HP announced new virtualization software solutions to automate and secure the movement of virtual machines (VMs) and data in cloud environments
According to HP, moving a VM workload such as a Microsoft Exchange application between data centres requires hundreds of complex, manual device-level configuration steps. Data mobility is similarly challenging because storage requires a physical deployment that consumes floor space, power, cooling and infrastructure investment.
HP believes its new Converged Infrastructure solutions help to eliminate these issues by way of three new offerings:
HP Ethernet Virtual Interconnect (EVI) speed the interconnectivity of up to eight geographically dispersed data centers in minutes, eliminating manual configuration tasks, HP claims.HP Multitenant Device Context (MDC) software delivers security for multitenant cloud applications.
And, HP StoreVirtual virtual storage appliance (VSA) allows clients to build storage pools on any x86 server using VMware vSphere or Windows Server Hyper-V hypervisors.
Bethany Mayer, senior vice president and general manager, Networking, said HP clients are seeking a more flexible virtualized environment that enables mobility of virtual machines and data services across the enterprise. HP’s virtualization technologies meet that need, helping clients to significantly increase their agility and innovate at a pace their organizations demand.
In this announcement, HP takes a stab at connecting geographically dispersed data centres as well as optimizing workload mobility and disaster recovery. HP said that typically, this connectivity requires months of error-prone and costly manual network redesign and reconfiguration.
Also HP’s EVI is a data centre interconnect overlay technology that enables “single touch” connection of up to eight data centres around the world from one location.
With HP MDC software, clients can create multiple, secure and isolated functions for organizational departments such as finance, human resources and engineering, while reducing the number of networking devices in the data centre by 75 per cent, HP claims. When combined, it reduces total cost of ownership by 56 per cent with a single management platform.
HP’s StoreVirtual VSA is a software-based virtual storage appliance that operates on any x86 server, while connecting to a range of third-party external storage solutions and supporting a mix of VMware vSphere and Windows Server Hyper-V hypervisors simultaneously.
The HP Ethernet Virtual Interconnect and HP Multitenant Device Context will be available worldwide this fall as software upgrades for the HP FlexFabric core switches. Meanwhile, the HP StoreVirtual VSA will be available worldwide in September with a starting list price of $700 per license when purchased in multilicense packs.
