HPE Ups The AI File Services Ante With New Alletra Storage For GreenLake

‘The main focus originally was enterprise file solutions. But we get dragged into very large GPU installations, especially with cloud solution providers. We are now in a lot of large GPU installations, so it’s imperative we add to the portfolio. We can offer a single data lake to provide capacity for small to midsize AI deployments with GreenLake while providing cloud-like simplicity,’ says Gokul Sathiacama, HPE’s vice president and general manager for unstructured data.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Tuesday expanded its HPE GreenLake for File Storage offering with the addition of a new high-density, all-flash storage array the company said is aimed at large-scale enterprise AI and data lake workloads.

The new technology, an upgraded version of the HPE Alletra Storage MP array HPE introduced last year, uses the same software as the prior version, but provides up to 2.3 times the performance density and up to 2.3 times the capacity of competitive offerings including Dell PowerScale and Pure Storage FlashBlade, said Gokul Sathiacama, HPE’s vice president and general manager for unstructured data.

It also provides four times capacity and as much twice the system performance per rack unit compared to the original HPE Alletra Storage MP, he said.

The expansion of the HPE GreenLake for File Storage line comes just one month after the company launched HPE GreenLake for Block Storage built on HPE Alletra Storage MP, which the company called the storage industry’s first disaggregated scale-out block storage.

While the original version of the HPE Alletra Storage MP could be used for block and file storage, the new model is strictly aimed at file-based data, Sathiacama told CRN.

“We may open it up to block storage someday,” he said. “But today we can’t see customers with petabyte-scale block storage requirements.”

The focus of the HPE Greenlake for File Storage has changed since it was first introduced last year, Sathiacama said.

“The main focus originally was enterprise file solutions,” he said. “But we get dragged into very large GPU installations, especially with cloud solution providers. We are now in a lot of large GPU installations, so it’s imperative we add to the portfolio. We can offer a single data lake to provide capacity for small to midsize AI deployments with GreenLake while providing cloud-like simplicity so customers don’t need to think about bringing their cloud and infrastructure together.”

HPE GreenLake for File Storage on HPE Alletra Storage MP targets GenAI, Large Language Models (LLMs), and other AI workloads, Sathiacama said.

The increased density offered by the latest Alletra for HPE GreenLake for File Storage provides a better landing place for many customers’ file storage needs, said Chris McNally, data center sales specialist at WWT, a St. Louis-based solution provider and long-time major HPE channel partner.

“The technology drives out a lot of the bottlenecks that have impacted storage in the past,” McNally told CRN.

The new Alletra Storage MP improves on the capacity, density, and scalability of the original HPE GreenLake for File Storage, said Jim Albert, a senior consulting systems engineer at WWT.

“This is very important to customers,” Albert told CRN. “What drives customers is the disaggregated architecture of HPE GreenLake for File Storage. Leveraging the Alletra is a game changer. Nobody else is doing that. Everyone is playing catch-up. And the data services we can add on tip like DRR (data reduction ratio) is hard to do in a disaggregated architecture, but easy with GreenLake.”

HPE is showing it is living up to its commitment to a timeline to be ready for AI, said Brandon Harris, vice president for the hybrid data center practice at New York-based global solution provider Logicalis.

Where HPE GreenLake for File Storage on HPE Alletra Storage MP is really relevant is around the AI space,” Harris told CRN. “All customers want AI, and are playing with AI. But at some point, the technology has to become enterprise-ready. And having an option that is scalable on the cloud and on-prem is important. Customer adoption of GreenLake was not very high, and AI is the main reason. But we’re talking more and more with customers, and will now see more adoption and an accelerated time to close.”

About 80 percent of the HPE Alletra Storage MP sales currently go through indirect sales channels, Sathiacama said.

“This is a significant channel opportunity for the largest AI customers for large-scale partners with HPC and AI practices,” he said.