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Hewlett-Packard, still stinging from a lackluster quarterly report on Aug. 18 and answering questions about its long-term strategy, stuck to product news Aug. 30 at VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas. It unveiled a new turnkey-type cloud-building package for midrange enterprises and branch offices of large enterprises.
HP VirtualSystem suite of applications for VMware, which to be used optimally must run on the company’s new “converged” blade servers and storage arrays, is designed to enable deployment of a virtualized cloud system within a few hours.
HP approaches the idea of cloud migration for midmarket enterprises based on three different products that comprise the HP VirtualSystem suite: HP Converged Storage, BladeSystem Servers, and Insight software.
VirtualSystem, which has been in development at HP for about three years, is the company’s answer to continuing installation, deployment and maintenance problems many enterprises — especially those short of experienced IT help — have had with migration to cloud computing.
HP claims that VirtualSystem, when used with all the specified hardware, enables clients to:
- Accelerate virtual machine mobility, increase system throughput and reduce network recovery time using the new HP FlexFabric virtualized networking solution;
- Cut capacity requirements by 50 percent, double virtual machine density and speed deployment with HP LeftHand and HP 3PAR Storage Systems;
- Improve virtual server operations with HP Insight Control for VMware vCenter Server, which alerts IT administrators and allows for remote troubleshooting and management; and
- Align virtualization strategy and investments to business goals with consulting, planning, pre-integration, deployment and support services from HP Technology Services and HP ServiceONE partners.
Pricing of VirtualSystem for VMware isn’t trivial. It is available now, starting at $167,300. This, of course, includes all the infrastructure hardware and software, factory integration and three years of HP Support Plus 24 service.