14 DAY TRIAL // One of the most important things that make today's server systems so powerful is the simple, yet vital concept of virtualization that allows them to run at the very same time several operating systems and a host of different applications, minimizing idle times this way and dramatically increasing productivity, while keeping the number of physical servers low, as well as the energy bill.
Without question, HP is one of the biggest players on the crowded high-performance computing market that deals with corporate and enterprise class server systems, while its newest partner, VMWare, is known as a resourceful, yet smaller software company that keeps pushing the limit on virtualization technologies and related products.
According to a press release from HP, the two companies will soon start shipping high performance computer systems built on the successful HP ProLiant chassis, while at the same time integrating the newest ultra-thin hypervisor software, ESX 3i, from VMware. These new HP servers are expected to hit the high performance computing market starting with the 31st of March, 2008, and they will also integrate a number of specific HP software technologies like the System Insight Manager, or SIM for short, that works as a dedicated suite used for server administration, deployment and maintenance. Coming equipped with both these powerful software solutions, the new HP ProLiant server systems are aimed at providing the complete datacenter tools, more so since they are also packing HP's automation products, which are bundled under the Insight Control Environment platform.
"We are excited to work with HP to simplify datacenter management by pre-installing and pre-configuring VMware ESX 3i on HP ProLiant systems," said Diane Greene, president and chief executive officer from the software producer Vmware, regarding the upcoming release. "Today's announcement is a major step forward in accelerating the adoption of virtualization by combining our respective strengths: HP's global footprint with the ProLiant platform and rich heritage in platform manageability, and VMware's portfolio of products for datacenter virtualization, desktop virtualization, and management and automation solutions for both the datacenter and desktop."
The two companies will release the new generation of ProLiant server systems, on the 31st of March 2008, to their direct customers and channel partners. In order to provide for a better customer satisfaction, HP and VMware also decided that a number of support services, bundled under the name of CarePack , will also be available, either as a single product offering or under volume license, when in use with the VMware Infrastructure 3 Enterprise Edition software solution.
As the VMware ESX 3i hypervisor to be integrated into the new HP servers is closely based and related with the core virtualization technology, that made Vmware such an important player on the virtualization market, it offers a series of advantages like a small installed size of only 32MB, as well as high levels of security and reliability, together with a complete independence and transparency from the host operating systems and applications. Another big point in favor of this virtualization software is that it allows server administrators to fully deploy a wide range of virtual machines in minutes, thanks to the large number of pre-configured and optimized hardware configurations available right from the start.
Coming as yet another plus is the ability of the new HP servers to allow virtual machines and services to migrate from a physical server to another, in order to maximize productivity and better power management, as well as unprecedented uptime. James Mouton, general manager and senior vice president, Industry Standard Servers from HP, said that these new server systems from the ProLiant family will help businesses cut costs while keeping the overall quality of services at a high level, more so since both producing companies are determined to continue the improvement of their virtualization-related offerings.