HP Unveils BladeSystem for Data Centers

HP unveiled its BladeSystem c-Class architecture that aims to deliver significant improvements in virtualization, power and cooling, and system management capabilities that can reduce both operational and capital expenditure costs by 46% in a typical data center implementation.




The modular HP BladeSystem c-Class allows businesses to start with HP ProLiant and Integrity servers, HP StorageWorks storage offerings as well as client blades and then flexibly add applications and third-party products to expand their data centers as needed.



The HP Virtual Connect Architecture enables server administrators to manage resources on the fly via virtualized Ethernet and Fibre Channel connections, saving hours or days of administrative "wait time."



The virtualization is coupled with a fast midplane and five terabits per second of aggregate throughput.



In addition, HP BladeSystem c-Class and StorageWorks Storage Area Networks (SANs) simplify IT consolidation by integrating the server-to-storage interface. The new HP BladeSystem 4 Gbps Fibre Channel SAN switches and the industry's first redundant, embedded 4 Gbps Fibre Channel HBA reduce the cost of SAN connectivity to HP BladeSystem by more than 40% while providing highly available, redundant connection to existing SANs. The switches also reduce the number of Fibre Channel cables required by up to 60%.



Other improvements include an ultra-efficient HP Active Cool Fan that cuts server airflow by 30% and energy consumption by 50% compared to traditional fans, and HP Insight Control Management software that achieves a 200:1 device-to-administrator ratio -- a tenfold improvement for many IT tasks .



HP also plans to build out an BladeSystem ecosystem of independent software and hardware vendors, systems integrators and value-added resellers. Some of the application and hardware partners involved in the launch of c-Class include: AMD, Blade Network Technologies, Brocade, Cisco Systems, Citrix, Emulex, Intel, Mellanox, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, PolyServe, QLogic, Red Hat, SAP, VMware and Voltaire.



http://www.hp.com