In response to what the company describes as an unprecedented demand for enterprise-level data storage and management across southern Africa, HP has released a flurry of new solutions, services and partnerships.
Under the banner of `Ensa` (Enterprise Network Storage Architecture), the announcement unites HP`s entire enterprise technology portfolio - storage, servers, services, software, partnerships and solutions - so that customers can gain control of their IT infrastructures.
The news was originally broken at an international storage event held in Holland earlier this year. And Gaf Khan, the network storage systems development manager for southern Africa at HP, confirms that it`s also particularly relevant for companies in the Africa region.
"The solutions we`re talking about here are part of our strategy to deliver customised storage solutions - all the way from the entry-level to large heterogeneous SAN environments," he explains.
"This is not just an international initiative though. The intention is to work with local financial, telecoms, and oil and gas companies - as well as governments - on storage solutions that help them manage their business more effectively."
According to Khan, the feedback from HP`s existing customers and partners has been that data storage capacities need to increase, prices need come down and data must be easier to manage. "Our plan is to meet those demands by delivering these new solutions as part of our greater portfolio," he says.
The `adaptive enterprise` is one of the trends that HP is honing in on. The term refers to an IT infrastructure that can be easily customised in response to changing business demands and opportunities.
"Companies may want to reduce the operating costs of existing environments (while maintaining service levels), improve supply chains or manage the impact of change in their business environments," explains Khan.
"An adaptive enterprise is simply one that`s made up of products based on standards that, when combined, offer continuous and secure operations, automated and intelligent management, and the ability to optimise resources dynamically."
From a solution standpoint, HP is offering local customers solutions which improve their ability to deliver virtualised storage - that is, storage resources from across the network which can be pooled and accessed as if they were a single device. In addition, the company is extending its partnership with Brocade - the international network hardware provider - to enable network switches to handle that virtualisation more efficiently.
HP is also announcing a new series of blade servers (known as the Proliant p-Class) that offer connectivity to storage area networks and reduced management costs; an extended alliance with Microsoft in the network-attached storage space; and new high-end servers with enough power and scalability to handle even the most complex server and storage consolidation initiatives.
More information on these solutions can be found at http://www.hp.com/emea/ensa/newsroom (using the password editor@ensa to access).
Fact file
* With the new network-based storage virtualisation solutions, HP is simplifying storage management, improving storage utilisation and ensuring that storage services can be delivered across heterogeneous environments.
* The extension of the partnership with Brocade Communications sees HP VersaStor virtualisation technology being deployed within the new Brocade Silkworm Fabric Application Platform. This enables new levels of intelligent switches, scalability and performance in heterogeneous storage environments.
* The launch of four-way ProLiant p-Class blade servers means that HP has the industry`s only three-tiered blade architecture solution for the data centre. As the two- and four-way blades now offer SAN connectivity, storage resources can be used more effectively and management costs can be reduced, thereby helping customers realise the benefits of large-scale storage consolidation more quickly.
* The partnership with Microsoft has been extended to grow the market for HP StorageWorks software and Microsoft Windows powered network-attached storage (NAS) solutions. Consolidating servers on these two solutions provides a lower cost of ownership with higher availability and scalability.
* The new HP ProLiant DL760 servers combine eight processor performance and superior management in the industry`s first server with Hot Plug RAID Memory architecture. The new ProLiant DL760 offers customers superior fault resilience and dynamic workload scalability with hot-add memory, combined with the scalable performance for customers` most demanding enterprise database and server consolidation deployments.
For more information on HP`s solutions and activities in Africa, surf to www.hp.com/africa.
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