Many major companies have been making moves in the data storage world to position themselves as leaders in the digital revolution. One of those is Hewlett-Packard Co., who comes to the fight with a portfolio of products and services designed to stake their claim in the storage market. To get an inside view on HP’s strategy for the future of digital storage, Dave Vellante of theCUBE, from the SilconANGLE Media team, brought Yogesh Agrawal, VP of strategy, solutions, and tech marketing at HP Storage, to the table at VMworld 2015 to discuss the topic.

After a brief talk about his role at HP, Agrawal explained the basics of the company’s strategy when it comes to data storage. It had developed two design centers, one for software-defined storage and one for system-defined solutions. Using these two centers, it could follow where the money was flowing in the storage space, allowing it to extend its leadership role.

Convergence and flexibility

Customers want flexibility, Agrawal said, and they want complete solutions. To offer this, HP was working on convergence to bring its systems together for the customer. To the customer, storage is simply a means to an end; it’s the applications that are important. The system must be built to support the applications it will run.

This is where the Cloud comes in. Clients want mobility for their applications, being able to access them anywhere and move them between systems as they need. Part of HP’s strategy is to make its systems work in a way that gives the customer this kind of flexibility.

Solutions for tomorrow’s market

To help cement its place in the storage market, HP has built its strategy around four pillars: hybrid infrastructure, protecting digital assets, empowering the data-driven economy and enabling workplace productivity. Its data storage systems are designed around these core concepts.

HP has also planned a number of strategic moves in the market to support its goal of extending their leadership position well into the future.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of VMworld 2015.

Photo by SiliconANGLE