All things ProLiant

iLO3 Overview & Demo Video

2010-05-25T11:54:00.005+01:00

iLO 3 which is our 3rd generation of Lights Out remote management is now available in all ProLiant G7 servers delivering powerful server management that’s always available, even if you aren’t physically at the server. Just enter your Advanced license key and gain precise remote control of your ProLiant server from anywhere in the world. And it’s about more than just remote control… HP iLO Advanced also enables simplified server setup, power and thermal optimization, plus embedded health monitoring. .

HP iLO Advanced allows you to fully diagnose server problems without ever leaving your desk. With a full graphical view of your server, automatic video recording, and team collaboration capabilities, iLO Advanced eliminates unnecessary travel expenses and accelerates recovery from unplanned server outages. Do any of these comments sound familiar?

With the latest release of HP Integrated Lights-Out (iLO 3) you can now work even faster. Experience turbo-charged performance, a streamlined user interface, and enhanced standards support with iLO 3.

Here is what’s new with iLO 3: #

800% faster remote console: best-in-class remote management performance
360% faster Virtual Media: higher performance remote deployment and updates
Improved Windows Integrated Remote Console: .NET framework, so you can scale your
remote console to fit your screen and even stretch across multiple monitors
Linux Integrated Remote Console: Linux IRC incorporates remote console, virtual media, and virtual power, so you can handle these tasks with one applet
AES Encryption in hardware: industrial-strength security with no performance penalty
Enhanced IPMI LAN Support: simple server control in scale-out environments
iLO Advanced is already included with the purchase of HP Insight Control for Complete lifecycle management for your ProLiant server and can also be purchased stand alone.

Check out a new video demo of iLO 3 capabilities @ www.hp.com/go/ilo

HP Blades Day - Feb 2010

2010-05-20T10:44:00.004+01:00

Want a quick intro to HP BladeSystem and then a look at the power supply industry leading efficiency then look at these 2 videos from Chris Evans over at The Storage Architects blog

HP Blades Day - Lab Session - Clip 1 from Chris Evans on Vimeo.

HP Blades Day - Lab Session: Clip 2 from Chris Evans on Vimeo.

HP, Cisco, propose virtual server networking standards :: SearchNetworking.com.au

2009-12-12T15:14:00.000Z

HP, Cisco, propose virtual server networking standards :: SearchNetworking.com.au

Must Read! Virtual Connect for vSphere and Cisco Nexus Documents

2009-11-19T10:19:00.006Z

The BladeSystem team in HP have just released a couple of great documents on using Virtual Connect and Virtual Connect Flex10 in a VMware vSphere environment as well as discussing interoperability with Cisco Nexus technology. Excellent guides and reference architectures which are a must read if you are a BladeSystem/VMware customer.

Cisco Nexus 1000v on HP BladeSystem: A Reference Architecture for optimal VMware vSphere design using HP BladeSystem (w/Virtual Connect) and Cisco Nexus network infrastructure (click here)

This Technology Brief is designed to better educate the reader on the use of HP BladeSystem (and Virtual Connect) with Cisco Nexus technology. The document reviews all the VMware virtual switch technologies and it specifically addresses the use of VNTag and the Cisco Nexus 1000V vDS. The document is written from a somewhat objective point-of-view and it designed to educate, not sell one technology over another. It reviews how these technologies can be used with each other and it explains how VNTag & VNLink function.

HP BladeSystem Reference Architecture: Virtual Connect Flex-10 and VMware vSphere 4.0 (click here)

The Reference Architecture outlines several configuration scenarios deploying HP Virtual Connect and ESX vSphere technologies. Discussed are some best practices to install and configure virtual connect Flex-10 and VSphere 4 Networking.

New Server Selector and Configurator Tools!

2009-09-15T16:18:00.006+01:00

Given the amount of choice and new technologies in the ProLiant G6 range of servers a new server selector tool has been made available to help our customers pick the most appropriate server for their business needs; click here.

Don't forget about the memory configurator tool available here and the power advisor tool available here.

Finally when you have decided what you need, you can use the enterprise configurator tool to build your desired configuration here.

The Matrix is here!

2009-04-28T09:49:00.007+01:00

I was at HP Technology@Work in Berlin last week where we launched BladeSystem Matrix.

BladeSystem Matrix is all about bringing together the best in HP technology around servers, storage, networking, power management and infrastructure management into 1 single solution package which includes capacity planning, solution design templates, workflow automation and dynamic power capping.

Imagine being able to drag IT resources such as servers and storage onto a whiteboard and then draw the lines to link them all together and when you are happy with your design click go and it all just happens; imagine being able to offer a self service portal/menu of IT solutions and services to your business.... welcome to the Matrix!

Deploy IT solutions and services in minutes and hours not days or months.

It's just the way IT should be.

Full details available at http://www.hp.com/go/matrix

Check out this overview video

ProLiant G6 Launch Information

2009-04-06T22:27:00.003+01:00

We launched the latest generation of ProLiant servers, G6 last week which includes 11 new and updated servers; all based on the Intel Xeon 5500 (Nehalem EP) CPUs. The Intel 5500 CPUs are designed for our 1P and 2P servers with the 4P Intel ‘Nehalem EX’ and AMD Opteron ‘Istanbul’ G6 2P/4P servers due later this year.

The G6 servers offer hugely increased performance, reduced power consumption, and greater configuration flexibility with 50-100% increase in the amount of RAM per server, common slot power supplies, LOTs (32) of sensors for increased performance per watt, more local disks (e.g. 16 SFF disks in a DL380) and more options for our RAID controllers with 2x performance. All of this means more increased consolidation ratios with more virtual machines per server, more workloads per server, larger databases on less expensive hardware and much more.

As expected there are a lot of materials to support such an important product launch and here are a few of the best resources

Further Details…

Memory Configurator - As stated the G6 servers have a lot more flexibility in terms of server components and in particular the RAM options are numerous. To help you decide what the best RAM configuration is for your server we have made a memory configuration tool available – see link #3 above.

Power Efficiency - As you are now probably aware, in most cases it costs more to power a server over 3 years than it does to procure the server in the first place. HP has always placed a major emphasis on power utilisation in our servers with technologies such as Power Regulator and Dynamic Power Capping. These technologies already allow ProLiant and BladeSystem customers control power usage accurately and intelligently without impacting performance; fitting more servers in the same power budget thereby delaying or postponing altogether expensive upgrades to computer room power and cooling infrastructure.

The power efficiency, management and control has been further enhanced in the G6 range with power supplies tailored for specific workloads leading to massively increased energy efficiency. You can now choose the power supply that best fits the usage profile of the server – again helping to ensure that the server can be operated at it’s most efficient. The new HP Power Advisor tool will help you choose the right combination of components for the workload the server will perform – see link #4 above.

G6 platforms have over 30 sensors that enable us to have a complete picture of the environmental condition within the server. We now have the ability to dynamically modify the fan speed to suit the thermal conditions of different zones within the system and can even turn fans off if they are not required. Compare this with older platforms in which we had 6 or more fans continually running (each using potentially up to 12W) and you start to see how we can dramatically reduce power usage and make the new systems more power efficient.

The combination of increased performance and energy savings are showing dramatic ROI figures with as fast as a 3 month payback compared to 3 year old G4 servers and 9 month payback compared to previous generation G5 servers. The key message here is that the performance and energy savings alone of G6 servers compared to older servers; in particular pre 2006 is so big that the payback for investing in G6 technology is extremely quick and it makes sense to upgrade now rather than later.

