Capitalize on change with an adaptive enterprise

With HP's vision for the Adaptive Enterprise, computing becomes a simple case of supply and demand that reduces complexity and increases returns.

"We aim to be, we are investing to be, the company that helps you get more out your IT investments," explained CEO Carly Fiorina, in a recent speech about the future of enterprise computing to industry leaders in Amsterdam.

Revolutionary advances in virtualization technology — some of them available only from HP —have taken the idea of an adaptive enterprise from theory to reality. HP has even made it possible for customers to outsource an entire computer center and only pay for the services they actually use.

According to a Gartner Group Research Note by D. Scott and T. Bittman from July 11, 2002 entitled The Evolution Toward Policy-Based Computing Services, a new computing model is required to meet evolving business requirements while simultaneously reducing costs and improving service.

HP Adaptive Infrastructure is the first technology on the market reflecting this new paradigm. It is a complete break with the traditional model of self-contained boxes, integrating the broad spectrum of enterprise technology — storage, servers, services, software, partnerships and solutions. The Adaptive Management Platform consists of HP OpenView IT Service Management, HP Utility Data Center, and HP system-specific workload and system-level management offerings.

Unlike traditional management software, which has a passive monitoring function, the HP Adaptive Management Platform enables immediate, intelligent and automatic responses to IT and business changes. As a result, customers unprecedented control over their IT infrastructure.

Why is this so important? Because, for most businesses today, the management of change is the single biggest challenge.

Once it has been wired, HP infrastructure for the Adaptive Enterprise can quickly expand or contract with business needs — virtually. Whether it involves rapidly deploying new applications and services, activating new customers faster or establishing flexible, usage-based billing. So a company can drive a new business model and change directions quickly while minimizing its risks.

"Adaptive Enterprise means helping our customers optimize their IT environments" commented Kasper Rorsted, senior vice president, HP EMEA, "so they can evolve and respond to changing business requirements, opportunities, and challenges. The result is improved business agility."

In addition to delivering computing power where and when it's needed, HP's vision for the Adaptive Enterprise delivers real business value in the form companies understand most: saving money.

Tapping into compute power from external sources reduces the cost of computing as companies pay only for the extra short-term power they need, without incurring long-term expenses. HP surveys show that up to 70 percent of a total IT budget is spent on the management and operations of IT infrastructure.

HP Adaptive Management offerings also increase the usage of existing IT assets. Customers typically only use 20 to 35 percent of available IT capacity. HP adaptive management solutions heighten that usage to 75 percent or greater. This, in turn, heightens the return on existing investments.

Goodyear, the world's No1 tire maker, is using HP Adaptive Infrastructure technologies to share management responsibility for its worldwide infrastructure between US and European data centers. Goodyear has better control over existing IT assets because it manages them from a single console.

"For Goodyear's IT assets to be managed more effectively, we needed a holistic view of the entire infrastructure from a single point," commented Steve Buckus, Worldwide Director of Infrastructure, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

A recent study of 14 customers using HP OpenView showed that a three-year investment of $14,300 produced a three-year savings of $246,100 per 100 users. That's a payback period of just 63 days. (Results were confirmed by IDC.)

"HP's Adaptive Enterprise strategy is directly aimed at helping our customers achieve massive cost savings without sacrificing any aspect of their business," said Francois Bornibus, vice president, Industry Standard Servers, HP EMEA

Schering, one of Europe's leading pharmaceutical companies, needed to double its storage capacity every year, which meant going from 80 to 300 servers in three years and adding 15 more IT people to manage all that infrastructure.

But thanks to innovative consolidation solutions from HP, Schering consolidated their servers to eight, installed XP storage systems, and kept their costs down dramatically. "We turned to HP because we were looking to consolidate our existing environment to conserve costs, but also to build increased adaptability for the future," explained Pedro Bergemann of Schering.

HP's technologies for the Adaptive Enterprise will enable schools to seamlessly accommodate future technology requirements in response to evolving educational needs. In the case of Northern Ireland, HP will provide a single adaptive infrastructure connecting up to 350,000 users from the 1,200 schools across Northern Ireland, making it the biggest e-learning project in the world.