HP Blade Solutions : SharpeningBlades

Global PC giant HP has announced a series of measures, both in terms of tech
features as well as pricing, to attract corporate users who want much more than
their traditional PCs can offer. As CIOs and IT managers of growing
organizations struggle with reduced IT budgets on one hand, and the need for
better infrastructure control, scalability, security, and increasing energy
requirements on the other, blade technology is emerging as a formidable option
for the future; no wonder that blade solutions are becoming more and more
prominent on the menu card of vendors like Lenovo, Dell, and Sunall of whom
have gone on  a partnership spree with other technology companies.

The latest move from HP to build its portfolio of remote client solutions is
the tie-up with Citrix. This agreement will give business customers solutions
that integrate affordability with high-performance blade PCs, better
manageability, scalability and security. Based on HPs blade PCs, bc2800 and
bc2200 and Citrixs XenDesktop software, we now offer a  cost-efficient
client visualization solution for companies that want to upgrade and better
manage their IT infrastructure in this challenging economic environment, says
Dennis Mark, VP and GM, personal systems group, HP.

HP and other PC vendors are now betting big on blade solutions as they offer not just energy efficiency but better manageability, scalability and security

The Sharp Blade

Energy is a big issue, especially in the growing economies the world over,
and blade technology is touted as the best solution for that.  At 25 watts per
blade, our solution offers the highest rack density and lowest power usage of
any blade client solution in the market today. With capacity for 280 blades per
rack and using only 7.4 kw  users can maximize available rack space and
implement larger deployments without having to build additional and costly power
and cooling systems. Combined with energy-efficient thin clients, the new blade
PCs create a complete client virtualization solution that uses significantly
less energy than a traditional desktop PC, informed Tom Flynn, chief
technologist at the desktop solutions organization, HP. Users like Bas Berendsen,
IT manager at Optiver, an Amsterdam based securities trading firm, agrees. For
our main office, which is a heritage building, power capacity is a limitation.
Blade is a big help as it allows us to offload to remote sites, and power is no
longer an issue, he said.

The HP blade PCs bc2800 (AMD Turion X2 TL-66 dual-core processor, 767 MHz
memory speed and integrated ATI graphics), and bc2200 (single-core AMD Athlon 64
processor, 520 MHz memory speed and integrated ATI graphics) offer all of the
above. Expected to be available in March, both will come pre-installed with
Windows Vista Business edition and support a range of operating systems.

The push to replace traditional PCs with blade PCs has just started. In the
current slowdown it is clear that organizations will be forced to do more with
less, said Jeff Groudan, VP, marketing, desktop solutions group, HP about the
future of IT in business. And nobody can deny that. What remains to be seen is
which vendor is able to build a strong ecosystem of systems integrators and VAS
players, who will actually help businesses to truly leverage blades.

Ibrahim Ahmad

ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in

The aurhor was hosted in Hong Kong