Hello again,

Today I’d like to talk about some things that are getting a lot of attention – blades, virtualisation and storage. These are all major investment areas for midsize businesses, so naturally all the vendors are looking at ways to attract customers who may be considering these technologies.

These topics are certainly getting a lot of media attention too, so your trade magazines have also seen the need. On the subject of blades it was my pleasure to take part in an interview with Mike Vizzard, editorial director at publisher Ziff Davis, which was posted on E-Week.com: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Storage/How-to-Upgrade-Data-Center-Infrastructure

Our customer Matt Staver, IT director of Pentel, the midsize business that makes the famous pens, also participated and talks about some of the challenges he faced as well as benefits he got from moving to a bladed infrastructure, like cost savings from maintenance. If you’re looking at blades this is essential listening.

Another SMB reporter, Drew Robb of ServerWatch.com wrote a thought-provoking article about virtualization and storage, which I know are top of mind for many of you: http://www.serverwatch.com/trends/article.php/3726741

He notes that virtualization management is quite complex and believes that additional IT specialist will be needed to get it up and running. However, HP has produced products such as Virtual Connect and Virtualization Management Software specifically to simplify management and control so additional IT specialists are not needed.

We did this because we recognize that midsize business have limited staff and budgets but still need to get the benefits of these key technologies.

Some of the benefits of virtualisation are well documented in the article, including cost savings, flexibility and speed of deployment, but it isn’t necessarily the right move for everyone.

So if you are wondering whether virtualisation is the right step for you, you could consider our Virtualization Assessment Service, http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/vmware/iap-description.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

which will give you a much greater degree of confidence on how to spend your limited budget.

New HP virtual storage array announced today!

And last, but certainly not least here’s something that combines two of our favourite subjects – virtualisation and storage. Today we announced the new HP StorageWorks EVA 4400, is an easy-to-manage virtual storage disk array designed specifically for midsize customers who need to reduce the costs and complexity of implementing a storage-area network (SAN).

We think you will really like it because it offers enterprise-class high-performance and availability features, virtualisation capabilities and advanced provisioning software, but in a cost-effectively system that lets you manage large amounts of data in a SAN environment without investing in deep storage experience.

To find out more about the EVA 4400, click here - http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/eva4400/index.html

Let us know if you have questions about any of these key business technologies, or would like to share your experiences.

All the best,

Urs