Management Tools – Of course the other major cost in IT today is the administration of systems both virtual and physical. In fact the cost of the actual hardware has decreased in the past 10 years but the cost of powering and administering those same systems has increased enormously. The acquisition costs of server hardware accounts for only 10% of the servers total TCO over 3 years. HP Insight Software with the HP Insight Control suite and Insight Dynamics toolset is designed to not only reduce administration costs but also increase uptime and system availability. Check out the demos and webinars here.

Increased Performance -The new Intel architecture provides a significant increase in performance and combined with the additional memory footprint, will enable customers develop more scalable platforms for virtualisation. Early benchmark results indicate that G6 platforms have over doubled virtualisation performance, supporting up to twice the number of VMs per system compared with G5 platforms.

More Disks - Internal storage has also seen a marked improvement – the 1U DL360 G6 now supports up to 8 x SFF SAS/SATA drives whereas the 2U DL380 G6 now supports up to 16 x SFF or 6 x LFF SAS/SATA drives. Both support the use of the new StorageWorks RDX Removable Disk Backup System DL Server Module – a ruggedised SATA disk solution up to 500GB that is designed for continuous data protection and/or backup purposes. The module is available in an external form factor for the DL360 G6 and as an internal module for the DL380 G6. In case you hadn’t heard we now have the 300 GB 10K SFF SAS drive available and also the new 146GB 15K drive is shipping.

2x Smart Array RAID Performance - The new disk capabilities are significantly enhanced by a new generation Smart Array controller family that offers up to 200% greater performance and 100% backward compatibility. The new modular design is the industry’s first to scale from entry RAID solutions, for small and medium businesses, to high end RAID functionality, for larger enterprises, all through the simple addition of hardware and software expansion options.

Servers Overview

HP ProLiant BL490c G6 Server Blade

QuickSpecs - Web

The new BL490c G6 blade server supports up to 144GB memory and 8 internal NICs as standard when used with Virtual Connect Flex-10 interconnects.

HP ProLiant BL460c G6 Server Blade

QuickSpecs - Web

The BL460c G6 and BL490c G6 blade servers both now ship with an embedded dual-port Flex-10 10GbE Multifunction server adapter which provides 2 x 10GbE ports which can be configured as 8 internal NIC connections with Virtual Connect Flex-10 interconnect modules.

HP ProLiant BL280c G6 Server Blade

Web

DL360 G6 and DL380 G6

Web

The DL360 G6 and DL380 G6 are both now capable of supporting up to 144GB of memory and the new architecture enables customers to optimise the memory configuration for a number of different scenarios.

Other models include the DL370 G6 the #1 2P server in VMware benchmarks, the ML370 G6, ML350 G6, ML150 G6, Dl160 G6 and DL180 G6.

If you liked this summary why not subscribe to this blog - check out the subscription link in the right hand column. ProLiant_Irl is also now on Twitter - follow us as www.twitter.com/ProLiant_Irl

Special thanks to my colleague Mike Harpur for his input in this posting.

Gartner Server Buying Guide

2009-02-18T17:36:00.001Z

Some good news for ProLiant & Integrity

· HP Blade System No. 1 Web Server

· HP Blade System No. 1 Application Server

· HP Integrity with Oracle No. 1 Database

Click here for more info >> Gartner's Server Evaluation Model

Future of BladeSystem = Light NOT Wires!

2009-02-13T16:28:00.004Z

Just read a really interesting article from a NY Times Blog on developments in HP BladeSystem taking place in our HP Labs. Imagine an optical mid plane for Blade servers i.e. no wires just lights; well it might not be as far away as you think - there is already a working prototype!!

Extract
H.P., Intel, I.B.M. and a small group of other companies have their researchers charging after a holy grail of sorts in data centers. They want to create commercial photonics systems that will replace wires as the principal means of moving data between computing systems and between the components in computing systems. An even more daring pursuit revolves around using light to control data on computer chips.

While the cost of such technology proves too great for mainstream use today, the researchers believe they can bring the price down and demonstrate incredible increases in networking performance through photonics. Such breakthroughs should prove crucial to keeping the overall performance of computers increasing at historical rates, since it’s the communications between things like memory, hard drives and processors that often limit hardware designers today.

During a recent visit to H.P.’s labs, I saw the fruits of Mr. Williams’ labor firsthand in the form of an optical mid-plane for blade servers. (I know, I know, it’s the stuff that dreams are made of.)

To read the full blog article click here
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/hps-hunk-of-burning-light/

VMware on HP BladeSystem with Virtual Connect and EVA

2009-01-21T10:31:00.004Z

HP's Customer Focussed Testing team have just published a great white paper on best practices for running VMware on HP BladeSystem with Virtual Connect and EVA. This is one of our biggest selling enterprise solution stacks right now and this paper tells you, our customers the best way to size it, set it all up and manage it to maximise your investment.

This white paper contains a set of best practices to deploy VMware ESX 3.5 using HP BladeSystem c-Class ProLiant Server Blades and HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) storage, using HP Virtual Connect. The best practices included in this paper will enable customers to realise the benefits of using the virtualisation capabilities of VMware in conjunction with HP server blades, HP Virtual Connect, and EVA, with emphasis on how to combine their functionalities to complement each other.

This paper addresses the following fundamental deployment issues:

How to configure and deploy a set of virtual machines on the server blade using VMware ESX Server 3.5
How to deploy HP Virtual Connect technology in a blade enclosure
How to configure and deploy VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) on an EVA
How to effectively manage the overall environment, using a combination of HP management tools and VMware vCenter Server
How to configure and utilize the advanced high-availability features from VMware (VMware High Availability [HA], VMware VMotion™, and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler [DRS]) to deliver and sustain a high-availability infrastructure.

Using the methods and best practices described in this paper will facilitate both the productive planning and the timely deployment of a fully operational VMware ESX Server 3.5 deployment using a combination of HP BladeSystem c-Class ProLiant Server Blades connected to an EVA array via HP Virtual Connect technology.

The guidelines and best practices that follow can ensure the following:

Proper configuration and deployment of the entire environment, including the VMware environment, HP server blades, the EVA, and HP Virtual Connect technology
Predictable performance characteristics
Ease of operation, including the effective use of the advanced HA features

Download Whitepaper Here

The is paper along with many other solution specific best practice documents on Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, SAP and VMware are downloadable from the CFT website on hp.com <<click here>>

About CFT?

Working directly with our customers, HP’s Customer Focused Testing (CFT) team creates innovative solutions that address the operational requirement challenges our customers worry about every day:

Sizing and configuring your environment to optimize your infrastructure
Backing up and recovering valuable business information
Creating a highly available infrastructure

Carefully planned and implemented, our Customer Focused Testing Solutions incorporate HP storage, server and software products to bring you:

Reduced implementation cost and time
Predictable results through documented best practices
Optimized performance across all solution components
Best possible return on investment
Increased availability
Reduced risk

What's New for 2009?

2009-01-19T16:57:00.007Z

Happy New Year to you all. I hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas and the batteries are fully charged up for the new year! It promises to be a fairly hectic one in the ProLiant and BladeSystem space where we will continue enabling our customers to do more with less. Technologies like BladeSystem, Dynamic Power Management, Virtual Connect, Insight Software together with virtualisation will be key enablers to help our customers deliver a best in class IT service to their business while at the same time reducing costs.

300GB SFF Drive Now Available
If you didn't hear before the Christmas holidays - we now have the long awaited 300GB Small Form Factor Hard Drive delivering high capacity and performance at the lowest energy requirement and greatest reliability.

