HP is pushing forward its Adaptive Infrastructure initiative with the introduction of the BladeSystem Matrix, which HP officials say offers server, network and storage in a single package. Combined with the Matrix Orchestration Environment management software, the offering can simplify complicated data center tasks while reducing operating costs. The introduction comes as other tech playersincluding Cisco, IBM, Dell and Sunstart pushing their own initiatives to introduce solutions that combined data center resources with management software and virtaulization capabilities to increase performance and agility and reduce costs.Hewlett-Packard is rolling out an all-in-one, converged compute
resources platform, the latest addition to its Adaptive Infrastructure
initiative and the most recent salvo in the burgeoning competition for
data center dominance.
HP on April 20 is unveiling the BladeSystem Matrix, a converged
software, server, storage and networking platform that automates the
delivery of services in the data center. In addition, the vendor is
rolling out the Matrix Orchestration Environmentor MOEa unified
management interface that gives IT administrators a single place from
which to control everything.
At the same time, HP is announcing enhancements to its Virtual
Connect networking technology as well as additions to its storage
lineup.
The moves are the latest in a space that is seeing major tech
vendors quickly releasing initiatives designed to converge server,
storage and networking resources, and use software and virtualization
technologies to create a highly agile, extremely dynamic data center
environment.
Cisco Systems March 16 unveiled its Unified Computing System strategy,
which combines its strength in networking with new blade servers based
on Intels new Xeon 5500 processors and partnerships with such vendors
as EMC, VMware, NetApp and Intel. On April 16, in a one-hour Webcast,
Cisco officials gave more detail about the initiative, highlighting the
embedded management software, industry-standard technologies and new
memory capabilities to rebut criticisms of rivals and to illustrate how the plan will improve data center performance while saving enterprises money.
Two days before, on April 14, Sun Microsystems rolled out its Open Network Systems plan,
which also incorporates Intels Xeon 5500 chipsalso known as Nehalem
EPas well as Suns own Solaris operating system, networking and
storage technologies and integrated Flash memory capabilities.
Other vendorsfrom heavyweights such as IBM and Dell to Novell to
newcomers such as Schooner Information Technologyalso are moving in
that direction.
To HP officials, BladeSystem Matrix is a key differentiator in whats becoming a crowded field.
The data center is complicated, sad Jim Ganthier, vice president
of marketing of infrastructure software for blades. There are multiple
islands of IT in the data center. BladeSystem Matrix fundamentally
changes the way people look at the data center. This new environment
is more flexible, dynamic, manageable and cost-effective.
HP officials said the combination of the BladeSystem Matrix and MOE
can save enterprises up to 79 percent in operational costs, offers a
four-to-one network equipment consolidation and a 45 percent reduction
in server hardware and software costs.
The offering simplifies such tasks as disaster recovery, capacity
planning, consolidation and provisioning, they said. IT administrators
can dynamically assign resources based on business demands in minutes
rather than weeks. After the service requirements are fulfilled, the
resources are put back into the pool.
Key to the BladeSystem Matrix is the inclusion of HPs new Virtual
Connect 8Gb Fibre Channel and Flex-10 Ethernet modules. Flex-10 can
allocate the bandwidth of a 10Gb Ethernet network across four NIC
(network interface card) connections, which reduces the need for
additional network equipment.
Virtual Connect comes with several enhancements, including a
multienclosure stacking feature that can connect four enclosures into
one Virtual Connect domain, cutting the number of Ethernet cables to
two per rack. In addition, Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager v1.30,
which is part of MOE, gives IT administrators a central console for
configuration management, rapid assignment and failover of
server-to-network connections for up to 200 virtual connect domains.
On the storage side, HP is unveiling some of the fruits of its $360
million acquisition in October of LeftHand Networks, which the company
bought to extend its storage virtualization capabilities. The goal of
the new offerings is to enable IT managers to take excess storage
capacity from any vendor and create a single pool of shared storage. HP
also is offering multiple tiers of storage.
HPs LeftHand P4000 SAN (storage-area network) solutions enables
data replication and automatic balancing of data volumes across all
storage resources.
HP also is bundling the P4000 with its StorageWorks SB40c Virtual
SAN Appliance software, which offers a highly shared storage offering
in a virtualized blade infrastructure. In addition, HP is unveiling the
StorageWorks 600 Modular Disk System, which provides direct-attached
storage for the HP BladeSystem environment.
HP also is offering Insight Capacity Advisor Virtualization
Services, which is designed to help businesses plan and design their
virtual environments.
IT Infrastructure 
