HP Servers

HP Servers Overview:

HP takes home the gold in Server sales across the globe, leaving big wigs like IBM and Dell wondering how they can compete in the x86 space and how to keep HP at bay in Unix. This success is partially owed to its stellar ProLiant server series and its revamped Integrity lineup. HP has made a considerable investment towards single pane glass and systems management, and not to mention its considerable leap on convergence. HP’s server line spans various operating systems and multiple chip architectures, making it one of the most compelling choices for customers.

Starting with HP’s flagship – the ProLiant Server series makes up for an astounding one third of the x86 servers in the market today, which are definitely a few notches ahead of its competitors. In terms of numbers, this works out to around 35% of server space compared to Dell slotting into second place with 21%. Another notable reason why HP is a value proposition is its choice of servers, and new models introduced on a monthly basis.

In just one month, HP added the WS460c G6 workstation blade, BL490cG6, BL280cm, BL460c and BL2x220 to its server blades gamut. Moreover, the company has enhanced their rack lineup with the DL360, DL180, DL380 G6, DL160, DL320 and the DL170h. HP has paid utmost attention to their small business customers and those that work in scaled out IT environments by offering new releases such as the SL160z, SL2x170z G6, SL170z, ProLiant ML350 G6 and ML330 G6 tower servers.

Furthermore, in the same month, HP decided to revamp their ProLiant lineup to exemplify a boost in performance and increased power efficiency. This improved lineup included the HP ProLiant DL385, DL165 and the G7 SL165z servers. One of the notable features of this new range is their ability to enhance operational efficiencies over previous generations. Fitted with the latest AMD Opteron 6100 series processors, HP G7 processors are able to perform thirty times faster than their predecessors, and improve data centre capacity, which reduces floor space at a staggering 20:1 consolidation ratio.

A few months later, HP decided to add a few new members to their G7 range, and hence the BL680c, BL465c, BL2x220, BL620c, BL685c and BL460c servers were conceived. There were also three new rackmount systems added namely – the DL980, DL580 and the DL585 G7. These servers either featured Intel Xeon 5600/7500 or Opteron 6100 Series processors. This decision to constantly add new models gave customers more versatility to get a server that blends in perfectly into their existing IT environment. Regardless of whether customers preferred blade or rack servers, HP offers a decent range of options from simple machines to ones with all the bells and whistles.

With HP’s Converged Infrastructure Portfolio, customers were even able to mix and match ProLiant racks, towers and blades in one network environment. By mixing and matching components, consumers were able to increase scalability and reduce the overall costs of server management. Along with populating their server series, HP has also discontinued a number of models to include the ML370 G5, BL460c G5, DL385 G5, DL165 G5, ML115 G5, DL380 G5, BL2x220 G5 and ML110 G5.

In 2010, HP introduced the G7 series servers, which required minimal pampering and intervention. HP G7 servers not only reduced the amount of run time resulting in low power consumption, but are equipped with the latest Intel and AMD processors. In an attempt to protect non-virtual and virtual applications, Hewlett Packard’s new “self healing resiliency” architecture uses eight socket servers to deliver balanced scaling and increased database server performance.

HP claims that this new technology is based on converged architecture. They further state that most enterprises invest over 65% to support their existing IT framework, and less than 25% in adopting new technologies that can maximize their IT efficiencies. Whether it’s a virtual or real IT environment, the major costs organizations encounter is related to managing servers and energy, and HP servers specifically target this drawback by bringing in servers that boast unrivalled energy efficiency.

The company further claims that these new eight socket servers start delivering noticeable ROI in less than 30 days, and can accommodate up to 23 core servers into one machine. Furthermore, proper provisioning boosts cost efficiency up to 3 times. When it comes to memory, these new HP servers do not disappoint with 1 TB of memory in a single blade, while their rack server counterparts boast 2 TB. Boasting an all new Prema architecture, HP servers deliver improved performance by over 30% and combined with a system fabric and innovative CPU caching technology are able to scale well in the most intense network environments.

The Intel Xeon based processors are embedded with a special chip that delivers a separate channel of buffered memory, and increases bandwidth with four channels of memory. The HP ProLiant DL580 rack and BL680c G7 blade servers are powered by Intel Xeon 7500 processors and require 75 percent less hardware than previous ProLiant models and support up to 1 GB of memory. In addition, HP ProLiant server blades are embedded with Virtual Connect FlexFabric technology, which helps these servers communicate effectively with the storage and network. These servers ship with BladeSystem Matrix software and combined with automation technology are able to detect problematic applications resulting in reduced downtime.

Although it may seem that the success of the ProLiant lineup has overshadowed the Intel Itanium-based Integrity server series, its Unix based models are still making headlines and rivals its competition to include IBM’s Power server line. Some of the advantages Integrity boasts over its competition include the ability to host more SAP and twice as much computing power compared to other rack mount servers. The two socket rx2800 i2 Integrity server by HP is designed exclusively for small remote deployments, small and medium businesses or those that run branch office applications and boast eight core scalability in a 2U footprint.

For more than a decade, HP servers have powered some of the world’s most mission critical and demanding environments, and today are used by over 80% of fortune 500 companies.

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