Achieving an integrated compute environment that meets the enterprise's need for lower cost, higher return IT is putting new demands on the IT department. To stay on top of this rapidly changing environment, manageability is crucial, says HP.
Andrew McNiven, HP South Africa industry standard servers category manager, says the mega-trends, such as cloud, mobility and big data, and the growing need for time to value, has dramatically changed the demands made of IT. "As we move to an integrated compute environment encompassing networking, storage and servers, we need to break down operational silos and improve compute manageability," he says.
McNiven says new layers of functionality to support new enterprise needs could add complexity to the already time-consuming task of day-to-day management of IT systems.
"Improved manageability of the entire compute environment is important for freeing up valuable skills resources and increasing time to value," he says. "Now, companies must get new products and services to market faster at a lower cost."
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Supporting this need for improved manageability, HP has brought to market multiple layers of management ability designed to streamline and simplify compute management, says McNiven. From the server itself, which is fitted with 32 sensors to enable energy efficiency and on-demand performance, through to OneView, HP's advanced IT environment management tool, HP aims to support its advanced hardware with tools that deliver business value.
McNiven explains that Proliant servers are bundled with a free management dashboard hosted by HP in the cloud. This tool, Insight Online, is ideal for small and medium enterprises and is a straightforward, simple solution giving a high level view of the health of the server farm, he explains. "SMBs whose core focus is not IT can also sign over this dashboard to the resellers to be managed as a value-added service." The servers also feature a range of sensors enabling greater power efficiency and even pre-failure alerts. Insight Online also allows for the creation of an asset register with listings of HP Care Pack details, simplifying asset management.
For on-premises system management, HP has built its OneView management solution from the ground up to deliver simplified, consistent management across servers, storage and networking, across physical and virtual environments, and in conjunction with third party solutions.
HP notes that OneView addresses a broad range of infrastructure life cycle management challenges. It unifies and simplifies server and storage resource management with one tool, one process and one experience. With automated storage provisioning and new, upgraded integrations with VMware, Microsoft and third party management tools, enterprises can complete multi-node cluster deployments in just five steps, and minimise administrative time. Additionally, HP OneView now supports HP DL servers and HP ConvergedSystem for Virtualization solutions.
"Later, OneView will also manage the network, allowing simplified management from a single pane of glass, with open APIs so customers can write their own interface into the package," says McNiven. "OneView is revolutionary in that it is designed around how people work, rather than what they are managing," he says, explaining that its design is based on extensive analysis of the typical day in the life of the IT administrator. "OneView was designed around making these admin tasks easier - for example, by reducing the number of steps needed for firmware updates. It also gives the customer the ability to create best practice management templates for their compute environment." McNiven cites as an example an early OneView customer, a US-based call centre business that traditionally allocated a total of 66 days to update its 12 call centre sites. "With OneView, this time frame was brought down to just one day," says McNiven.
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