HP Discover 2013 kicks off this week. We’ve set you up with what to expect late last week: Flash, 3PAR + More. HP Discover 2013 is a pretty important conference for the storage landscape. I, along with the industry, are very interested to see two things: what Hewlett-Packard defines as 3PAR’s role in HP’s goals to update its flash-based storage technology, and what Vertica’s momentum means for HP’s Big Data play. HP needs to articulate its flash + software-defined + Big Data strategies to the world at HP Discover 2013, and if it cannot for whatever reason, the other sharks will smell blood in the water.

For the record: I think they do.

What to expect at HP Discover 2013: read  Flash, 3PAR + More.

Wikibon chief analyst Dave Vellante has coined the best phrase I’ve heard to date for HP’s strategy over the next 2-3 years: HP has to shrink to grow. HP COE Meg Whitman’s been making moves these last 14 months to pay down debt, and layout plans on a grander scale for HP. As it relates to 3PAR and HP’s flash storage development, last week on its earnings call HP explained its converged storage solutions increased by 48 percent from last year to $349 million. Within that, sales of 3PAR equipment soared by 82 percent.

Can HP leverage existing architecture?

A key takeaway from HP Discover 2013 will be whether or not HP can articulate how it can leverage its existing architecture. HP will need to show that its existing storage offerings can adapt for flash without penalty. This needs to be the tone of HP Discover 2013 from a storage angle: HP’s existing architecture is a mature product that took a decade to build out. A disadvantage to everyone else spinning up new stacks is the lack of maturity there. HP has a full storage stack, and while 3PAR is expensive, it’s still one of the best.

Another key takeaway from HP Discover 2013 will be how HP integrates Vertica + Autonomy + Hadoop and its hardware assets into a comprehensive Big Data platform. Wikibon Analyst Jeffrey Kelly summed it up great here:

“…challenges remain for Vertica and HP’s larger Big Data business. Namely, the Autonomy debacle continues to cast a shadow on HP’s efforts to build a robust analytics software business, and the company still hasn’t articulated how or if it plans to better integrate Autonomy, Vertica, Hadoop and its hardware assets into a comprehensive Big Data platform. The latter job could prove difficult for a company (HP) with little experience in the software business. HP and Vertica have a big job ahead of it with plenty of associated challenges.”

We will be covering HP’s evolving Big Data and converged storage businesses closely on SiliconANGLE. They posses two of the larger opportunities for HP moving forward. I will be especially focused on seeing how the HP tree shakes out related to converged storage + storage architecture + Big Data. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. As we move closer and closer to the revolution of the Internet of Things being the “now” …. all of that data has to be stored somewhere.