Hewlett-Packard has introduced dual Pentium blade servers, a move
analysts view as a natural extension of the single-processor blade
servers brought to market by Compaq in January.
HP's new ProLiant BL20p dual processor servers come with 4Gbytes of
SDRAM memory and up to 144Gbytes of internal storage. Prices start
at $2,539 (£1,665). Sally Stevens, director of marketing for the
density optimised server division of HP said the company plans to
further extend its blade product line in the first quarter of 2003
with a four-processor blade server.
Blade servers are essentially complete servers on a tightly packed
board that can squeeze more processing power into a standard server
rack than older generation rack-mounted servers.
Stevens said the new dual processor blade servers are designed to
support applications such as Web hosting and streaming media. The
company's single-processor servers support security applications
such as DNS and DHCP firewalls, while the four blade servers will
be able to handle back-end databases.
Gordon Haff, an analyst at Illuminata, said HP's new dual processor
servers represent an "evolution" of the HP blade server product
line, adding "in many respects blades are an evolution of
rack-mounted servers".
Last week Dell Computer said that it plans to launch a line of
modular blade servers next year that allow customers to mix and
match processors, memory and I/O devices. A spokesman for the
company said this approach would reduce cabling and operational
costs while providing customers with greater flexibility.