HP Scales Out With New Cloud Servers

The HP Proliant SL2x170z G6, configured for high performance computing, is part of the HP Extreme Scale-Out line announced today.

HP is stripping down to scale out. Today the company is launching a line of servers and services targeting the cloud computing market, which is accounting for a growing chunk of server sales. HP’s Extreme Scale-Out (ExSO) portfolio is designed to appeal to cloud-builders’ focus on energy efficiency and cost, and be delivered by the rackload.

HP’s ambitions are built around the ProLiant SL server line, which features a “skinless”  architecture with a lightweight rail and tray design. The new servers are deployed in HP’s new ProLiant z6000 chassis, a 2U frame housing shared power supply and fans. The common chassis allows customers to choose between three ProLiant SL configurations optimized for maximum memory, storage or processing power.

On each server, HP is mounting the disks on the side rather than the front, allowing better air flow through to the fans on the rear of the chassis. The i/o cabling is on the front of the server, allowing it to be serviced from the cold aisle.

“We’ve designed it for power efficiency and good airflow,” said Ed Turkel, manager of business development for HP Scalable Computing & Infrastructure. “In this environment they typically don’t need a lot of management features. We think of this as a lean and mean environment.”

A 12-Foot Raised Floor?

That’s not a typo. A new data center being built by EDS in England will use an unusual architecture for its free cooling system, treating the entire 12-foot high first floor of the facility as a cold air plenum, with the server cabinets housed on the second floor. The 305,000 square foot facility in Wynyard is being called “Eco 2″ for its energy efficiency features.

The fresh air will be introduced into the plenum by 7-foot high low-velocity fans designed to maintain a consistent air pressure across the entire room/plenum. Slotted vents in the ceiling allow the fresh air to enter the cold aisles of the data center, which are fully-enclosed by a cold-aisle containment system. The containment allows the system to operate with lower airflow rate than typical raised floors in an open hot aisle/cold aisle configuration.

HP Gets $4.8M in Incentives in Colorado

The Colorado Springs City Council has approved $4.8 million in tax rebate incentives as part of an economic development agreement with HP for a $260 million data center project, according to local media.

The company filed plans April 14 to build a 250,000 square foot two-story data center next to its three-building, 1.1 million-square-foot complex on Rockrimmon Boulevard and said its plans include a “potential two-story addition to the north that would also be for data center use.” HP already operates several older data centers at the complex.

The planned HP facility in Colorado Springs center would be the fourth major data center opened or expanded in the Springs since 2006, including a facility Verizon Wireless is building in a former semiconductor plant, a FedEx Corp. data center and a facility for Progressive Corp./Drive Group that opened in 2006.

HP on FCoE and Convergence

Last week HP unveiled its BladeSystem Matrix, an integrated data center infrastructure offering that will compete with Cisco’s Unified Computing System. But what about Cisco’s focus on a unified fabric connecting the LAN and storage networks using Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and lossless Ethernet?

We recently had a conversation with Jieming Zhu, distinguished technologist at HP StorageWorks, about HP’s view of FCoE and the adoption of converged network technologies. Here are some of Zhu’s comments from that discussion:

On HP’s roadmap: “(HP Chairman and CEO) Mark Hurd has clearly indicated his resolve that we’ll play even bigger in the networking space. We think FCoE fits well into our adaptive infrastructure vision. HP is in a very good position to bring benefits to customers and ease the migration pain. ProCurve (Networking) is the hidden jewel that HP never exposed that much. It’s number two in the enterprise LAN market. We’ve revamped the whole line to play more strongly in the data center networking market. Down the road, ProCurve will play a much bigger role.”

On the potential of FCoE: “It is quite significant technology. FCoE will eventually deliver compelling value for data center customers. It can cut quite a bit of power used for input-output connectivity. Another benefit we see is consolidation. The boundary between servers and networks and storage will disappear, and the true vision of virtualization and dynamic provisioning will become a reality.”

