Virtualization has become a mainstay, even a business imperative, within most data centers today.  Today, every server manufacturer is claiming leadership in virtualization platforms, so the real question you need to ask is, "Why HP?"  Well, let me give you a few of the key reasons why HP is the right choice for your trusted advisor when it comes to virtualization. 

Whether it's for server consolidation, workload balancing or security and disaster recovery purposes, the dramatic growth of virtual machine implementation is mind boggling.  This is not necessarily coupled to the comfort level of IT managers though, as there continues to be a disarray of management tools and interfaces required to manage both physical and virtual machines.  HP has taken this challenge head on with our new Insight Control Environment (ICE) which gives you a single pane of glass to monitor and manage both your virtual machines and physical machines simultaneously.

On November 17^th, we introduced the new HP ProLiant DL385 G5p server based on the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron 2300 processor (code named "Shanghai").  The HP ProLiant DL385 G5p is designed and optimized specifically for virtualization and consolidation environments.  In fact, we looked at every facet of the product in our development effort with a few key principles in mind:

1. Provide a strong investment protection value for existing AMD Opteron customers
2. Improve the overall performance in the same, or lower, power envelope
3. Optimize the virtualization performance
4. Increase the number of virtual machines on a single platform
5. Simplify and improve the security of deploying of virtual machines

The new DL385 G5p is now available, having met and exceeded these objectives, arriving ahead of schedule.  With the new 45nm "Shanghai" processor, with a 6MB L3 cache, we have achieved higher performance and maintained Socket F compatibility, yet at a substantially lower power envelope.  HP, unlike some of our competitors, has designed the DL385 G5p to provide our customers with the flexibility to choose between single processor or dual processor configurations, without sacrificing any of the improvements offered by Shanghai.  We have optimized the real estate inside of the 2U chassis to deliver twice the memory, twice the NICs and 6 times the storage capacity as the previous generation DL385.  With 16 DDR2 DIMM sockets, you can reach 128GB of memory using 8GB high performance DIMMs.  This allows for significantly more virtual machines to run on this single platform. 

In addition, with virtual machine deployment, networking capabilities are critical.  In the new DL385 G5p, we integrated 4 gigabit Ethernet ports to free up the PCI-Express slots to meet your flexible design requirements and increase the bandwidth for the virtual machines running on the server.  The flexibility of the PCI bus slot configuration is another key benefit of the HP ProLiant DL385 G5p.  With up to 6 PCI-e slots, additional networking, storage and application specific I/O adapters can be added to improve the virtualization experience.  There are many customers who require legacy PCI-X controller support and some that are looking for the latest and greatest x16 PCI-e controller support.  In the DL385 G5p, we have given those customers the flexibility to configure the PCI bus slots to meet their unique application and environment needs.

Storage performance is a key differentiator in the market today, even more so in virtualization environments.  That's why we increased the internal disk storage on the DL385 G5p to 16 2.5" SAS or SATA disk drives; or 6 3.5" SAS or SATA disk drives.  This provides up to 6TB of internal disk storage to be shared between the virtual machines with improved performance when compared to external shared disk solutions.  By bringing the disks closer to the processors, the performance bandwidth issues are minimized and the overall performance of the storage is improved.

This server is built with efficiency in mind!  The HP ProLiant DL385 G5p helps save on energy costs with the industry's highest efficiency power supplies that currently power the complete portfolio of HP ProLiant servers.  Finally, with the internal USB slot, you can utilize an iHypervisor on a USB key that allows you to deploy virtual machines securely and easily.

In closing I'd like to quote Paul Gottsegen, VP of Marketing for HP's Industry Standard Servers division, from a recent interview:

"Customers can drive down costs through new "Shanghai"-based HP ProLiant servers that set new levels of power efficiency and performance.  HP has experienced unparalleled success over the past four years working with AMD in bringing AMD Opteron processor-based platforms to customers of all sizes. Early results indicate "Shanghai" is a winner."

HP continues to lead the market in delivering more ProLiant servers featuring AMD Opteron processors than any other system manufacturer.  In fact, HP has shipped over four times more than IBM and 1.5 times more than Dell (IDC- Q208 Server Tracker, Oct.08).  Have confidence in choosing HP as your trusted advisor as we continue to set the bar for performance, energy efficiency and optimization in virtualization environments. 

For more information click here on the DL385 G5P server link, or listen to the replay from Paul Gottsegen at the AMD Shanghai launch event on November 13^th.