Hewlett-Packard has formed a new division to oversee some of its management software with the goal of consolidating applications and boosting sales.
Called the Enterprise Storage and Server unit, it includes HP Systems Insight Manager (which comes on many ProLiant and BladeSystem servers), ProLiant Essentials, Storage Essentials and Virtual Server Environment (VSE). Certain automation software will eventually also fall under the new division.
According to Duncan Campbell,, vice-president of marketing for HP StorageWorks, it’s part of the company’s Adaptive Infrastructure Strategy to differentiate its products from competitors.
“We’re going to provide more of an integrated capability [in HP products] that’s going to make it easier for the channel partner to sell,” he said.
While some of the software comes standard on server and storage products, HP makes plug-ins that partners can sell.
The same time HP announced the creation of the new division, it also announced new applications or updates to these products:
–Systems Insight Manager 5.1 now includes most of the functionality of HP Services Essentials Remote Support Pack, which monitors the warranty and service contract status of HP ProLiant or Linux-based Integrity servers on a network. However, customers will still have to buy the support pack to get the automatic support dial-up functionality that enables problem hardware to call either HP or a partner for service assistance.
–Insight Control Environment, a new US$549suite made up of separately-sold applications that monitors the status of HP ML and DL servers, providing performance management, keeping tab of power consumption and controlling patch management.
–Insight Power Manager measures and reports power consumption and inlet air temperatures across groups of rack or data centre ProLiant and BladeSystem servers. Administrators can set power regulation policies across server groups, tailoring power to need instead of pushing out maximum power to all servers.
–Insight Control Linux Edition, which replaces HP ControlTower, for managing Linux-run BladeServer environments. The US$199 package now supports the newly-released c-class blades.
These are part of what Campbell dubbed HP’s “rock star” applications. By bringing them under one roof “it allows us to provide a more coherent, integrated product offerings,” he said. “So instead of having a bunch of fragmented pieces out there, they are going to be more integrated and coherent, whereas in the past they were in silos of [HP] individual business units.”
