HP to launch series of cloud-hosted services throughout 2012

VIENNA: HP will launch a series of cloud-hosted enterprise apps throughout 2012 to help businesses increase their use of cloud computing for key services and applications.

Xavier Poisson, director of cloud computing for Europe at HP, explained at the HP Discover event that the services include Microsoft's CRM Dynamics as well as platforms for unified communications, storage and HP's own Compute platform.

"We'll be introducing these tools in the first half of 2012 to meet the growing demand from businesses for access to platforms through the cloud. Infrastructure is just one element of the cloud to allow you to run services on top," he said.

Poisson confirmed that the unified communications services will come from a range of vendors, including Microsoft.

Pete Karolczak, HP's senior vice president and general manger for enterprise services, added that one of the new offerings is an SAP Development Sandbox to help developers test future platform updates in a secure environment.

"SAP is often launching updates and enhancements, and staff need to test these changes but not on working systems. So the sandbox enables them to see what the changes will bring without affecting day-to-day operations," he said.

"By hosting it in the cloud firms can use it for the long term or just a few months, and then they can turn it off so they only pay for what they use."

HP also announced the inclusion of a bursting capability in CloudSystem Matrix 7.0 in conjunction with Savvis to allow companies to request extra computing capacity whenever necessary and reduce overall hardware spend.