The addition of new partners and initiatives to the HP ProCurve Open Network Ecosystem (ONE) may solidify HP's competitive stance as Cisco expands into the blade server market later this year. In addition, HP has also released a number of new enterprise-class switches for the data center. To make these switches more efficient, HP used a blade form factor.
The HP ProCurve Open Network Ecosystem has integrated new vendors and data center
solutions that may not only help Hewlett-Packard
expand its adaptive-networks vision within the $50 billion U.S. server market,
but may also help it retain market share in the face of competition from Cisco
Systems.
HP's Jan. 26 announcement included multiple vendors-including Aastra,
AirTight Networks, Avaya, Erkhau, F5, InMon, Microsoft, McAfee and Riverbed-that
have already signed on to provide network applications and services that
interoperate with the HP ProCurve ONE
Services zl Module, an
HP blade for the HP ProCurve Switch 5400zl and 8200zl series.
By having these vendors' programs integrated onto a single platform, HP
users should be able to improve their network applications' efficiency while
reducing costs via operational streamlining.
The second part of the announcement focused on HP ProCurve's introduction of
two new enterprise networking products for the data center.
First is the HP ProCurve 6600 switch series, five top-of-rack server edge
switches based on the fourth generation of HP ProCurve's ProVision ASIC network
chip set and designed with a front-to-back reversible airflow system that adds
a bit of energy-efficient "green" to the data center. The switches turn off
unused ports, also reducing power consumption while giving a boost to cooling
efficiency.
The prices for the switches themselves range from $4,699 to $12,499.
The other just-released product is the HP ProCurve Data Center Connection
Manager, software that automatically provisions server and network resources
for both virtualized and traditional environments.
"The network should be flexible and adapt to users and applications, as well
as the organizational changes that every company is going through right now,"
said Kowshik Bhat, HP's ProCurve ONE alliance
manager.
Key to this is the network's ability to adapt intelligently to its users.
"If a user is moving from one network subnet to another, ProCurve has a
policy instituted at the port level; if you move from one conference room to
another, the user's policy dynamically gets applied to wherever you're trying
to connect," according to Bhat.
These developments could help HP boost its profile in what may soon be a
more competitive environment thanks to Cisco, which analysts predict will enter
the blade server market in the second quarter with an Intel-based server-code-named
California-that incorporates
virtualization management.
Already in testing with a few clients, the
Cisco server will likely be a beneficiary of the company's $150 million
investment in VMware in 2007, which would equip Cisco with the necessary
tools for virtualization.
"HP's role in the data center is traditionally strong, and they want to keep
that strength," Abner Germanow, an analyst with IDC,
said in an interview. "At the same time, you have Cisco looking at the network
and saying, -We should have a larger role.' So you have a bit of a grudge match
because they both want to play a role in the data center."
In the end, such competition will potentially drive down cost for enterprise
users-and make their networking lives easier.
"There's an effort to use the network in the data center to bring a level of
intelligence to optimizing data center functions in a way never used before,"
Germanow added. "At the end of the day, customers want architecture that's
modular and flexible in nature, inexpensive, reliable, and efficient."
Nicholas Kolakowski is a staff editor at eWEEK, covering Microsoft and other companies in the enterprise space, as well as evolving technology such as tablet PCs. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Playboy, WebMD, AARP the Magazine, AutoWeek, Washington City Paper, Trader Monthly, and Private Air. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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