HP Strengthens Converged Infrastructure Portfolio

At its yearly Global Partner Conference in Las Vegas, NE, Hewlett-Packard Development company, LP unveiled a BladeSystem, Converged Storage and Networking solutions, as well as HP Services that accelerate return on IT investment and enable customers to refocus resources from operations to innovation.

Significant shifts in the IT industry, including cloud, big data, social media and mobility, have added new challenges for CIOs in meeting customer, partner and employee expectations while aligning IT and enterprise goals with limited funding.

The HP Converged Infrastructure portfolio addresses these challenges in deploying and managing large-scale infrastructures. HP has delivered more than 8 million virtual connect ports, issued more than 7 million HP Insight Management licenses, shipped more than 40PB of bladed storage and 50 million switch ports, and grown to nearly 900 HP CloudSystem customers. In addition, HP has led the industry in blade server revenue and shipments for 24 consecutive quarters.

An open, standards-based, heterogeneous approach that integrates servers, storage, networking and management software:
Experience of implementing Converged Infrastructure solutions for customers – as well as close collaboration with 4,500 HP AllianceOne members and partners who develop complete solutions built on Converged Infrastructure.

Consulting and support services by HP and certified partners that simplify IT management, improve ROI by optimizing IT investments, and ensure a quality customer experience.

"HP pioneered the concept of a converged infrastructure, and we were the first to deliver it," said David Donatelli, EVP and GM, 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."

New HP BladeSystem delivers  data center economics
Virtualization offers significant benefits to organizations
According to Gartner, in 2016, 82% of server workloads will be running in virtual environments, which could increase management complexity and operational costs.

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

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

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

HP innovations accelerate move
to modern storage architecture
Unpredictable data growth and workload performance demands are forcing customers to upgrade legacy storage architectures. This transition – from legacy to modern, scale-out storage architectures – represents a multibillion dollar opportunity for channel partners.

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

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

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

HP Technology Services simplify, integrate,
automate Converged Infrastructure
With HP Technology Services, customers can simplify, integrate and automate their IT environments to rapidly respond to organizational 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 averaging $32,000 per 100 users. The Proactive Insight experience begins with Proactive Care, which provides proactive problem avoidance and direct access to advanced technical expertise. This service is powered by support and management technologies, including Insight Online, a cloud-based management portal; and Insight Remote Support, which remotely monitors servers, storage and networks. With the Proactive Insight experience, customers can increase user productivity and achieve a return on their services investment in 30 days or less.

Innovations deliver a BYOD networking solution
By 2016, two-thirds of the workforce will own smartphones, and 40% of the workforce will be mobile.Yet, today’s legacy infrastructure requires two separate networks to support wired and wireless connectivity, resulting in operational complexity and security challenges.

HP also launched a complete solution that supports growing BYOD initiatives. This solution delivers unified wired and wireless management as well as switching platforms that create a single network for wired and wireless connectivity.

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 extend the customer benefits of the HP FlexNetwork architecture.

To double network scalability over legacy infrastructure, the new OpenFlow-enabled HP 2920 Switch Series speeds data transfer by up to 45%, while increasing performance by up to 100%. In addition, the new HP 830 Unified/WLAN Switch eliminates the need to purchase up to 50% of traditional network access devices, including separate switches and controllers, while supporting up to 1,000 wireless devices.To help customers create an optimized, scalable wired and wireless infrastructure, HP is offering FlexNetwork Design and Validation and Wireless LAN Lifecycle Services. These services provide validated and interoperable high-level designs and device configurations based on FlexNetwork reference architectures.