HP Cuts Virtualisation Costs

By Greg McNevin

November 20 2008: HP says that it can cut networking costs by 55 percent thanks to a breakthrough in virtualisation technology.

The company has announced new networking, storage and server technologies that it says reduce costs, increase bandwidth flexibility and improve overall performance of virtual server environments.

With enthusiasm for virtualisation on the rise, HP claims that the costs of networking virtual servers are spiralling out of control. A typical server hosting virtual machines for example, needs an average of six network connections, forcing companies to invest in extra networking equipment, including network expansion cards, switches and cables.

Further to this, it says that current network connection technologies are inflexible, and the only way to increase bandwidth as virtual server workloads and applications scale is to purchase expensive network switches.

To combat these problems, HP has released its Virtual Connect 10 Gigabit (Gb) Flex-10 Ethernet module, proclaiming it the world’s first interconnect technology to eliminate these costly network hardware upgrades and increase bandwidth flexibility.

The company says that deploying virtual machines with Virtual Connect Flex-10 can bring about savings up to 55 percent in network equipment costs, while achieving power savings of 240 watts per HP BladeSystem enclosure, or 2,700 kilowatt hours per year.

“Today’s innovations help customers eliminate the barriers to virtualisation while lowering acquisition and operating costs,” says Mark Potter, vice president and general manager, HP BladeSystem.

“As virtualisation becomes ubiquitous, customers need new technologies that take the benefits of virtualisation to the next level. Virtual Connect Flex-10 gives customers the greatest return on their virtualisation investments. Looking forward, we believe that every server will be Virtual Connect Flex-10 enabled.”

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