Hewlett-Packard is looking to brings its converged data center
technologies to computing environments running Microsoft offerings,
including the newly launched Exchange Server 2010 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
HP on Nov. 30 unveiled a host of reference architectures and
services under its Converged Infrastructure umbrella designed to make
it easier for businesses to bring their Microsoft environments into
converged data centers.
HP, Dell, IBM, Cisco Systems and others are pushing computing
strategies that more tightly integrated servers, storage, networking
and management software into data center-wide solutions.
Converged data centers are designed to help businesses increase the
efficiency and performance of their IT infrastructures while driving
down capital, operating, and power and cooling costs.
“Customers are looking for solutions to transform unmanageable
infrastructures so they can better address changing business demands,”
Paul Miller, vice president of marketing for enterprise storage,
servers and networking at HP. “HP’s Converged Infrastructure provides a
blueprint for unifying servers, storage, networks, power and cooling
with facilities into a single environment, optimized for both physical
and virtual workloads and perfectly suited for Microsoft applications.”
HP’s newest offerings come a few weeks after Dell unveiled similar
solutions that coincided with Microsoft’s Nov. 9 general release of
Exchange Server 2010. Dell’s solutions included new consulting
services—including workshops and readiness assessments—two architecture
models easier deployment and a new point of contact for deploying
Exchange Server 2010, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
HP is offering new BladeSystem Matrix templates,
reference architectures and services for Microsoft environments that
will help with bringing the Windows portfolio into converged data
centers, according to HP officials.
HP introduced Matrix—an all-in-one offering that includes compute,
storage, networking and software resources—earlier this year. It came
out soon after Cisco unveiled its own Unified Computing System, another all-in-one solution.
The templates for Matrix enable users to rapidly allocate the
server, storage, networking and software resources they need and
monitor service levels within their Microsoft environment. HP and
Microsoft also created solutions that enable businesses to reduce their
provisioning times for Microsoft applications within a converged
environment from months to minutes.
The new reference architectures give businesses more guidance in
configuring Microsoft products, and include sizing tools, recommended
configurations and automated provisioning of a converged infrastructure.
New services cover both Exchange Server 2010 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
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