Research Note: HPE announces a new object storage platform at Discover Barcelona 2024

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has announced a new object storage platform based on the Alletra Storage MP hardware. The Alletra Storage MP X10000 claims exabyte scale and significant performance compared to its competitors. Is this a genuinely new platform or a rebadging of partner software?

Background

HPE has announced a new object storage platform called the HPE Alletra Storage MP X10000. The name reflects a rebranding across the HPE storage ecosystem, with B10000 now the new name for the horrendously titled HPE GreenLake Block Storage with Alletra MP. Interestingly, the new branding does not include the GreenLake name but returns to a more logical product segmentation and generational nomenclature. Presumably, at some point, we can expect a file platform under the name F10000.

Specification

As usual, the HPE website is light on any details regarding the new solution. Digging deeper and looking at the QuickSpecs document for the X10000, we can see the system is built from a 2U controller node chassis with 2U expansion shelves containing up to 24 SSDs. From the capacities shown, these drives appear to be a fixed 30TB configuration.

Data is stored in a triple parity RAID configuration (20+3+1) for a total of just under 6PB in a fully configured system (not quite exabyte-level yet). Maximum effective capacity assumes a 2:1 data reduction saving through compression, giving a total of 8.7TB usable.

Software

The QuickSpecs provide details of the hardware configuration but don’t offer any insight into the software being used on the platform. Two independent industry sources claim the solution is entirely new software rather than an OEM solution from one of HPE’s many partners.

The decision to build a new solution from scratch seems somewhat puzzling. In April 2023, HPE released GreenLake for File Storage based on software from VAST Data. The architectural design of the platform is a “disaggregated shared nothing” or DASE system, a name also reflected in the marketing literature for the X10000. The VAST Data Platform supports multiple data protocols, including S3, so it would have been relatively simple for HPE to release an X10000 system using similar hardware to the File offering but with a choice of protocol. In fact, this is precisely what HPE claims is possible across all the Alletra MP solutions, although currently, it isn’t true.

Partners

If the X10000 isn’t using VAST Data Platform, then HPE could have chosen to OEM Scality or Cloudian, both of which are HPE partners. HPE has made significant investments in Scality, so it would seem logical to OEM that solution for object storage. However, neither of these options appears to have been chosen.

Learning Curve

Why does it make sense to OEM than build from scratch? The object storage market has existed since the late 1990s, with the first generally accepted object storage platform developed by Belgian company FilePool. EMC acquired the company in 2001, rebranding it as EMC Centera. Since then, we have seen the birth of many object storage platforms and companies, including Scality, Caringo, Bycast (now NetApp StorageGRID), Dell ECS, Cleversafe (now part of IBM Cloud), NooBaa, MinIO, Ceph, SwiftStack, Pure Storage FlashBlade and Hitachi Content Platform.

So, the market is mature with solutions that have many years of evolving features, tuning their designs and optimising for a plethora of different workloads, including AI. HPE is effectively starting from scratch (if the software is new) and will need to play catchup really, really quickly to outpace the vendors we’ve highlighted.

The Architect’s View®

We like the idea that HPE has accepted the GreenLake naming standard was a mess and has chosen to use more logical nomenclature for each of its block, file and object solutions. The concept of modular hardware is also potentially attractive to customers but isn’t unique (Pure Storage has offered cross-compatibility for several years) and does require flexible purchasing or consumption models with “mix and match” capability.

However, building a new object storage platform from first principles seems like a crazy move, especially when so much mature software is already available to HPE that fits within existing hardware designs.

We believe that HPE will have an uphill battle to convince potential customers to use its new object solution if it is a genuinely new product. Although the X10000 claims to offer 6x the performance over its competitors, there is no data to back this up, while the X10000 has no history as a solid and reliable platform for what is a valuable business asset (data).

Of course, it may turn out that the X10000 is running the VAST Data Platform supporting S3. In which case, gaining market acceptance may be easier. We don’t know exactly what is under the covers, but we are looking forward to finding out.