Here are a few quick facts that our customers will care about

This drive provides higher performance than 3.5-inch 15K drives and consumes about 50% less power.
This drive is 70% smaller than 3.5-inch drives and reduces cooling costs through tighter packing and better airflow in the cabinet.
A 2U SFF 10K SAS solution provides 40% more IOPS and 59% more IOPS/Watt than a 3U LFF 15K solution
HP Enterprise drives provide maximum reliability and performance for heavy IO environments and near 100% workloads.

Check out my earlier Blog on Small Form Factor Vs Large Form Factor Drives for more of the benefits of SFF. <<Click Here>>

Server Technology Papers
I have a lot of positive feedback from you on the Technology Papers that our ProLiant and BladeSystem engineering teams publish. The latest edition is now available for download <<here>> and includes such topics as Solid State Drives, Command Line and scripting options for ProLiant Management, as well as an interview with a lead engineer on our AMD based ProLiants. If you like these then the full archive is available <<here>>. Finally if you'd like to search for a particular topic then download this PDF <<file>>.

I liked this one which I just read on iSCSI technology in our ProLiant servers <<click here>>.

These technology publications are now also being made available via Podcasts so if you don't like reading then you can listen i.e. you now have no excuse!!

I will most likely have another post pretty soon as we ramp up some new product announcements which will be keeping me busy - stay tuned and if you find this blog useful you can subscribe by simply entering your eMail address in the subscription box located in the top right hand corner of the blog home page! Until next time...

Launch Update November 2008

2008-11-18T14:29:00.002Z

Todays ProLiant & BladeSystem launch is no ordinary product launch. Today we are announcing one of the most innovative technologies ever seen with Virtual Connect Flex-10.

Virtual Connect Flex-10 is the world's first technology to divide and fine-tune 10Gb Ethernet network bandwidth at the server edge. It carves the capacity of each 10Gb Ethernet connection into four NIC ports and adds the unique ability to fine-tune each one to adapt I/O speed for virtual server channels and workloads. That means our customers can add 4x more NICs per connection, consolidate equipment 4 to 1 and save up to 63% in network costs.

In case this isn't clear enough let me spell it out; with a single c7000 blade enclosure full of HP BL495c Half Height blades (16) using Virtual Connect Flex-10 translates into 4 fully populated Dell enclosures or 6 fully populated blade enclosures from IBM to provide the same amount of I/O. Each half height ProLiant server blade now supports up to 24 NICs using HP Flex-10 technology.

HP BladeSystem is winning in terms of power efficiency, management efficiency and purchasing savings of server and networking equipment by a great distance compared to our immediate competition.

Futher information available at http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/virtualconnect/index.html

Forrester Research gave their reaction to this product announcement on their blog 'The View from Forrester Research' in a posting by James Staten who sees Virtual Connect Flex-10 'Addressing virtualization’s achilles heel', check it out here... http://blogs.zdnet.com/forrester/?p=121

In addition to Flex-10 we also announced a range of even more power efficient components for the cClass BladeSystem including the BL460 G5 server, 2400W Power Supplies which provide 90% efficiency at 8% load and the new Dynamic Power capping functionality. Combining these technologies will reduce an enclosure power requirements by approx. 704W which equates to a 24% reduction in power for a typical configuration of BL460 G1 servers. Check out the updated Thermal Logic page for a guided tour and further information...
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/whats-new-thermal-logic-11-2008.html

Outside of blades there is also the new ProLiant DL385 G5p with the latest AMD Quad Core CPUs codenamed 'Shanghai'. This server is tuned specifcally for virtualisation providing double the RAM (up to 128GB), support for 16 Small Form Factor Disks or 6 Large Form factor Disks (6TB of internal storage), up to 6 PCIe slots and 4 GbE NICs as standard compared to the existing DL385 G5.

Check out the product home page <here>, the product presentation <here> and the podcast <here>

Finally we also launched the next version of the iLO (Integrated Lights Out) Management software Version 1.7 with new advanced remote management functions.

For details on all products launched click on any of the links below

» HP Smart Array P700m Controller
» HP NC532m Dual Port 10GbE Multifunction BL-c Adapter
» HP T750 G2 UPS, HP T1000 G3 UPS and HP T1500 G3 UPS
» HP ProLiant DL385 G5p Server
» HP ProLiant DL185 G5 Server
» HP Integrated Lights-Out 2 (iLO 2) v1.70
» Windows Small Business Server 2008
» Windows Essential Business Server 2008

HP to acquire LeftHand Networks

2008-10-01T15:48:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the lack of publishings lately it has been a pretty hectic few months. I am just back from 2 weeks in the US where I was in Las Vegas at VMworld, in Cupertino at the HP Executive Briefing Centre and finally San Francisco where I presented at Oracle World. I am working on a bunch of postings right now so stay tuned for lots of new info, but I just this very minute saw this announcement that I thought I would publish immediately.

It has been announced that HP is to acquire LeftHand Networks for $360 million; helping to expand our virtualisation offerings. LeftHand specialises in iSCSI SANs and helps midsize companies and remote offices or branches of large corporations to protect critical business data.

LeftHand's portfolio of products will expand HP's reach in the virtualisation market with software that runs on both existing storage and industry-standard server hardware. LeftHand's software essentially allows a user to create a storage "cloud" connected via iSCSI as an alternative to Fibre Channel.

Check out their web site for further details.
http://www.lefthandnetworks.com/home.aspx

ProLiant, BladeSystem & VMware Training

2008-07-18T08:33:00.001+01:00

The HP Education curriculum has been revamped recently and is now available for viewing at www.hp.com/learn/proliant - the main page will show you generic information and any new announcements in relation to courseware and then you simply select your country from the right hand column for the list of courses and dates in your area.

New Training Credits - Day Rate Care Packs
For customers who would like to buy training with their IT solution it is now possible to buy 1 day training credits which are valid against all ProLiant, BladeSystem and VMware trainings. Likewise for our partners it makes things easier if the customer has not yet decided or are unsure as to which specific course they would like to take at the time of purchase. The credits are valid for 12 months allowing the customer to decide later, which course to take.

NEW Portfolio Day Rate HPES Care Packs
HF385E 1 unit quantity = 1 day of public scheduled ProLiant / BladeSystem training
HF386E 1 unit quantity = 1 day of public scheduled VMware training

Totally flexible:
Training can be taken any time during 12 month period
Customer can spend value on any HPES service

For more information visit www.hp.com/learn/proliant and/or www.hp.com/learn/vmware

HP ProLiant & BladeSystem Launch Information May 2008

2008-05-20T09:09:00.000+01:00

May has been a very busy month for the HP ProLiant server divison with one of our biggest product launches in quite a while. Highlights of the launch include the launch of our new 8 socket Quad Core ProLiant DL785, new and updated Insight Control management software including HP Insight Dynamics, a new range of scalable modular PDUs, low power memory, and a new range of CPUs from both Intel and AMD for our G5 ProLiants.

Summary
More demands are being placed on the technology infrastructure each day. Companies are being asked to instantly react to ever changing business environments and their IT needs to be able to follow and deliver no matter what demands are placed on it.

IT is faced with controlling this change with fewer resources while driving the business to new growth and profitability. The first step to reaching this goal is to connect business technology with IT, making your infrastructure become more adaptive. HP offers a new class of management software to continuously analyze and optimize your infrastructure. With the new HP Insight Dynamics – VSE, customers can cut operational costs and adapt their infrastructure as their business grows. Customers can tackle the toughest IT projects and top business priorities in previously unimaginable ways with Insight Dynamics – VSE capabilities such as HP Logical Server Capability, Real-time Capacity Planning and Unified Control of Physical and Virtual Resources.

