Hewlett-Packard has unveiled five new servers, including
a blade server and a rack server, and two storage products aimed at
the entry-level San market.
The five new HP ProLiant servers utilise Intel's 64-bit Nocona
processor with Xeon extended memory 64-bit technology (EM64T).
The servers also include enhanced management, availability, and
ease of use features.
Prices for the new systems start at $1,529 (£841) for the HP
ProLiant ML350 server with two Intel Xeon processors running at
3.0GHz with 800MHz front side bus, 1M cache, EM64T technology, and
512Mbytes memory. HP is also shipping a ML370 with a similar
configuration, but with two 3.4GHz Xeon processors. That system
starts at $2,899.
At the high end, the HP ProLiant DL380 rack server is priced
starting at $3,449 for a system with two Intel Xeon processors
running at 3.4GHz with 800MHz front side bus, 1M cache, EM64T, and
1Gbytes memory in a 3.5in form factor. The rack server is designed
for space-constrained corporate datacentres and service
providers.
HP's new blade server, the HP ProLiant BL20p, comes with two
Intel Xeon processors running at 3.2GHz with 800MHz front side bus,
1M cache, EM64T, and 1Gbytes memory. That system will not be
available until 1 September and pricing for that model has not been
determined.
HP's server announcement demonstrates the company's continued
competitiveness in the server market, said David Reine, director of
enterprise systems for The Clipper Group.
"HP has put together a set of ProLiant and Integrity platforms
based upon the widest commodity offerings in the market: Intel's
newest 32/64-bit Xeon 64EM, Intel's dual-core 64-bit Itanium-2
technology, and AMD's 32/64-bit Opteron technology," said
Reine.
The company also announced that is has a big customer lined up
for its HP ProLiant servers: Sandia National Laboratories in
Albuquerque. Sandia Labs is a government-funded laboratory that
focuses on high-level research and development projects.
Sandia recently purchased 1,280 EM64T-based ProLiant DL360
servers for high-performance technical computing applications. The
system is expected to exceed 16 teraflops, according to Sandia
officials.
"After experiencing firsthand how we could successfully cluster
Linux-based ProLiant servers, our focus evolved to exploiting the
new Xeon's 64-bit extensions to innovate new technical
applications," said John Zepper, manager of infrastructure
computing systems at Sandia Labs.
The laboratory is working with HP Services to build a
supercomputer based on Intel Xeon EM64T-based HP ProLiant
servers.
The company's new storage array offerings are designed for IT
managers looking for an entry-level San. The HP StorageWorks
Modular Smart Array (MSA) 1500 is a fibre channel San attached
controller shelf that connects to HP StorageWorks Serial ATA and/or
SCSI disc enclosures. It offers as many as eight attached SATA
enclosures and delivers as much as 24Tbytes of storage capacity.
Pricing for the system starts at $8,995.
The storage group also announced the MSA20, a SATA disc drive
storage enclosure with Ultra320 SCSI host connectivity that has a
starting price of $2,959. By integrating low-cost SATA hard drives
and enclosures with existing SCSI drives enclosures, HP is helping
customers protecting their existing hardware investment, said Kyle
Sitze, director of marketing for online storage at HP.
"This is a significant advancement for entry-level San
solutions. It can really lower the cost of entry for Sans," he
said.
Bob Francis writes for InfoWorld