HP Integrity BL860c Server Blade White Paper

Unprecedented value for customers looking to deploy enterprise-class UNIX® in the blades environment. IT operations absorb a huge portion of today’s typical IT budget, leaving very little for strategic or innovative initiatives. Enterprises clearly need to reduce the resources dedicated to routine tasks and redirect those resources to far more valuable projects that drive a high rate of return to the business. Across a wide range of industries, enterprise data centers face a common set of costly infrastructure challenges: they have too many applications, too much customisation, and too much complexity.

They’re putting too much money into hardware, software, and the resources to manage it. And there is too much underutilized server capacity. New servers dedicated to a single application are acquired because computing resources are locked into rigid silos. All the while, IT organisations are being asked to do more with less. They need to reduce headcount, respond to new compliance demands, manage risks, and build defenses against a growing range of security threats.

They are also expected to improve service levels and make IT more responsive to the needs of the business. To address these challenges, enterprises are implementing fundamental changes to their data centers. They need to break down the silos, automate error-prone manual processes, and tighten management control. They need to bring together hardware, software, and services to create nextgeneration data centers that operate more efficiently.

The HP Integrity BL860c Server Blade brings together the value of Integrity servers and the economics of the HP BladeSystem. The HP Integrity BL860c Server Blade brings together—for the first time—the benefits of the HP-UX operating system, Integrity servers, and the HP BladeSystem c-Class architecture to provide unprecedented value to customers looking to deploy enterprise-class UNIX in a blade server environment. In addition to HP-UX 11i, the Integrity BL860c Server Blade also supports Linux (both Red Hat and Novell SUSE), and in the second half of 2007, Windows® and OpenVMS. This two-socket, full-height server blade combines the capabilities of Integrity servers with the manageability, density, power, and cooling advantages of the HP BladeSystem c-Class family.

What’s more, the Integrity BL860c Server Blade, together with HP-UX 11i, is a powerful virtualization engine, making it an ideal platform for application and server consolidation—a proven path to enhancing the ROI of an existing IT infrastructure. In the next few pages we’ll discuss the business case for enterprise applications hosted by HP BladeSystem c-Class featuring Integrity BL860c Server Blades. Let’s start with HP BladeSystem c-Class.