Whether servers are housed in an IT closet or a corporate data center, nearly every organization faces IT sprawl, resulting in under used server resources. In order to alleviate this problem, HP is introducing a new 8-socket HP ProLiant DL785 G5 Server. Think of the HP ProLiant DL785 G5 as a consolidation workhorse. The key is to do more with less—more sockets, more memory, more I/O power—all designed to help with the drive toward virtualization and consolidation. The DL785 G5 offers support for 8 Quad-Core AMD® Opteron® processors, 256GB of memory and 11 PCI-e I/O slots. With this highly-scalable feature set, this server is an ideal choice for growing enterprise class database, consolidation and virtualization environments seeking to get more compute power at a lower total cost.

Full details of the lauch can be found here.

HP Virtual IT Centre

2008-05-20T08:57:00.000+01:00

HP has just launched our new online HP Virtual IT Centre, a uniquely interactive environment designed to showcase our latest technology solutions. The VITC focuses on minimising challenges faced by organisations of all sizes including driving efficiency, managing costs, optimising resources and conserving energy. A combination of video and animation, the VITC allows users quick access and customizable downloads for the following solutions:

Power & Cooling
Infrastructure
Virtualisation
Unified Management
Solutions in Action

Click here to visit.

ProLiant & BladeSystem Technology Papers now available to the Public

2008-04-18T15:07:00.001+01:00

A huge amount of ISS Technology Papers have now been made available to our customers and partners. This information goldmine was previously only available internally within HP but this is now available to all.

Not only will you have the opportunity to read the latest technology updates from HP ProLiant but you can also read through the archives as well. I highly recommend taking a look at the archive PDF (click here) which has a complete index of the technology papers and then regularly checking the ISS Technology Papers Home page (click here) for new updates.

An RSS feed will allow you to subscribe to this technology newsletter and will be added very soon.

The current edition looks at the following topics

Enhancing setup and usability in HP Systems Insight Manager 5.2
Using Virtual Connect and non-Virtual Connect modules in the same HP BladeSystem c-Class enclosure
Storage HBAs are determined by the storage array provider
ProLiant management tip of the month
Interconnect infrastructure in the HP BladeSystem c7000 enclosure
Future-proof your infrastructure with 10 Gigabit networking
Recently published industry standard server technology communications

HP Insight Dynamics - Data Centre Transformation and Optimisation

2008-03-26T14:12:00.000Z

I am just back from HP Tech@Work which was held in Barcelona last week. The big news from the event was the previewing of HP Insight Dynamics - VSE. We demonstrated it's capabilities to more than 2,000 enterprise customers at the event.

HP Insight Dynamics - VSE is next-generation management software that enables customers to continuously analyse and optimise their IT environments. HP Insight Dynamics – VSE will change the game in both physical server and virtualisation management. It brings the freedom and flexibility of virtualisation to physical servers. It offers the industry’s most advanced real-time capacity planning tool that continously analyses server capacity and power usage based on thousands of historical data points. And it lets administrators manage virtual and physical resources in the same way. It is the world’s first integrated solution to visualise, plan and change physical and virtual resources in exactly the same way.

In addition to changing the game for our customers and competitors, Insight Dynamics – VSE represents a major step forward for our HP ESS Infrastructure Software division. It builds on HP Systems Insight Manager, Insight Control and the HP Virtual Server Environment, the best of HP’s industry-leading infrastructure management portfolio. And it brings them together one integrated solution.

To learn more about HP Insight Dynamics – VSE, please visit the following website: www.hp.com/go/insightdynamics

The Truth about Server Market Share

2008-02-28T09:33:00.000Z

February 2008 — IDC released a quarterly update to their Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, citing market share figures for the 4th calendar quarter of 2007 (4Q07). Here are some of the Q407 highlights...

1. For the 46th consecutive quarter, 11 ½ years, HP ProLiant is the x86 server market share leader in both factory revenue and units [1], shipping 1 out of every 3 servers in this market.

2. HP extended the lead in the blade server market, with a 47.7% revenue share Worldwide, and a 45.5% units share taking share from both IBM and Dell.

In EMEA this market share is well above 50% and closer to 60% which mirrors our performance in the Irish market.

HP grew blade revenue 74.6%, year over year, gaining 5.6 points of revenue market share while IBM lost 3.9 points of revenue share over the same period.
HP grew blade units 54.4%, year over year, gaining 5.6 points of unit market share while IBM lost 4.8 points of share over the same period.
Dell a distant third in blade units and revenue lost 4.0 points unit share and lost 4.9 points revenue share, both year over year.

For the full story please visit hp.com

HP Virtual Connect wins Virtualisation Award

2008-01-22T12:07:00.000Z

SearchServerVirtualization.com recently announced the winners of its first annual Products of the Year awards, spanning four categories: Virtualization Platforms, Hardware for Virtualization, Systems Management and Data Protection.

HP’s Virtual Connect architecture won Gold in the Hardware for Virtualization category!

This is not surprising as the customer adoption of Virtual Connect has been very high and it is now one of the most popular interconnects in our BladeSystem portfolio.

---EXTRACT---
HP Virtual Connect architectureServer virtualization simplifies server and operating system management in countless ways, but one area that has remained stubbornly resistant to improvement is managing a server's physical hardware -- specifically its network and storage connections. With its Virtual Connect technology, Hewlett-Packard Co. made serious inroads toward alleviating the problem of managing network and storage connections in a virtual architecture and has garnered our judges' vote for Gold.
In a nutshell, Virtual Connect is a novel approach to connecting and adapting server, local area network (LAN) and storage area network (SAN) domains with the aim of reducing cables and minimizing the number of switches IT administrators need to manage.
Available for HP BladeSystem servers, Virtual Connect consists of Ethernet and Fibre Channel virtualization modules that define server connection profiles for each server bay. This profile establishes and maintains Media Access Control (MAC) addresses for all Network Interface Controllers, the World Wide Names (WWNs) for all host bus adapters (HBAs), and SAN boot parameters. When a server is changed, its configuration and connection profile stay constant. When a new server takes its place, the same profile is assigned.
In this way, Virtual Connect decouples servers and the network so infrastructure changes don't require an administrator to make manual changes to LAN and SAN configurations, reducing the time it takes to reconfigure a server from hours or days to a matter of minutes.

Full details can be found on the SearchServerVirtualization web site - >>click here<<.

To learn more about HP Virtual Connect >>click here<<.
Learn More about HP Virtual Connect - Video >>click here<<.
Demo of VMware ESX Host AutoRecovery using HP Virtual Connect >>click here<<.

BladeSystem Updates

2007-10-30T20:02:00.000Z

First of all let me apologise for not having updated the blog in recent weeks; it has been a really busy end of year and I am only getting time to catch my breath this week before heading off to sunny Houston next week for a technology update on all things ProLiant. You can expect me to be out and about updating (berating) you our partners and customers as soon as I get back with all the latest and greatest info. Bookings are now being accepted :-).

So now to the updates...

Shorty is here
The biggest news in the past month has been the launch of the c3000 BladeSystem or 'Shorty' as we call it in HP. We had over 200 customers and partners at the launch events in Dublin and Belfast and interest since has been huge.

Shorty brings all the benefits and enterprise features of the bigger c7000 model to our SMB customers. It can hold up to 8 servers, storage or Tape Backup devices and is packaged in 6U. It plugs directly into standard wall outlets and is designed to work equally well in computer rooms or offices. It is a unique solution for the market and no other vendor has such an offering for the SMB market. More information on the product can be found at http://www.hp.com/ie/shorty.

You can also take an interactive guided tour of the c3000 at http://www.hp.com/go/smallsiteblades

There are a whole host of end of year BladeSystem and Insight Control Management toolset promotions to celebrate the launch of 'Shorty'. Your local HP reseller has all the information.

