HP bolsters Adaptive Infrastructure portfolio, helps customers succeed in challenging economy

Today's announcement spotlights significant enhancements to HP Insight Dynamics - VSE, the industry's first software solution to manage physical and virtual resources in the same way. These include options for Insight Orchestration and Insight Recovery, the first in a series of product announcements planned for 2009 that represent an increased focus by the company on the HP AI initiative and portfolio.

With businesses cutting costs, reducing risk and leveraging IT resources to seize greater competitive advantage, the HP AI initiative delivers the integrated product and service set needed for comprehensive management and 24/7, lights-out operations for next-generation technology environments. HP AI's proven methodology enables customers to move from high-cost IT islands to an agile technology infrastructure that delivers real value to their businesses.

Duncan Campbell, Vice President, Adaptive Infrastructure, HP, said:

"Cost management and agility are top of mind for chief information officers, yet significant portions of technology budgets are invested in maintenance instead of innovation."

"HP is building on our AI initiative by delivering offerings to meet challenges customers face today as they scrutinize their technology choices, and to help them emerge strong when the economy improves," Campbell added.

Advanced software options for reducing costs, mitigating risks:

New enhancements to HP Insight Dynamics - VSE enable data center administrators to rapidly deploy new technology to meet changing business needs.

The new Insight Orchestration option dramatically reduces the time needed to design, configure and deploy new technology:
• Administrators can design templates that specify the infrastructure required to run different applications on servers, as well as associated storage and network resources. With the push of a button, physical and virtual infrastructure can be automatically assigned and configured to the exact template specifications.
• Also included is a web-based portal and integrated workflow engine to allow for consistent implementation throughout the data center. This eliminates human errors and accelerates deployment.
• The Insight Orchestration option is available now on HP ProLiant servers and is expected to be available on HP Integrity servers later this year.

The new Insight Recovery option lets customers easily restart applications running on physical and virtual servers at a remote recovery site with the click of a button:
• Insight Recovery reduces risks associated with downtime by providing cost-effective disaster recovery for environments running on either HP BladeSystem servers or VMware virtual machines.
• To resume services quickly, Insight Recovery is integrated with HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array-based products running Continuous Access data-replication software with HP ProLiant servers.

HP Insight Dynamics - VSE now includes enhanced capacity-planning features:
• Software automatically collects and analyzes detailed utilization data from Dell, IBM and other Windows-based x86 servers for rapid migration to HP BladeSystem and HP ProLiant servers.
• By eliminating manual features with the ability to automate data collection and analysis, the software saves time, accelerating server consolidation projects.
• Now supports Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, VMware ESX and HP Integrity Virtual Machines.

New flexibility options for the HP Virtual Server Environment for HP Integrity servers include online migration for HP Integrity Virtual Machines and the ability to move workloads on physical HP Integrity blade servers with drag-and-drop ease.

"By pulling management of all the key infrastructure pieces together across physical servers, virtualization, storage and network connectivity using Insight Dynamics - VSE with Orchestration, we are able to streamline operations and cut operating costs," said Richard Wilson, manager, Enterprise Engineering, Continental Airlines. "Continental Airlines' vision is to move toward an IT services model and to a dynamic data center model that is capacity-driven. This is the first product we've seen that will allow us to make our vision a reality."

New Adaptive Infrastructure investment, discovery centers:

Over the past three years, the HP AI initiative has guided the company's investment in the development of data center technologies. As a result, customers have shifted large portions of their IT budgets from maintenance to supporting business innovation. HP Adaptive Infrastructure Discovery Centers across the globe allow customers to explore next-generation data center technologies in-depth and first hand.