HP targets virtualisation costs in server and storage refresh

HP is hoping that a focus on reducing virtualisation costs will help it maintain its lead in the server market.

At its TechForum 2010 conference in Las Vegas, HP unveiled ten new server and storage products across its blade, networking and enterprise storage lines.

"This is going to be our largest year for product launches ever," said Dave Donatelli, executive VP for HP's servers, storage and networking division [pictured].

Notable additions include the BL680c G7, the first-ever blade product with a terabyte of memory on board, and a major refresh to the Proliant line to incorporate technologies from HP's high-end Integrity Unix-based systems.

HP is promoting a common chassis design across the server and storage range, a move which enables it to reduce manufacturing costs.

Last month, HP was ranked as the top-selling global server manufacturer by both IDC and Gartner, displacing long-time market leader IBM.

On its BladeSystem Matrix products, HP will introduce improvements to virtualisation technology that reduce the need to take systems offline when faults occur.

Memory errors will be quarantined so that only the affected virtual machines will need to be brought down rather than the entire server, senior VP and GM for ESS infrastructure software and blades Mark Potter said.

The BL680 will theoretically be able to run 4,267 virtual machines in a single rack.

"Being able to run more virtual machines cuts the licensing cost by four times over our competitors," Potter said.

While that scale might not be common, customers have seen benefits from the approach.

Merritte Stidston, director of developer centre strategy and operations for health care company McKesson said that it had consolidated down from eight racks to two using Matrix technology for its QA systems, while increasing the number of images deployed from those systems from six to thirty-five.

The biggest benefit was the reduction in time to deploy systems, Stidston said, which had fallen from eight days to half a day.

HP also announced its first major play in the growing data deduplication market, debuting its StoreOnce software on its D2D4312 disk backup appliance.

Disclosure: Angus Kidman travelled to TechForum as a guest of HP.