As well as the Shorty launch we also launched an 'All-in-One' Storage Blade, the AiO SB600c delivering 1.6TB of shared SAS storage. Check out http://www.hp.com/go/SB600c for more information.

The BL680c server also has arrived which is a quad socket, quad core Xeon server based on the new Tigerton chipset from Intel.

For those of you awaiting the new AMD Quad Core systems they have now slipped to March 2008 when HP will launch a full range of 2 and 4 socket blade and rack servers with the B3 chipset from AMD.

BladeBuilder University II (for HP Resellers)
On 13th November we will hold the BBU II. If you have sold at least one c-Class blade implementation or attended the well received Blade Builder University I in June, then this class is for you. This all new course focuses on business growth (versus selling technology in Blade Builder University I) and delivers modules that shows business partners exactly how to position the technology to our customers with real life examples and templates. More details to follow but places are limited and registration is now open on http://bladebuilderuniversity.com/

That's all for now - I'll post an update as soon as I get back from Texas!

Power and Cooling - HP Labs Technology

2007-08-24T17:09:00.000+01:00

Power and Cooling has jumped right to the top of most customers IT agenda and HP has a lot to offer; from the power regulation technologies in our ProLiant and BladeSystem servers all the way up to the dynamic data centre portfolio of solutions. I have already published quite a lot of information in previous postings on this blog regarding power and cooling technology but I have come across 2 new items this week which I felt were worth sharing with you all.

First off we have just released the Insight Power Manager product which is an option for our ProLiant and Blade servers. This gives customers the ability to proactively manage the power utilisation of their servers, implement power policies inc. power capping and measure the actual power savings in € for your entire server estate. >>Click here<< for further information. Other server vendors claim they also offer the functionality to control power but in reality they provide power control as part of the Windows 2003 OS which also needs modification to enable power control; furthermore there is no ability to measure real power savings or implement power policies. If you need more information please just let me know; this is a great HP .

Secondly 'Information Week' did a great piece on what HPs are doing with regard to power and cooling. If you would like to learn more about Dynamic Smart Cooling and see it working real time and hear about our strategy around cooling innovations in the datacenter, watch this video from Chandrakant Patel, HP Fellow, founder of HP Labs' thermal technology research program. You’ll need only 9 minutes to become experts !

To view the blog >>click here<<.
To view the 9 minute video >>click here<<.

BladeSystem Promotion extended to August 31st - Free Enclosure and Switch

2007-07-11T23:12:00.000+01:00

HP Ireland are running a cClass BladeSystem end user promotion for the month of July which has been extended to August 31st, 2007. Customers can receive up to €14,500 cash back. Simply populate 50% of the ProLiant c-Class enclosure, include your choice of two interconnect modules and receive the enclosure and one interconnect free.

To support this promotion, purchase the HP Installation and Startup Service for HP BladeSystem in conjunction with your blade bundle and receive an additional €1,450 cashback. For full details of HP Care Pack Services please visit www.hp.com/ie/carepack

The full list of qualifying servers, enclosures and interconnect modules as well as the terms and conditions that apply can be found on http://www.hp.com/ie/freebladeenclosure

Please note that the promotion web site is due to go live on July 12th.

How to size Power and Cooling for ProLiant and BladeSystem

2007-07-11T10:27:00.000+01:00

Power and Cooling requirements are becoming ever more important on the criteria list when devising an IT solution. The ability to accurately predict in advance what power and cooling requirements your computer room or datacentre will require in order to support the proposed solution is of the utmost importance and can determine what the final solution will look like. HP has put a lot of effort into the whole power and cooling aspect of our servers by offering sizing tools, power management and monitoring tools and implementing innovative new technology in our BladeSystem and ProLiant ML/DL servers to both reduce your power requirements while not adversely affecting performance. Most vendors give you some basic sizing and monitoring tools but HP goes the extra step in providing strong integrated OS independent hardware based power management meaning our customers can leverage for Microsoft, Linux or VMware solutions.

For our channel partners this is a great way to add value to your customer proposals differentiating yourselves from the competition and providing the customer with information they will very much appreciate.

Click on the links below for further information
Power Regulator Technology for ProLiant ML/DL/BL Servers - Understand how it works
Power Calulator Utility for ProLiant DL rack based servers - Understand how to use it

Power Sizing Tool for ProLiant Servers - Go do it for ProLiant ML and DL servers
Power Sizing Tool for HP BladeSystem - Go do it for BladeSystem

New - BladeSystem Online Resources!

2007-05-14T12:07:00.000+01:00

Two great new resources have been launched. The first is a BladeSystem Connect Online site which allows you to establish contact with other BladeSystem interested parties including HP specialists, BladeSystem customers, and more with peer to peer support forums, chat rooms, discussion groups etc. You can request assistance or contribute and share your knowledge and best practices.

There is also a great new EMEA BladeSystem Community site with all the latest and greatest technical information and demos on HP BladeSystem cClass.

ProLiant & BladeSystem - Promotions

2007-05-11T15:48:00.000+01:00

HP Ireland are currently running a number of promotions for our ProLiant and BladeSystem range of products for the month of May..

When you buy a selected HP ProLiant server with an additional second processor between 1 and 31 May 2007, you can receive the second processor absolutely free.
Check out www.hp.com/ie/proliantcpu

HP BladeSystem, simply purchase any 3 qualifying BL480c models between 1– 31 May 2007, then complete the claim form to claim cashback to the value of the lowest priced model!
Check out www.hp.com/ie/bladesystem3for2

BladeSystem Site Planning Guide

2007-05-04T13:11:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the gap in postings but it has been a really busy few weeks and I have also been away on holidays. A great new document has been made available which tells you all you need to know on site planning for the HP c-Class BladeSystem. It also has sample configurations with min and max for power and cooling etc. as well as rack, floor, pdu requirements. Anyone who has a c-Class or is considering implementing c-Class shoud take a look at this. It is available at the following link . Click here.

Latest Updates for BladeSystem and Management Tools

2007-03-14T21:02:00.000Z

Apologies for the delay in updating the blog but it has been a busy month. I have been to the Worldwide BladeSystem Ambassador Academy in Houston, Texas and my head is busy trying to absorb all the new information I picked up there as well as deal with the backlog of work that I had waiting for me when I got back. So what's been happening this past month?

HP regains No.1 spot in Blades
Well I guess the biggest news from my point of view is that HP BladeSystem has finally recaptured No. 1 unit and revenue market share from IBM in the blade server market. It has taken us 10 Quarters but it has been on the cards ever since cClass was launched given the huge demand we have experienced and massive adoption of BladeSystem worldwide. Since cClass was launched HP has outpaced the market every quarter and according to IDC now holds 41.9% Revenue Share and 40% total Factory Units Share and has 10 times the growth of IBM in units and revenue year over year.

Anyway enough crowing what developments have there been in ProLiant and BladeSystem in the past few weeks.

New firmware available for Onboard Administrator
Version 1.3 of the OA is now available for download with some tweaks and fine tuning of the power utilisation and also implements zoned cooling in the cClass which further increases the cClass power and cooling efficiencies. One case of note was at a bank in the UK who upgraded the OA to version 1.3 and for their specific configuration with a full blade enclosure saw a 10% decrease in total enclosure power draw (300W). By implementing zoned cooling we now dynamically increase and decrease the RPMs of the fans in 4 zones. We increase the RPMs of the fans in that zone which require extra cooling whereas prior to 1.3 all fans would have increased.

