HP extends G7 servers for converged infrastructure

HP's Proliant DL980 supports eight CPU sockets and up to 2TB memory

HP has announced updates to its converged infrastructure products aimed at streamlining datacentre operations, including blade servers with converged network adapters (CNAs) as part of its Virtual Connect FlexFabric architecture, and enhancements to its BladeSystem Matrix for automated provisioning in a private cloud.

The new G7 Proliant servers, three rack-mount and seven blade systems, are designed to scale up to greater memory capacities than previous HP servers to meet the needs of virtualisation and other demanding requirements, and include the first Proliant models with Intel's Nehalem EX processors.

For example, the rack-mount DL980 is an eight-socket system configurable with up to 2TB of memory for hosting databases and other enterprise applications.

Meanwhile, the four-socket BL680c is the first blade server to support up to 1TB of memory, according to HP, and sports six network ports for up to 60Gbit/s of I/O bandwidth.

Also noteworthy is the BL2x220c, designed for high-performance compute applications. This shoehorns two twin-socket servers onto a single blade, enabling customers to cram up to 32 servers into a single 10U blade chassis.

A key feature of the blade servers, according to HP, is integrated 10Gbit/s CNAs with protocol offload support for TCP/IP, Fibre Channel over Ethernet and iSCSI, providing greater flexibility in data and storage network connectivity. These adapters are based on technology from Emulex.

This technology is also supported in an updated 24-port HP Virtual Connect module, which links the blade chassis to external SAN and LAN resources. The module additionally supports HP's Flex-10 technology that can consolidate four virtual network connections of variable bandwidth along a single 10Gbit/s link.

Peter Mansell, HP UK's BladeSystem business manager, said this development is the next step for network and storage connectivity, and that the Virtual Connect technology is one of HP's biggest differentiators in the blade server market.

Also updated is HP's BladeSystem Matrix which packages pre-built blade systems with Matrix Orchestration software to automate provisioning of resources as required by specific applications.

This now integrates with HP Server Automation to automatically provision the applications, and includes automated storage tiering, allocating applications to the relevant tier based on performance and availability requirements.

HP also unveiled a tool designed to better manage power consumption across the datacentre, delivering savings on energy bills of up to $5m (£3.3m) for every 1,000 servers, according to the firm.