Interview with Krista Satterthwaite, Group Manager, Industry Standard Servers Marketing, Hewlett-Packard

ActiveWin.com: How many product offerings are apart of the ProLiant G6 server series?

Krista Satterthwaite: When combining both Intel (Nehalem-based) and AMD (Istanbul-based) servers, the total offering in the HP ProLiant G6 portfolio is 25. HP has the broadest portfolio of rack, tower and blade servers to meet all customer needs from SMBs to large enterprises.

ActiveWin.com: The HP ProLiant G6 platform promises to make “Every Dollar Count” for its customers. Can you highlight some of the new features which have been added to this series of servers that will help customers to extract greater value for their money?

Krista Satterthwaite: HP customers can achieve up to 95% savings in power and cooling, and reduce admin time with the next generation HP ProLiant technology. The technology pays for itself in as little as three months.

Here are several new features that help customers get more for their money:

• Dynamic Power Capping allows customers to triple the capacity of their data center
  
  HP’s exclusive Dynamic Power Capping technology lets customers reclaim trapped capacity in the data center by dynamically setting or ‘capping’ the power drawn by the servers. This avoids the need for over-provisioning by precisely identifying how much power is actually required to run each server and setting a limit based on that usage. This allows three times as many servers to be deployed within an existing datacenter.
  
  Source: Source: HP Dynamic Power Capping TCO and Best Practices White Paper, Nov 2008
   
• Thermal Logic technology has enabled ProLiant G6 platforms to use 95% less power
  
  Sea of Sensors is a collection of 32 smart sensors that reduces server power usage based on real-time adjustments to operating conditions. These sensors provide fine-grained environmental monitoring throughout the system, preventing over-cooling and adjusting fan speeds to avoid wasting power. They also realize when I/O or memory slots are not in use and will shut off power delivery accordingly.
   
• Common Slot Power Supplies help configure the perfect power-supply fit so customers can realize over 90% efficiency regardless of customer workload
  
  That’s the big challenge, because in the past – the power supply that came with a customer’s server was sized for the maximum server configuration. Now, in an industry-first, we’ve designed our new servers to have a common pluggable power slot, so that customers can choose from four different power supplies to precisely match customer’s exact configuration. This means no wasted expenses or worries about hitting power limits. In addition, since these common slots are available in most HP ProLiant G6 Servers, this reduces overall spares inventory.
  
  Customers can do the same work using less power. With a consolidation ratio of 11:1 (DL380G4 -> DL380G6) customers have fewer servers to cool - lowering operating costs.
  
  Source: 2Q spec power http://www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/results/res2009q2/ 
   

ActiveWin.com: How does the latest offering in the HP ProLiant series help customers to maximize their productivity?

Krista Satterthwaite:

• Using HP Insight Control reduces expenses by up to $48,380 over 3 years*
  
  Now bundled with select G6 platforms, HP Insight Control (ICE) suite is essential infrastructure management software, giving customers total control of server infrastructure– onsite or remotely. HP customers increase IT staff efficiencies by seeing the results – up to $48,380 per 100 users over 3 years.
  
  With a single, easy-to-use management console, proactively monitor server health and performance, while customers deploy new servers quickly and manage virtual machines – meaning increased flexibility to quickly respond to business.
  
  *Source: IDC Gaining Business Value and ROI with HP Insight Control, May 2009
   
• Faster and easier migration saves customers valuable IT time by speeding deployment by 65% and improving management efficiency
  
  HP Insight Server Migration software for HP ProLiant servers eases complexity by automating the migration from old servers to G6. Through a simple wizard-driven process, it accurately transfers OS, application and data without any errors and injects correct drivers required for the new server. From the management console, simply identify the source, identify the target and hit GO.

• Reduce management complexity and lower the cost of key datacenter tasks with Insight Dynamics-VSE –
  
  This advanced infrastructure management software is the first integrated solution that lets customers visualize, plan, and change physical and virtual resources in the same way. It makes infrastructures change-ready, with the freedom and flexibility of virtualization delivered across the physical infrastructure.
  
  HP customers can also connect more with less using Virtual Connect Flex 10 – the industry’s first technology to fine-tune network bandwidth from server edge to network. Customers can optimize datacenter performance through adding the ability to introduce new applications without wreaking havoc on their infrastructure.
   
• Save time with an IT Administrator “onboard” each server that reduces time, automates tasks and optimizes use of valuable resources
  
  HP ProLiant Onboard Administrator orchestrates all critical embedded management aspects of the server including setup, health monitoring, power optimization, thermal control, and iLO or LO100 remote management based on customer programming. HP ProLiant Onboard Administrator functions without additional software, and can be accessed local to the server or remotely via a web browser. It also works hand-in-hand with HP Insight Control, Systems Insight Manager and iLO Advanced to help deliver the highest possible quality of IT service to the business. It’s like we have equipped each server with a programmable IT Administrator inside each chassis!

ActiveWin.com: HP is stressing on the improved power management features that have been added to the ProLiant G6 series. How will these features help a company achieve a “Greener IT”?

Krista Satterthwaite: Here are several of the power management features that help customers achieve “Greener IT:”

• Dynamic Power Capping allows customers to better utilize the power coming into the datacenter and only provision the power needed for each server. This can help customers better utilize the power they have and possibly prevent them from building a new datacenter.
• Improved power measurement helps customers see how much power customers are using and make informed decisions about how they want to improve power efficiency. A customer may notice that a processor in the server is only being used at 20% and decide to use the Power Regulator feature to reduce the processor clock speed to save power without any impact on performance
• The “Sea of Sensors” (described in #2 above) always monitors the server for opportunities to save power and makes real-time adjustments based on operating conditions.