SIM Updates
Systems Insight Manager 5.1 is now available and includes some nice new features (48 in fact but I will spare you and just point out the highlights) inc. Active Directory synchronization: integrates with group lists and authorization as an active directory resource group; Ease of use enhancements: quicker installation and easier configuration make HP SIM 5.1 easier to use than ever before; Improved enclosure views: enhanced view shows health status, environment information, and firmware revisions in life-like detail and a Custom tool wizard: allows you to easily integrate your programs, scripts and custom commands into HP SIM.

The best feature IMO which before was a stand alone product but is now a core feature of SIM is the Remote Support pack. The HP Services Essentials Remote Support Pack integrates with HP SIM to improve warranty and contracts management, provide optional automated support calls to HP, and add intelligent events and advanced troubleshooting resources. When the Remote Support Pack is fully installed, turning on remote monitoring for any particular device is then just one-click away within HP SIM. Enabling the Remote Support Pack will also give customers access to the new warranty and contract entitlement feature in HP SIM 5.1. For further information visit http://www.hp.com/go/hpsim

February '07 Product Launch

2007-02-13T22:15:00.000Z

Highlights of this months launch include the introduction of the much anticipated Virtual Connect modules and Cisco SAN Switch for the BladeSystem c-Class plus further processor refreshes across the AMD product range. Also worth noting the launch of the Workstation blade (xw460c) and the Integrity blade (BL860c) also for the cClass BladeSystem.

HP 4Gb Virtual Connect Fibre Channel for c-Class BladeSystem
The HP Virtual Connect Fibre Channel Module provides transparent SAN connectivity to external networks to enable server moves, adds or changes without impacting network operations.

HP 1/10 Gb Virtual Connect Ethernet Module
The HP Virtual Connect Ethernet Module provides transparent LAN connectivity to external networks to enable server moves, adds or changes without impacting network operations.

HP ProLiant xw460c Workstation Blade
The HP ProLiant xw460c workstation blade is a data center workstation without boundaries. It offers customers data center security, control and multi-location access flexibility - all with a workstation class user experience. With Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5100 series processor and features similar to desktop workstations, the dual processor capable, Dual-Core Intel Xeon xw460c combines power-efficient computing, and high density with expanded memory for maximum performance.

HP Integrity BL860c Server Blade
The HP Integrity BL860c server blade enables customers to utilize the powerful capabilities of Intel's Itanium processors and HP-UX in a BladeSystem c-Class form factor. The BL860c fully supports Integrity Virtual Machine for unsurpassed virtualization capabilities supported by up to 48GB of available memory. The BL860c is ideal for server and application consolidation in an HP-UX environment not previously available. It also allows Windows, UNIX, Linux, multiple pieces of hardware to operate on single operating system. BL860c is also well suited for superior performance in demanding database intensive, high performance, and scientific computing environments.

HP GbE2c Layer 2/3 Ethernet Blade Switch
The newest addition to the GbE2 family, the HP GbE2c Layer 2/3 Ethernet blade switch now provides four SFP fiber uplink ports in addition to five RJ-45 ports that provide the flexibility to choose between fiber or copper uplinks. A maximum of five 1 Gb uplinks are supported. This is also the first c-Class switch with layer 3 routing, filtering and QOS queuing making it ideal for high bandwidth switching applications within the enclosure. Along with the switch comes a new option, the BNT Fiber SFP Module Kit that contains two 1Gb SR SFP’s.

Cisco MDS 9124e Fabric Switch for HP c-Class BladeSystem
The Cisco MDS 9124e Fabric Switch introduces a Cisco-branded embedded 4Gb Fibre Channel switch for HP BladeSystem c-Class that offers exceptional performance and scalability for the most demanding environments. The integrated design lowers TCO and enables higher levels of availability, it's also easy to configure and manage. Integrating the Fibre Channel switch within the HP BladeSystem c-Class increases flexibility, performance and simplifies management while reducing costs through consolidation.

HP BLc PCle Modular Option Kit
The HP PCI express mezzanine expansion card for HP BladeSystem c-Class is a four lane PCIe expansion card that is required to provide PCIe connectivity from a full height c-Class blade server to the HP StorageWorks SB40c storage blade.

BladeSystem C KVM Interface Adapter
The BladeSystem C KVM Interface Adapter connects HP BladeSystems c-Class blade servers to an HP KVM for ease of management. Features include a single interface adapter, hot pluggable and it is compatible with all HP Cat five based KVM switches. It can also accept a USB device connection. This adapter eases cable management for a much cleaner solution.

SAS Drive Technology - Large or Small?

2007-02-06T18:09:00.002Z

I have had quite a lot of questions from channel partners and customers alike around hard disk drive technology. There is quite a bit of confusion in the market right now 1st of all around the new SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) hard drives and secondly since they are currently available in 2 form factors, Large Form Factor (LFF) and Small Form Factor (SFF); which drive type is best? Most hardware vendors have not made it any easier by making both types of drives available for their servers which means end users are faced with multiple options when trying to decide on a configuration.

First of all I should point out that SAS is the successor to SCSI. SAS is a serial technology where every drive can have it's own dedicated 'pipe' or bandwidth lane to the SAS RAID controller as opposed to traditional Parallel SCSI whose drives share a 'pipe' to a single channel on the SCSI RAID controller. For example the P400 controller in the HP ProLiant DL380 G5 is an 8 port SAS controller i.e. 1 port for every drive in the DL380 G5 which can house 8 Small Form Factor (SFF 2.5") drives.

HP have had a lot of success in the past with our Universal SCSI drive which meant that the same SCSI drive would go in our ML, DL or BL servers and MSA storage i.e. 1 drive for all servers and DAS (Direct Attached Storage) and shared storage solutions. As a result of this strategy which our customers have overwhelmingly applauded, HP has decided to adopt a new single universal drive type for the latest SAS and indeed SATA technologys based on the SFF 2.5" disk meaning our customers will only have to endure a single drive type transition. The industry is rapidly moving towards SFF 2.5" disks and LFF 3.5" disks are only a temporary stop gap to fill areas where capacity is more important than performance or even price/performance.

As stated HP has transitioned all of our enterprise servers to the new universal drive type; Small Form Factor 2.5” SAS (Serial Attached SCSI). We did this primarily to avoid our customers going through 2 transitions i.e. from U320 3.5” Parallel SCSI hard drives to Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 3.5” Large Form Factor Drives and then to Small Form Factor 2.5” SAS drives.

HP currently offers SFF 2.5” SAS drives in 36GB and 72 GB capacities at 15K speeds. We also offer SFF 2.5” SAS 10K drives in 36GB, 72 GB and 146 GB. It is important to note that no vendor offers a 146GB 15K 2.5” SFF disk drive as this is still has not been launched by the hard disk vendors. This is not a major issue as the performance difference between SFF 2.5” 10K SAS and 15K LFF 3.5” SAS is very low. In a RAID 5 set of 4 drives this can be as low as 5% – see diagram below.

SFF Drive - Physical Advantages
The HP SFF 2.5” SAS drives are 2nd generation SAS hard drives compared to 3.5” LFF SAS drives which still use U320 parallel SCSI mechanics. The SFF drives use less power (about half that of LFF drives), are quieter, have a better MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) rating increasing availability and reliability and the server supports more spindles which ultimately has the greatest impact on performance.

Sample Scenario
To achieve a 400GB RAID 5 disk partition we could use 4 x 146GB 2.5” SFF SAS 10K Hard Drives. This would give much better price/performance than the 3.5” LFF 15K disk solution, however the 15K 3.5” LFF drive array would be approximately 5% faster performing.

