Mario,

Thank you for your recent note on the XP bulletproof test.

You asked in your review, perhaps rhetorically, "What were we thinking?"
That is pretty much the same question our HP attorney asked multiple times in our preparations for this test. The answer is included in the whitepapers on the site with the bulletproof video. We really wanted to know, could the XP continue to run in an extreme failure situation?

The reason we carefully selected the site for bullet to go through was that we wanted to effectively simultaneously destroy the function of a full half of the machine with one shot. It would have been a relatively easy and meaningless effort to shoot through an empty void in the machine. We carefully chose instead to have the bullet go through exactly one full set of the boards that control the function of the machine. We wanted to do the test with the power on and data moving, because you cannot choose the state your system is in when a real disaster event happens.

When the bullet went through the system for real, no data was lost and no interruption to access to the data occurred. Even more significantly, as documented in the whitepaper and the "Making of video", with the power on and with no interruption to access to the data, HP replaced all of the damaged boards and brought the system back to full redundancy while still running at NTS in the bunker. The ability of the array to withstand major electrical and physical shocks and continue to operate is a real test. Given a massive earthquake, a radical fluctuation of power, or even a flooding fire extinquishing situation, the XP's built in resiliency and redundancy is important in a very real sense.

We are collecting examples from real life data center events where the ruggedness of the XP has saved millions of dollars worth of data for our customers. We will be publishing these in the future. The accounts we have collected already are most impressive.

We have the destroyed XP boards on display at our major XP related trade events. This was not a bogus test in any way.

And, yes, we also wanted to show that HP has a bit of a sense of humor and adventure, too. Thanks for watching the video.

Regards,
James R. Wilson
XP Program Team
+hp = everything is possible

James,

I did not compare notes with your attorney, but I am still shaking my head.

What that video clip proves is clear to me, and please understand that I never thought the test to be bogus.

My point was that the average IT folks could perhaps more easily identify with a number of other, more common threats to their storage arrays than a rifle shot.

A bullet can be aimed with surgically accurate precision, but disastrous events such as the ones you mention in your note inflict damage that is more widespread and unpredictable.

Anyway, the video clip was fun to watch. Please let me know if HP plans to gun down more storage arrays: I will gladly help with the shooting.

Mario