HP Enhances HP Converged Infrastructure Portfolio

HP has announced new innovations that strengthen its HP Converged Infrastructure portfolio.
HP has unveiled a new HP BladeSystem, HP Converged Storage and HP Networking solutions, as well as HP Services that accelerate return on IT investment and enable customers to refocus resources from operations to innovation.

“HP pioneered the concept of a converged infrastructure, and we were the first to deliver it,” said David Donatelli, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Group, HP. “But we’re not resting on our achievements, we continue to innovate and extend the HP Converged Infrastructure portfolio to deliver the benefits that our business and government customers expect from us.”

The new HP BladeSystem c7000 Platinum enclosure, a key solution within the HP ProLiant portfolio, dramatically improves performance, efficiency and availability of resources in virtualised and cloud environments. As a result, organisations can save up to 68 percent in datacentre operating costs. These groundbreaking datacentre economics are delivered through next-generation technologies that provide long-term investment protection and can scale to support growth.

The HP BladeSystem c7000 Platinum enclosure with the new SX1018 HP Ethernet switch, which provides the lowest port-to-port latency of any blade switch, is more than four times faster than previous switches. HP also is the first in the industry to provide 40GB downlinks to each blade server for near-real time performance. This provides the ideal network interface for high-performance clusters or financial services applications.

HP also introduced the new HP ProLiant WS460c Generation 8 (Gen8) Server Blade, the only bladed infrastructure that supports virtualised client solutions with high-density 3-D graphics and eight GPUs per blade server. Supporting four times more users per host blade, the HP WS460c lowers costs by up to 60 percent per user compared to previous generations, to mobilise an entire workforce.

HP StoreVirtual Storage offers pioneering software-defined storage that is delivered either as virtual storage appliance (VSA) software or as a converged storage appliance (CSA) on HP ProLiant hardware. HP has been shipping VSAs for more than seven years and has distributed more than 150,000 VSAs worldwide.

To capitalise on and accelerate the adoption of software-defined storage, HP announced two new HP StoreVirtual Storage systems, based on HP ProLiant Gen8 technologies. Improving both productivity and efficiency for businesses deploying virtualisation, HP StoreVirtual Storage systems deliver nearly double the performance and capacity density compared to previous models.

In addition, the new HP StoreSystem, a channel-only midrange storage solution, combines HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage and HP StoreOnce Backup systems that are preracked for rapid deployment. Offering primary block-and-file storage with information protection in a single system, HP StoreSystem now includes all HP 3PAR platform and VMware software suites to maximise customer efficiency and agility.

With HP Technology Services, customers can simplify, integrate and automate their IT environments to rapidly respond to organisational change and accelerate time to revenue.

HP Technology Services is now offering the HP Proactive Insight experience, which enables customers to take proactive actions as well as automate and manage tasks, resulting in problem prevention and productivity gains.

The HP Proactive Insight experience begins with HP Proactive Care, which provides proactive problem avoidance and direct access to advanced technical expertise. This service is powered by innovative support and management technologies, including HP Insight Online, the cloud-based management portal; and HP Insight Remote Support, which remotely monitors servers, storage and networks.

HP networking innovations also include device on-boarding and provisioning functionalities through a single management application, automated security with software-defined networks (SDN) technology, and mobility connectivity services that further extend the customer benefits of the HP FlexNetwork architecture.

To help customers create an optimised, scalable wired and wireless infrastructure, HP is offering HP FlexNetwork Design and Validation and HP Wireless LAN Lifecycle Services. These services provide validated and interoperable high-level designs and device configurations based on proven HP FlexNetwork reference architectures.