HP Aims for the Network Core

At the Interop 2011 conference, HP unveiled a line of A10500 switches that the company claims provides a 3-microsecond latency, which HP says is 75 percent lower than any rival, while providing 250 percent more capacity and 270 percent higher 10 Gigabit Ethernet density. In the future, HP also says that the A10500 switches will support 100 GbE with the addition of new line cards.

The company also announced an E5400 and E8200 line of switches that can now be upgraded with new line cards that HP says offer 90 percent lower latency and 600 percent higher throughput than the equivalent Cisco Catalyst 4506 switch.

The company also introduced E-MSM460 and E-MSM466 wireless access points that can deliver 15 high-definition video series streams per access point, which is 50 percent more than Cisco 1140 and 3500 series access points. HP also says these new access points also provide higher performance over greater distances.

HP also announced the HP TippingPoint S6100N Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), which in addition to supporting physical devices, can now extend security policies out to virtual machines.

Finally, HP also released an update to its Intelligent Management Console (IMC). Version 5.0 not only manages HP networking equipment, it can now be used to manage 2,600 network devices from over 35 vendors. In the future, HP also plans to integrate IMC with HP Virtual Connect, which is the systems management software that HP relies on to integrate server and storage systems.

Taken together, Mike Banic, vice president of marketing for HP Networking, says the new offerings are core components of an HP FlexNetwork architecture that highlights HP’s ability to successfully challenge Cisco, which has made usurping HP a primary focus of its recent effort to crack the server market in its core networking stronghold.