HP Plans $100M Colorado Data Center

HP is seeking approval to build a 250,000 square foot data center on its campus in Colorado Springs, and may add a second data center on the property, according to local media. The company filed plans April 14 to build a two-story data center next to its three-building, 1.1 million-square-foot complex on Rockrimmon Boulevard and said its plans include a “potential two-story addition to the north that would also be for data center use.” HP already operates several older data centers at the complex.

The project is the latest in a series of new data centers built by HP to modernize its data center infrastructure. The company recently completed a data center consolidation project in which applications and gear from 85 company-operated data centers were consolidated into six data centers in three cities. As part of the project, the company built pairs of 200,000 square foot data centers in Atlanta, Austin and Houston.

What is the Matrix? HP’s Response to Cisco

It was a tough day for a major product launch, as Oracle’s surprise acquisition of Sun Microsystems sucked much of the oxygen out of the technology news atmosphere. But HP launched a major salvo of its own in the Battle for the Data Center, unveiling the HP BladeSystem Matrix, an integrated data center infrastructure offering that will compete with Cisco’s Unified Computing System.

The Matrix solution features new storage offerings based on technology acquired from LeftHand Systems, along with an orchestration environment to tie the offerings together. HP is also touting the energy efficiency gains possible with the new system’s use of Thermal Logic energy tools, which include power capping capabilities.

“Matrix is a game-changing, all-in-one technology that allows the infrastructure to run at the pace of the business,” said Mark Potter, senior vice president, Infrastructure Software and Blades, HP. “Increasingly, customers are looking for data center solutions with Adaptive Infrastructure properties such as superior economics, application-based cost tracking, and true dynamic capacity management.”

HP Sharpens Focus on Data Center Design

The barn is dead. Partitioning a huge data center into smaller spaces – whether you call them pods, zones, suites or modules – has become an important practice for creating flexible and cost-effective data centers. This trend is part of a broader shift towards data center “industrialization” - the use of standard, repeatable designs and equipment.

The largest players in the data center space are now building products and services around these concepts. Earlier this month HP announced a “multi-tiered hybrid design” approach that creates multiple zones within a facility. The new offering (PDF) leverages the expertise of HP’s Critical Facilities Services, the unit created through the acquisition of EYP Mission Critical Facilities.

A pod-based design approach is nothing new to EYP, which has been one of the industry’s leading design and engineering firms for many years. HP nonetheless is touting the multi-tier concept as a “ breakthrough approach to facility design” that will prevent enterprise clients from building wide-open barn-style data center to Tier IV standards when only a portion of the space will require that level of redundancy.

HP Launches Thermal Logic Energy Tools

HP today rolled out Thermal Logic, a portfolio of tools to give HP BladeSystem users  more precise control over power and cooling. The initiative reflects server vendors continuing focus on offerings to boost energy efficiency in high-density enterprise data centers. 

Thermal Logic is a set of energy measurement and management technologies HP has built into its products, and includes several new wrinkles for data center managers:

• HP Dynamic Power Capping, which allows companies to control the amount of power used by each server, which can reduce costly overprovisioning of power. HP monitoring software allows users to confirm peak usage for each server and cap at that level, rather than relying on guesstimates based on nameplate power capacity. Dynamic Power Capping is expected to be available in mid-December.
• A new cooling architecture, HP Parallel Redundant Scalable Enterprise Cooling (PARSEC), which divides each BladeSystem enclosure into multiple zones with dedicated fans, allowing users to make better use of variable fan speeds. This allows custom configurations for servers and storage, rather than adapting all fans to one high-powered blade.
• HP Active Cool fans, which feature a new design based on aircraft technology that the company says can cool 16 blades using just 100 watts of power. HP says it has applied for multiple patents covering the new fan technology.

“With these new solutions from HP, customers are able to drive down data center costs by reducing energy consumption and, at the same time, minimize environmental impact,” said Peter Gross, chief executive officer, EYP Mission Critical Facilities, an HP company. “HP’s Green Business Technology initiative is built on decades of innovation and experience in data center design and deployment, resulting in solutions that empower CIOs to turn energy efficiency into business benefits that impact the bottom line.” 

Note: HP does not indicate how many PARSECs are needed to complete the Kessel Run.