The HP list pricing (Feb. '07) for the 2 drive types are as follows
€355 for a 146GB 10K SFF 2.5” SAS Drive
€505 for a 146GB 15K LFF 3.5” SAS Drive

For a 400 GB RAID array based on 4 Hard Drives with both drives types in terms of price and relative performance. (See Diagram Below for performance data)

€1420 – SFF 2.5” 10K for 1200 IOPs approximately
€2020 – LFF 3.5” 15K for 1260 IOPs approximately

The price/performance for the 10K array would be far superior to the 15K solution while the performance is approximately 5% less.

The advantage of using SFF 2.5” 10K drives is that due to their smaller size you can have a total of 6 per DL360 G5 1U server, 8 per DL380 G5 class 2U server and 16 in both the DL580 G5 and ML370 G5. This means we can add up to 2 more drives a typical 2U server (8 as opposed to 6 with 3.5") to the RAID Array increasing not only the available disk space in the RAID array but also dramatically increasing performance. By adding a 5th 146 GB 2.5” 10K SFF SAS drive to the array we exceed the performance of 15K SAS (see diagram below) while still being a more cost effective solution.

At 5 drives IOPS approx.
15K LFF gives 1260 IOPS – limited to 4 drives in a 2U server.
10K SFF gives 1490 IOPS and costs less.
You are still left with the option to add a 6th drive to the RAID set at a later date if you would like to further increase the performance and/or size of the array.

At 6 drives IOPS approx.
15K LFF gives 1260 IOPS - limited to 4 drives in a 2U server
10K SFF gives 1650 IOPS and costs fractionally more.

Conclusions
In conclusion Small Form Factor 2.5” SAS drives are the new universal drive type in the industry. HP have adopted the standard universal drive for all of our servers meaning our customers will not have to transition again in 12-18 months time away from legacy 3.5” drive technology. Small Form Factor 2.5” drives are not available in capacities greater than 72GB in 15K disk speed.

SFF drives provide more advantages than a 15K 3.5”SAS drives in terms of power, cooling, reliability, and density and we have shown that the overall solution can beat 15K in terms of not only price/performance but also raw performance.

NEW! - HP ProLiant Family Guide

2007-01-15T16:07:00.000Z

The ProLiant family guide has been updated to reflect the latest ProLiant and BladeSystem product offerings. This Guide provides a side-by-side comparison of the HP ProLiant server family, from entry-level to high-end servers, and includes related offerings typically purchased with ProLiant servers. With powerful, flexible solutions and innovations in manageability, virtualisation, power and cooling, HP ProLiant servers help you build the right adaptive infrastructure for your IT. >>Click here<< to download the guide in PDF format or contact your HP reseller for hard copies.

AMD selects HP BladeSystem for next generation chip designs

2006-12-12T11:25:00.000Z

AMD recently purchsed 900 HP Blade servers for their next generation chip design projects. Read how AMD is experiencing an increase in performance-per-watt of up to 30 percent in the new server blade-based environment compared to currently installed standard rack-mounted servers.

“HP’s Linux-based BladeSystem solution’s integrated consoles and power control help us to manage more servers without increasing our staff,” said Mike Lowe, director, Chipset Engineering, AMD. “These new systems help AMD take advantage of the latest HP and AMD high-performance and power-saving technologies and dramatically increase the density of our world-class engineering design compute cluster to enable us to bring new generations of chip designs to market efficiently and cost-effectively.”

Read the full report here
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2006/061121a.html

eMail Subscription Service for Automatic Updates now available

2006-12-03T22:53:00.000Z

If you would like to be sent an automatic update of any new posts to the 'All things ProLiant' blog you can simply click here or use the subscription tool in the sidebar opposite and enter your eMail address.

Quad Core ProLiants - Now Available

2006-12-03T21:10:00.000Z

HP announced on November 14th 2006, support for up to two quad-core Intel Xeon 5300 sequence processors in the following ProLiant servers. These products have immediate availability with standard lead times. Included in the list of products is the BL20p G4 thereby supporting Quad Core CPUs in our pClass BladeSystem providing our customers with the best investment protection of any blade server vendor in the market.

•HP ProLiant DL360 G5
•HP ProLiant DL380 G5
•HP ProLiant ML150 G3
•HP ProLiant DL140 G3
•HP ProLiant ML370 G5
•HP ProLiant ML350 G5
•HP ProLiant BL460c
•HP ProLiant BL480c
•HP ProLiant BL20p G4

x86 Server Technology Papers

2006-11-23T13:04:00.000Z

Check out this great new web page with a complete index of technology papers and guides. It has sections addressing all areas of ProLiant server technology from the architecture, management tools to the supported OS's. For IT professionals, ISS technology papers either explain HP strategy, development, and implementation of key technologies in industry-standard systems or explain how to integrate operating systems and applications software with ProLiant systems to achieve maximum benefit.
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/technology/whitepapers/index.html?jumpid=servers/technology

Nov 14th - New Product Announcements

2006-11-17T17:58:00.000Z

HP introduced a whole host of new ProLiant server products on November 14th; most of which have immediate availability.

» HP ProLiant DL320s Server
The new HP ProLiant DL320s server delivers enterprise level features, storage optimization, and high-end performance at an entry level price. The Dual Core Intel Xeon processors, 9TB storage capacity, and DDR2 Memory support enhance this ultra-dense 2U solution for both enterprise and SMB customers.
» HP ProLiant DL365
HP is introducing the HP ProLiant DL365, combining AMD Opteron dual-core processing power with Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), PCI-Express, and robust remote management capability for the most complete ultra dense server platform ideal for the full range of scale out applications.
» HP StorageWorks SB40c storage blade
HP is introducing the HP StorageWorks SB40c storage blade, a half-height c-Class storage blade featuring support for up to six hot-plug Small Form Factor (SFF) Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) or Serial ATA (SATA) hard disk drives, using the onboard Smart Array P400 for hardware based RAID 0, 1+0, 5 and 6.
» HP ProLiant BL685c
HP is introducing the all-new HP ProLiant BL685c server, featuring up to four AMD Opteron 8000 Series processors, up to 64GB of ECC 667MHz DDR2 memory, four embedded NICs, three I/O expansion slots, and your choice of up to two hot-plug SAS or SATA drives, ideal for the most demanding enterprise class applications.
» HP ProLiant BL25p G2
The next generation of HP ProLiant BL25p now supports up to two AMD Opteron 2000 Series processors with 1MB L2 cache per core, further increasing 2P blade performance for front-end and mid-tier computing.
» HP ProLiant BL45p G2
The next generation of HP ProLiant BL45p now supports up to four AMD Opteron 8000 Series processors with 1MB L2 cache per core, further increasing 4P blade performance for mid-tier and back-end computing.

Interactive HP BladeSystem c-Class 3D Tour

2006-11-08T09:36:00.000Z

Just found a great new interactve tour of the HP BladeSystem c-Class covering all aspects of c-Class technology including interactive presentations from the development teams, all the key features (Virtual Connect, Thermal Logic, Insight Control Mgmt) explained, a 3D Tour of the BladeSystem and lots of white papers, podcasts and streaming video. Click here to take a look right now!

