HP introduces Integrity blade servers

HP's Integrity blades are based on the latest Itanium 9300 processors

HP has updated its mission-critical Integrity systems with blade servers based on a new architecture, which can be mixed and matched with the firm's Proliant x86 blade infrastructure in order to reduce operating costs for Integrity customers.

Available from 1 May, the new Integrity systems are also the first to use the latest incarnation of Intel's Itanium chips, the quad-core Itanium 9300 processor series, which launched in February.

The HP Integrity BL860c i2, BL870c i2 and BL890c i2 are two-socket, four-socket and eight-socket blades respectively, designed to fit into HP's Converged Infrastructure, which allows customers to mix and match the new blades within the same C-Series enclosures as HP's ProLiant and StorageWorks blades.

"In effect, we're basically bringing the volume economics of the industry-standard server platforms to the Integrity environments," said Rod Curry, director of business critical systems for HP UK and Ireland.

These Integrity blade systems also link up in a modular fashion, according to Curry, allowing customers to start with a two-socket system, then add extra units to make up to an eight-socket system using a technology called Blade Link to connect them together.

With the new architecture, HP is the only vendor delivering a unified blade platform that spans from x86 servers right up to HP Superdome 2, the company said.

"This is what converged infrastructure at HP is all about. We're taking our server portfolio end-to-end, storage and networking, and bringing it all together in one chassis with a single pane-of-glass management through HP Systems Insight Manager," said Tom Johnson, BCS Business Development Manager at HP.