LAS VEGAS – As it unveiled a host of new enterprise storage and networking offerings at its Global Partner Conference here, Hewlett-Packard Co. touted the breadth of its converged infrastructure platform as a competitive advantage its competitors are trying — and, it said, failing — to emulate.
Dell Inc. is trying to copy HP’s approach, claimed DeWitt, while others are trying to emulate it with a consortium approach, such as the VCE Alliance between VMware, Cisco Systems Inc. and EMC Inc., but DeWitt called it “absurd” to think they can pull together the level of integration HP has.
Looking to address the ever-popular bring your own device trend, HP launched new unified wired and wireless solutions designed to deliver a unified network to support corporate BYOD policies. While most networking competitors and legacy networks have separate wired and wireless networks, which means an integration challenge when it comes to enabling BYOD, HP differentiates by offering a unified network said Bethany Mayer, senior vice-president and general manager for networking.
The vendor claims a unified approach can reduce operating costs by 38 per cent and eliminate as many as half the required number of network access devices. The new HP 830 Unified/WLAN Switch can support up to 1,000 wireless devices. The announcement also includes other new switches and tools for access control, to enable self-onboarding of devices according to role-based policy, freeing-up IT staff to focus on more strategic priorities.
On the blades front, HP announced:
* the HP BladeSystem c7000 Platinum enclosure: Part of the HP ProLiant portfolio, HP claims it can help organizations save up to 68 per cent in data centre operating costs.
* the SX1018 HP Ethernet switch: Designed to work with the c7000 enclosure, HP claims it provides port-to-port latency of any blade switch, is more than four times faster than previous switches.
* HP ProLiant WS460c Generation 8 (Gen8) Server Blade: It supports virtualized client solutions with high-density 3-D graphics and eight GPUs per blade server. By supporting four times more users per host blade, HP said costs are lowered by up to 60 per cent per user compared to previous generations.
It also launched the StoreSystem, a midrange storage solution that combines HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage and StoreOnce Backup systems that are pre-packaged for rapid deployment.
Finally, on the services front, the company launched Proactive Insight experience. Based on HP Proactive Care and HP Insight, it’s a support and management services offering designed to take customers from a reactive break-fix IT approach a more proactive approach that addresses problems before they occur. The vendor promises return on investment in as few as 30 days.
“The intent is to provide our customers with an automated experience focused on preventative services, versus waiting for something to break,” said David Twohy, HP’s vice-president of global channel services. “It’s being driven by cloud computing, big data and BYOD all putting pressure on IY, which still needs to deal with the traditional stack.”
With a range of new networking products now coming to market, HP [NYSE: HPQ] had made progress in being seen in the market as a networking player said Mike Banic, HP’s vice-president of global marketing for networking, although there is still work to be done.
“Awareness is probably one of the top requests I hear from sales people and partners, but we have gotten onto the conversation for growth in market share,” said Banic. “We’ve gone from single digits to 12 per cent in blades, while Cisco is at its lowest market share in switching since 2001.”