A new style of IT is driving demand for converged infrastructure, according to HP, that requires infrastructure craftsmen that dedicate resources to component selection, systems design, solution integration and support to become business service experts focused on delivering services that create new business opportunities.
Citing the major triumvirate of technology analysts who all agree that convergence will be a major trend in IT in the next five years, Tom Joyce, senior vice president and general manager, converged systems, HP, said “customers tell us that they want to get out of the hardware integration business”.
Joyce said that customers report that there are too many people involved at each stage of the implementation, which results in too many opportunities for mistakes that can have a significant impact on time to value.
To address this, Joyce said that HP had embarked on Project Sharks, which set out to build the perfect virtualisation machine, optimised in every way, just as the creature after which the project was named is perfectly adapted as a predator.
The goals of the project were to create virtualisation machines that were fast, simple and integrated, with superior economics and performance, but with a utility purchase model. These machines would come with a choice of virtualisation platforms, where the same machines could be used for many workloads and have a single support model.
The result, said Joyce was HP ConvergedSystems.
According to HP, its ConvergedSystems deliver “the industry’s first integrated IT systems engineered from the ground up for convergence”, which help users to reduce IT complexity and costs, while increasing performance for common applications. The ConvergedSystems unify servers, storage, networking, software and services clients required to power IT infrastructure in systems in a manner that is easy to procure, manage and support.
The ConvergedSystems are also optimised for certain workloads such as virtualisation, hosted desktops and big data. HP said the systems can be operational in as few as 20 days of ordering. According to IDC, converged systems can cut time to market for new services in half, reducing potential downtime by 50-75% and reduce IT infrastructure cost by up to half.
Carrying on the Project Shark theme, Joyce said “This will help our customers go from being hunted, to being hunters.”
The new ConvergedSystem offerings are described as “hyper-efficient” systems designed to meet enterprise-grade requirements. The systems are based on best practice configurations and, according to HP, deliver risk-free performance-tuned, pretested and validated systems out of the box, with built in deployment and patch management.
“IT organisations today are undergoing a fundamental transformation from offering basic infrastructure support to serving as business partners responsible for driving growth,” said Joyce. “HP’s goal is to help organisations accelerate innovation by freeing IT from the complexity of technology integration. Through quick deployment, intuitive management and system-level support, HP ConvergedSystem products enable IT to shift their focus from infrastructure craftsmanship to delivering the applications that power their business.”
Two new systems were announced, the ConvergedSystems 300 and 700. The 300 supports the 50-300 virtual machine (VM) range and can then be clustered to increase capacity. It is aimed at the mid market segment. The 700 supports 100-1,000 VMs each and is aimed at enterprise.
HP claim impressive performance figures. For the ConvergedSystems 300, in comparison with VCE VBlock DX-3P, HP said that the 300 provides 243% more IOPS, through 60 cores per system compared with 36 for the VBlock and 567GB of RAM compared with 288GB.
HP also claims that the 300 enjoys 44% less time to production when compared with the VBlock, 58% lower cost per VM over 3 years and a 25% lower entry price.
The ConvergedSystems are application and virtualisation certified, with App Maps that simplify deployment of common, major applications.
Other members of the ConvergedSystems family are the 100 which is optimised for desktop virtualisation and based on the Moonshot server platform, and the 700X which is optimised for Vertica, HP’s big data platform.
“This is not just a combination of parts,” said Joyce of the ConvergedSystems, “there is engineering inside and outside of the system.”
“It is designed to have velocity for the business,” he said.
The ConvergedSystems are backed by a new services model that spans the IT life cycle, said HP, from consulting and implementation to support. There is also a a unified support model from HP Proactive Care to provide a single point of accountability for all system components, including third-party software and operating systems, which can result in as much as 66% less unplanned downtime.(7)
The ConvergedSystem for virtualisation and hosted desktops are now available, with the Vertica ready systems planned for early 2014. Pricing starts at $136,600 (€99,380) for the ConvergedSystem 300 for Virtualisation. The ConvergedSystem 100 for Hosted Desktops starts at $137,999 (€100,400) for 180 users.
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