HP is planning to develop a Hyper-V version of its VMware-based LeftHand Networks virtual storage appliance (VSA).

VSA is LeftHand SAN/iq software packaged to run as a virtual machine under VMware. Like SAN/iq itself it turns direct-attached storage (DAS) on its server, or PC, host, into storage area network (SAN) storage. Groups of servers can be aggregated to form a bigger SAN storage pool.

As we reported in September, now confirmed elsewhere, HP is going to have VSA running under Hyper-V within a year. This is part of the set of initiatives that make up Frontline, the HP-Microsoft alliance announced on Wednesday.

In principle, any storage system-level software running on X86 hardware can be converted to run as a virtual machine under a hyperviser. DataCore already provides its SANmelody software as a Hyper-V-based software appliance. Darth Redmond will be encouraging other companies to follow suit, citing HP as evidence that the storage force really is with Hyper-V. ®