Microsoft Teams with HP on Database Consolidation

Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have unveiled an HP Enterprise Database Consolidation Appliance optimized for SQL Server database deployments.

Announced at the PASS Summit 2011 conference, the new appliance comes about as a direct result of a cooperative engineering alliance the two companies put in place last year, said Doug Small, global alliances marketing director for enterprise servers, storage and networking in the HP Enterprise Business unit.

The appliance is based on four Proliant blade servers that in total provide 96 Intel Xeon cores to run multiple instances of SQL servers. According to Doug Leland, Microsoft general manager of product management for SQL Server, Server and Tools Division, SQL Server has not only gained in popularity among IT organizations, but has been widely embedded in any number of commercial applications. In addition, Microsoft has concentrated on making SQL Server easy enough to be deployed and used by end users directly. The end result is that a lot of customers have a lot more instances of SQL Server than they realize. The HP Enterprise Database Consolidation Appliance provides an opportunity to consolidate the management of those instances of SQL Server in a way that automatically manages load balancing in real time, said Small.

Leland added that Microsoft expects that the ability to consolidate multiple databases onto a single appliance will ultimately not only save existing customers money, but also serve as a competitive differentiator that will attract new customers to the platform.

The appliance also makes it easier for IT organizations to guarantee high availability for SQL Server databases, in addition to being able to set usage setting and charge-back departments for SQL Server support.

Pricing for the HP Enterprise Database Consolidation Appliance starts at $815,000, assuming the customer does not already have any SQL Server licenses.