nutanix have done for years, block, file, object + VM:s, k8s, in the same cluster. All software defined, managed from 1 console

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Well...no. :) Nutanix Unified Storage is great for what it is designed for. But saying that it is the same as HPE Alletra Storage MP is wrong. Nutanix is hyperconvergence (converged compute, storage and networking), with all its capabilities and limitations. It is most suitable for generic workloads with predictable/limited scalability. HPE Alletra Storage MP is *dedicated* storage platform. It provides (or will provide) 100% availability guarantee, super low latency, the highest performance and unlimited scalability of both compute and capacity. All beyond the capabilities of Nutanix Unified Storage. Also, Alletra Storage MP is ready to run any storage protocol that the future brings. And this is not to undermine Nutanix, not at all. All I am saying is that HCI solutions will always have their limitations. Like HPE Simplivity does too. But as I said in the video, to me, this is just a beginning of the future of HPE storage. Yesterday, with the announcement, we just got a glimpse of what's possible. Alletra Storage MP is the enabler for all what's to come. This "unifies" the storage infrastructure for HPE, making it magnitudes easier for them to provide a true cloud experience to their customers. It will be *much* cheaper too! That's why I said this is actually the biggest GreenLake development since the introduction of GreenLake itself.

[@og_myxiplx]

It's similar, but different. From an infrastructure perspective, Nutanix and HCI in general are great for small to medium sized workloads. As you start to scale you rapidly get to the point that separate compute & storage layers are more cost effective, more performant and more flexible. But Nutanix have done great work with their integrations and software stack, I see that being a differentiator for them nowdays more than just the HCI message. What HPE are doing here is very different, and it's much more suited to the higher end of the market. HPE are very much building a composible hardware platform, allowing large enterprises to optimise their investment and adapt to changing market conditions. HPE Greenlake is becoming a very well thought out private cloud platform for medium to large enterprises.

[@kenyang0810]

It may be the same concept, but still different implementations and uses.. Alletra MP is a HW platform(based on X86 system but not fully standard) and can run VAST(file) or HPE GreenLake block storage OS(based on Alletra 9000 DNA) on it (choose one). HPE called it is disaggregared architecture -- composed by compute node (which is running block os or VAST os) + JBOF for capacity + 100Gbe S/W for data switching. They split different applications (file/block/object) on different hardware in order to provide better performance and scalability for large scale environment.

[@Sgtprimo11]

HPE shill calls himself tech enthusiast but only touts HPE products? Dude HPE is only doing a subset of what Pure does in storage innovation and kicks HPE’s ass in both storage efficiency and power efficiency for storage in the data center. It’s nice that HPE is finally trying to play catch up in data management everywhere though. Let your audience know when HPE finally develops an infrastructure as code capability that works in on-prem and cloud environments. Pure is already mile ahead of you.

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Hi Michael! Hehe, "HPE shill". That put a smile on my grumpy Monday face. 😆 Just to be clear, I am not working for HPE in any shape or form, never have. I've been working _with_ them for ages, tho. So yes, I've been focusing on HPE on my channel. That's mostly because a) I have a long history with them - I know them well - and b) I genuinely like what they are doing, especially with GreenLake. From where I am standing, they are killing it! Now, does that automatically mean I don't like others? No. Does that mean I can't be enthusiastic about all tech and hence can't call myself tech enthusiast? Definitely not. It is just easy and natural to talk about topics that I know best, am being updated constantly and personally like. So, my enthusiasm for tech is not monogamous. I'm an equal-opportunity tech admirer, always eager to learn more about other players in the game, including Pure Storage. I'm no stranger to Pure, though, and hence would dare to challenge your opinion of Pure being "mile ahead", because: depends. But, I might not have the latest so if you are working for Pure Storage, would you be available for a call to explain why you think Pure "kicks HPE's ass"? 😊

[@bretl8130]

they bought nimble because their storage was shit

[@TechEnthusiastInc]

Wow! So, in your opinion 3Par was “shit” in 2017? This is literally the first time I hear that. I am very curious, what was “shit” about 3Par?