ProLiant & BladeSystem - Configuration Tools

2006-11-06T10:57:00.000Z

ProLiant Configurations
The HP Enterprise Configurator is very useful in helping you put together a specific configuration for any HP server and storage products. First step select you country e.g. Ireland - English, then click on configure under the HP ProLiant Servers menu option; then scroll through the complete list of servers and click on the configure button opposite the server you would like to build a configuration for. On the specific product page select the various options (CPU, RAM, Hard Disks etc.) from the drop down list; when finished click configure at the bottom of the screen. The tool validates your configuration, gives you a complete bill of materials, a rack view and lots of options for exporting the results. Click on the link below to jump to the HP Enterprise Configurator.

http://h30099.www3.hp.com/configurator/index.asp

BladeSystem Configurations
We have built a specific configuration tool for BladeSystem configurations to make building your BladeSystem solution as easy as possible. The tool is available as an online or offline version (simply click on the Download now>> button in the main menu to download and run offline). It guides you through all the steps in building a BladeSystem configuration and the output provides you with detailed configuration data inc. a full bill of materials as well as very detailed power and cooling requirements. Click on the link below to access The BladeSystem Sizer.

http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/cache/347628-0-0-0-121.html
Tip: Select the BTO configuration option for Ireland.

Note: You need to register with HP Active Answers to access this tool - this is a very simple, quick and easy process and gives you access to many more configuration tools and sizers inc. VMware, SQL, Oracle, Citrix etc.

Further Questions
If you need help in verifying any of your configurations of have additional questions - please eMail the infocenter@hp.com - if you have a configuration saved please include this in the eMail as an attachment. The Infocenter normally close off configuration questions within 4-6 hours!

Read ZDNets Blog on HP's new super cool fans

2006-11-03T14:08:00.000Z

HP’s super cool computer fans by ZDNet's Dan Farber -- Inspired by radio controlled model airplanes, HP is developing new fan technologies to cool hardware more efficiently. I talked to Wade Vinson, HP’s fan man and thermal technologist, about the new fan technology, which he said will consume about a third of the power of current computer fans. "We started with an optimum design, whether [...]

iLO Management - Tips & Tricks

2006-11-03T11:54:00.000Z

What is iLO?
iLO stands for Integrated Lights Out Remote Management. A lot of ProLiant customers don't even know they have this on their server. iLO is an onboard management ASIC providing complete out of band remote managment of the server. Almost all HP ProLiant servers from Generation 2 systems onwards have included the iLO management port as standard.

What does it do?
How would you like complete secure remote management and control of your server? iLO provides this; there is nothing and I mean nothing that cannot be done remotely bar physically touching the server of course. For example - you can power the server down and watch it reboot, jump in and configure the BIOS should you need to; watch the OS load up (note iLO doesn't require an OS to be already installed) and then mount your local desktop USB or DVD to the remote server (it appears as a USB connected device on the remote server). You can even have the server boot from an ISO image on the network should you so wish. This is but a sample of the power and control iLO gives you over your server. Best of all it is all out of band management so it is very secure and you are not using valuable data NIC bandwidth.

Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) virtualizes ProLiant system resources over a network so you are always in control as if you are at-the-server. iLO Standard provides basic remote management features standard with ProLiant servers. The optional iLO Advanced provides key-activated features that enable remote access to system console with full keyboard and mouse control during any server state. iLO Advanced also allows administrators to maintain system firmware or run diagnostics on remote servers from an image on a workstation floppy or CD drive or network web server. These "do-it-yourself" capabilities enable industry leading remote management of ProLiant servers anywhere, anytime from a secure, standard Web browser, command line or script. You get a free 60 day trial license of the advanced pack with every iLO on every server. Customers can register for evaluation licenses for all ProLiant Essentials products online at www.hp.com/go/tryessentials.

Benefits of using iLO.

Reduces travel and operational costs:
iLO users avoid travel costs for administrative, maintenance and remedial activities on systems in remote locations or datacenters. The virtualized system resources allow administrators to perform many system tasks of from any network access point without leaving the office or relying on local assistance.
Automates system support functions:
iLO scripting automates key tasks such as unattended ROM updates for multiple systems simultaneously. iLO integrates with other tools such as HP Systems Insight Manager for seamless execution of administrative tasks.
Increases availability:
iLO Advanced Pack shortens the time to complete administrative, maintenance and remedial tasks by enabling instant remote control of key system resources over a network.
Ensures reliable, efficient access and data security:
iLO provides full remote control over the Internet or LAN without increasing the vulnerability of valuable IT assets to unauthorized access and malicious activity. Industry standard data encryption and directory services based user access provide a reliable, secure remote management infrastructure.

How do I enable iLO?
There are 2 simple ways to get up and running.

1. If the server is powered off
Power the server on and watch it boot - you will see a prompt to hit F8 which will allow you to configure iLO. Every server cotaining iLO ships with a sticker or tag containing iLO default specific information i.e. username and password, DNS name etc. Once you have logged on you can configure iLO with a fixed IP address and configure security parameters for access control.
2. If the server is already power on and running
iLO needs to be plugged onto your ETHernet network and uses TCP/IP (it will request an IP addrss from your DHCP server by default). Every server containing iLO will include a sticker or a tag containing the default DNS name for that specific iLO. You can then check your DHCP server and see what IP address was allocated to the iLO. Open a browser and http to that address. Use the username and password from the tag to gain access.

TIP -Once you have enabled iLO you should remove the tag and change the logon credentials for security purposes. iLO can also integrate with your directory for security logon credentials. If you have lost the tag or sticker with the default logon credentials please contact HP suppport and they will giude you through the process to reset iLO security.

How do I optimise iLO performance?
There are now 2 versions of iLO. iLO 2 arrived this year with the launch of our new cClass Blade servers, G5 Intel Xeon and G2 AMD Opteron based servers. The remote console performance of iLO 2 is amazing and is the equivalent of KVM over IP console switch performance. For iLO 1 users the biggest single request to HP has been to improve the graphical remote console performance which we have done but unfortunately not alot of people know about nor have applied these updates. Bear in mind that iLO technology launched almost 10 years ago with the RiLOE PCI board. The primary purpose being to give administrators complete OS independent, out of band management and remote control of their servers. It was not built for 24x7 management.

Improve Remote Console Performance
There are a number of ways for improving remote console performance some of which are dependent on the OS running on the host server. For Windows 2000 or 2003 servers the simplest and most effective way is by enabling Terminal Services functionality through iLO. This allows iLO to accept Microsoft Remote Desktop Connections on the iLO management port instead of doing this through your data NIC.

Other tips to improve the graphical remote console on Windows servers include...

Server display properties

Plain Background (no wallpaper pattern)
Smaller display resolutions (800x600 or 1024x768 pixels)
256 color mode or 24 bits per pixel color setting (iLO only)

Server mouse properties (iLO only)

Select None for mouse pointer Scheme.
Uncheck Enable pointer shadow.
Select Motion or Pointer Options and set the pointer Speed slider to the middle position.
Disable pointer Acceleration to None (on Windows NT or Windows 2000).
Uncheck Advanced Pointer Precision (on Windows Server 2003).

I strongly urge you to download and read the iLO Best Practices Guide v4 published Oct'06 from hp.com. It is full of advice on how to maximise your iLO performance and productivity with step by step guides and details.

Recent features added to iLO which is available by simply upgrading your iLO firmware

Schema-free Active Directory Integration
Two-factor authentication
USB flash drive virtual media
Power Regulator for ProLiant reporting
Intelligent iLO Advanced activation keys
Terminal Services Pass Through
enhanced remote console mouse

iLO Version 1.88 available for download -
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/support/files/lights-out/us/locate/69_5867.html - Index
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/support/files/lights-out/us/download/25497.html

2006-11-01T18:27:00.000Z

Welcome to my blog on HP ProLiant which I hope will be useful in keeping you updated on developments in ProLiant server and BladeSystem Technologies. I will add blogs relating to various subject areas and how HP ProLiant is helping address real customer problems as well as providing HP partners and customers alike with links to useful configuration tools. If you have any special requests or suggestions please feel free to contact me or leave a comment. I will try to update this site at least once a week - but don't hold me ot that!