HP Outlines Converged Data Center Plan

HP is building a Converged Infrastructure framework for cohesively managing all the server, storage and network components that make up the data center. That architecture is a direct counter to the Vblock Infrastructure Packages initiative based on the Unified Computing System (UCS) that Cisco rolled out earlier this week

Although the exact details of how HP’s Converged Infrastructure will work are sparse, the company envisions the development of a common shared service engine that will manage the underlying HP server, storage assets such as the arrays the company acquired when it bought LeftHand Networks and iBrix, and the company’s line of ProCurve networking equipment. Absent at the moment from the HP architecture are any alliances with providers of virtual machine software such as VMware, Microsoft or Citrix.

The HP Converged Infrastructure architecture builds on concept the company has already applied within a single Blade Matrix System. The new architecture seeks to take that model for data center convergence and apply it across a distributed architecture using a network fabric that is similar in concept to the unified fabric model being pushed by Cisco.

HP officials are also emphasizing the ability of its consulting organization to help customers essentially reinvent their data centers by developing what amounts to a grid of dynamic data center services, including any and all issues related to the management of that process.