ActiveWin.com: What is the enhanced support for virtualization that is provided by the ProLiant G6 series of servers?

Krista Satterthwaite: HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 and HP Insight Dynamics–VSE are now embedded into ProLiant G6 furthers to deliver improved virtualization support. Virtual Connect Flex-10, the industry’s first technology to divide and fine-tune 10Gb Ethernet network bandwidth at the server edge, is now available on all HP ProLiant G6 server blades. This cuts network connection costs up to 75% per virtual serverI and offers 4x more NIC ports per blade as well as precise control of virtual server network traffic. Flex-10 allows customers to add instant flexibility to their network today at lower cost than most 1Gb solutions. It also increases flexibility further with Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager which enables system administrators to add, replace and recover servers across the datacenter in minutes without impacting LAN and SAN availability. This flexible, change-ready infrastructure also provides foundation capabilities for the logical server management and other capabilities delivered with HP Insight Dynamics-VSE and HP Insight Orchestration Software – advanced infrastructure management that allows customers to analyze and optimize physical and virtual resources in the same way.

The HP ProLiant G6 servers also offer more memory, processing and I/O to support more Virtual Machines (VM) per server than ever before. The result is a significantly lower cost per VM and optimum resource utilization in customer data center.
 

ActiveWin.com: Are there any changes to your management software that is used to monitor these servers?

Krista Satterthwaite: Some of the new enhancements to the G6 software management include:

• Power management/Dynamic Power Capping across the G6 portfolio
• HP Insight Control suite can now be purchased bundled on several of our 300 Series products at a significant discount
• HP Insight Control for Microsoft System Center
• HP ProLiant Onboard Administrator
• (See question #5 for more detail)

ActiveWin.com: What are the financing options available to customer who would like to purchase the Proliant G6 series of servers?

Krista Satterthwaite: HP Financial Services (HPFS) offers a broad range of financial and asset management capabilities for customers of all sizes. HP works with customers to customize a financial solution that meets their specific situation. Here are some of HPFS’ basic offerings:

• Sale-leaseback – HP buys the customer's IT equipment and then leases it back to them, converting fixed assets into cash. This frees up capital that customers can use to purchase part of their G6 deployment
• Finance lease – Assets remain on the customer's balance sheet; they pay for the equipment over time and at the end of the term, they own the servers.
• Operating lease – The asset does not appear on the customer's balance sheet and the customer has the option to either return or purchase the servers at fair market value at the end of the lease period

HP can structure payments under “Pay as You Grow,” a flexible arrangement that allows customers purchasing over $150,000 worth of G6 servers the ability to choose a customized payment profile over the life of the deal. Currently, there are low interest rate promotions for SMBs purchasing G6 servers in North America and Europe including the Economic Recovery lease in the US and Canada, valid through October 31st.

For details see: http://h20330.www2.hp.com/hpfinancialservices/us/en/programs/promotion-recovery.html

Leasing offers customers numerous benefits that include providing access to the funds they need to invest in IT, as well as the following:

• Overcome budget obstacles - Leasing require very little up-front cash outlay and lets customers acquire the equipment they need while remaining within the limits of the budget.
• Gain access to capital and preserve existing credit lines for other things - A sale-leaseback enables customers to convert fixed IT assets into cash, while maintaining use of the equipment.
• Reduce capital expenses - Leasing equipment can be treated as an operating expense, which leads to better Return on Assets.
• Hedges against obsolescence - Customers can return equipment at the end of the lease term and lease new, allowing them to avoid the headaches associated with disposing of unwanted assets.
• Potential tax and accounting benefits - Leasing offers potential tax and accounting benefits such as off-balance sheet financing, depending on the customer's particular situation.

The two white papers attached capture the specifics the specific G6 and Leasing message in more detail. http://www.hp.com/hpfinancialservices

ActiveWin.com: What schemes will HP propose to convince existing customers to upgrade to the latest series of servers? (For Example: A buy-back scheme for the old servers)

Krista Satterthwaite: HP Financial Services works to ease customer upgrades with flexible financing options such as Pay As You Grow. See answer #7 for more details.

ActiveWin.com: ScaleMP (the leading provider of virtualization solutions for high-end computing) and Canonical (the makers of ubuntu 9.04 server edition) recently announced their certification on the Proliant G6 series. Can you name some other partners who have / will be announcing collaborations / certifications with the Proliant G6 series?

Krista Satterthwaite: A software certification matrix that can be accessed via this link includes a list of all of the latest Software Partners for the new G6 servers. This web link is updated as new certifications are added.

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/software/index.html

ActiveWin.com: How do you see the competition reacting to this latest offering from HP? Do you expect other manufacturers to design servers using the Intel Xeon 5500 series CPU?

Krista Satterthwaite: We have seen our competition announce new servers with the new Intel Xeon 5500 series CPU, but none has the breadth in their server portfolio that HP has to offer.

ActiveWin.com: Do you have anything else to add?

Krista Satterthwaite: We have packaged up the industry’s best ideas, innovations and components and put them through 11,000+ quality and design tests. Built on the experience of over 17 million ProLiant servers and 20 years of leadership, HP ProLiant G6 servers give customers the competitive advantage they need to manage their business.

When customers invest in HP ProLiant G6 servers they are getting the best return for their budget. No matter how many servers – from one to thousands – customers can run their business with utmost confidence when HP ProLiant G6 forms the core of the infrastructure.

Links

• HP Proliant Servers

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