Significant capacity, virtualisation and management
improvements are among the stated benefits of HP upgrading its
Integrity server line and HP-UX 11i operating
environment.
HP says that in addition to offering greater server capacity,
the enhancements should bring about faster deployment of enterprise
software within an HP virtual server environment (VSE) running on
the HP-UX 11i operating system.
The company says that HP-UX 11i reference architectures and
toolkits for HP VSE enable users to halve the time it takes to
bring virtualisation projects online when using software from BEA,
Oracle, SAP and IBM. For example, it says that a VSE implementation
with BEA WebLogic that could otherwise take from 17 to 34 weeks to
complete can now be fully planned, designed and deployed in four to
seven weeks.
The greater server capacity is, says HP, brought about by a new
chipset that can increase the Integrity server’s ability to handle
complex workloads by up to 30%, while using the same number of
Intel Itanium 2 processors. Featured and available today in the
cell-based HP Integrity rx7640, rx8640 and Superdome servers, the
chipset is designed to deliver single system availability features
to improve memory availability, interconnectivity and fault
tolerance.
HP has also added improved HP-UX 11i disaster-tolerance and
security capabilities; new configuration options for HP Integrity
NonStop servers and new HP-UX 11i management tools to simplify
datacentre operations.
Commenting on the launch, Andrew Butler, vice-president and
distinguished analyst at Gartner, says: “Vendors that can approach
customers with enhanced system capabilities that speak to today’s
need for sophisticated virtualisation, management tools and
capacity boosts are taking a step in the right direction.”