Hewlett-Packard is to add grid capabilities to all of
its systems over the next two to three years.
The company is also broadening its service offerings to help
businesses adopt the grid computing model, and now has 5,000 to
6,000 consultants in place worldwide to help customers get grids
running, said Nora Denzel, senior vice president of HP's global
software division.
The consultants will provide management, deployment and
lifecycle support for grid environments. The product and service
plans are intended to extend HP's Adaptive Enterprise strategy to
make IT systems more responsive to its clients' business needs.
Proponents say grid computing will help businesses save money by
allowing them to use computing resources more efficiently, and can
also make applications more reliable.
System vendors such as IBM and Sun Microsystems have also been
outlining grid strategies, and Oracle will provide details at its
user conference next week about its own efforts to grid enable its
database and other software.
For its part, HP will integrate emerging grid standards,
including the Globus Toolkit and Open Grid Services Architecture
(OGSA), into all of its enterprise systems over the next two to
three years, as well as into products such as handheld computers
and printers, Denzel said.
"In the hardware we'll ship grid software that has been
integrated and tested, so that when you do go to a grid environment
a system will be able to put itself onto the grid easily and
quickly and there will be no testing required," she said.
HP also has a "huge" software effort under way to simplify the
creation and management of grids, including efforts to revamp its
OpenView management tools for the task.
HP Labs has developed two components for the effort: Grid
Resource Topology Designer, a graphical interface tool that can map
out an organisation's resource needs and submit them to the grid
for fulfilment, and SmartFrog (Smart Framework for Object Groups),
for configuring resources on computers that make up a grid.
HP did not say when the various products will be delivered or to
talk about pricing. Some of the software exists today as part of
HP's Utility Data Center initiative, according to Denzel, and
others, like the products from HP Labs, will be rolled out in the
coming years. SmartFrog and the Grid Resource Topolology Designer
have been demonstrated to customers but have not yet gone into
beta.
One analyst said it was a stretch for HP to claim it has
experience in grid computing because of its work with
high-performance computing clusters and its UDC software, adding
that HP has lagged behind IBM in its grid efforts.
"IBM has championed the Globus Toolkit and has been leading the
way in merging web services technologies with grid computing to
create OGSA," said David Freund, an analyst with Illuminata.
However, he admitted that positioning OpenView as a management
framework for the grid makes sense and the moves could help
position HP for the long term.
"As the grid evolves and matures into something of greater
interest to businesses, rather than just the academic, scientific,
research and government institutions, then HP will be there ready
to play," he said.
James Niccolai writes for IDG News
Service