New Offerings Vastly Simplify Virtualization Implementation, Management

HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced new products, services and solutions designed to simplify the implementation and management of virtualization so that the technology delivers greater business value.

Recent global research conducted on behalf of HP revealed that while 86 percent of technology decision makers have implemented virtualization projects, the vast majority of respondents expect to have virtualized just 25 percent of their technology environments by 2010.⁽¹⁾

While many of those surveyed anticipate eventually reaching 75 percent virtualization of their total environments, only one-third of these technology implementers recognize virtualization as a valuable business tool. Two-thirds of implementers relegate virtualization to the role of technology enabler.

“Virtualization is a powerful step in transforming IT,” said Ann Livermore, executive vice president, Technology Solutions Group, HP. “To do it right means successfully managing and automating mixed physical and virtual environments. HP delivers the industry’s broadest portfolio for virtualized environments, covering applications and operations management, infrastructure and client architectures.”

HP’s approach to virtualization is focused on removing the technology inhibitors that reduce virtualization’s impact on the business. It highlights how applications and business services can perform well regardless of where and how they are hosted, networked or managed. It dramatically simplifies management across a combined virtual and physical world, and it addresses the issue of pooling infrastructure resources across an organization.

HP’s new offerings support business needs that span the desktop to the data center. They are focused on lowering operational cost, mitigating the risk of a heterogeneous environment and freeing resources to deliver new business services. These offerings are designed around three specific areas: applications and operations management, overcoming infrastructure barriers, and maximizing client architectures.

Rethink … applications and operations management

HP Business Service Management (BSM) and IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions have been enhanced with new virtualization monitoring and support capabilities to seamlessly link business services to the physical and virtual resources that deliver and manage them. This leads to faster deployments, lower costs and quicker problem resolution.

• HP Operations Agent, HP Performance Agent and HP SiteScope have been enhanced with hypervisor management capabilities, including the ability to collect management data to automate event and availability monitoring and management processes across heterogeneous infrastructures.
• HP Network Node Manager i-series has been updated to monitor the performance and availability of networks supporting dynamic, virtualized environments.