Innovation, says Tony Parkinson, Vice President and General Manager, Industry Standard Servers, Hewlett-Packard Asia-Pacific and Japan. HP's recent launch - Virtual Connect - has been touted as a breakthrough virtual Input/Output technology for its BladeSystem. However, its adoption, by the industry particularly by the small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), remains to be tested over time.

With over 20 years of hands-on experience in IT, Tony Parkinson has quite a repository of information on blade servers, cooling technology, business momentum in the region, etc.. In an interaction with Idhries Ahmad and Ashwini R, Tony explains HP's Virtual Connect technology and how the technology helps HP to gain over the competitors

Excerpts from an interview:

CIOL: There has quite a bit of hype generated by HP around Virtual Connect as a new technology. Tell us about it and how it will change the the way networks talk to each other.

Tony Parkinson: HP Virtual Connect is a breakthrough virtual I/O (Input/Output) technology for the HP BladeSystem that simplifies connections to LAN and SAN environments, enabling administrators to add, replace and recover server resources on-the-fly.

HP Virtual Connect consists of Ethernet and Fibre Channel virtualization modules that simplify network connectivity and common server management tasks across the data center. In addition to lowering capital and operating costs, the modules deliver simplified management capabilities that reduce the time it takes to execute actions from hours or days to a matter of minutes.

CIOL: Specifically, how can this technology help enterprises in reducing their costs? 

Tony Parkinson: In the typical data center, the biggest costs are human and administrator costs, low productivity and downtime losses. To reach higher device-to-administrator ratios - a key metric of IT best practices - the steps and processes of all administrators must be simplified. Virtual Connect helps save operational and running costs of a data center. 

The virtual Connect Consolidates cables and expensive aggregation switch ports up to 94 per cent and reduces ongoing cable-related maintenance. It also eliminates costly Ethernet and Fibre channel cables and help reserves expensive data center switch ports. 
 The technology also helps gains flexibility to pre-provision infrastructure and adds/replaces server blades on-the-fly. It helps sets up all server connections once and change unlimited times and makes emergency server replacement fast and affordable. Also helps change or move server connections freely across multiple networks

Other than the technology increases productivity and frees LAN and SAN administrators from common server tasks. It adds moves or replaces servers in minutes independent of SAN and LAN administrators and eliminates process steps to speed up operations.

CIOL: What does it cost an enterprise to adopt Virtual Connect?

Tony Parkinson: Virtual Connect requirements depend on the number of servers, LAN and SAN networks of the customer. It offers customers long-term business benefits by increasing operational efficiency and by reducing costs. The cost reduction comes from a variety of areas including eliminating meeting time, wait time and working time of multiple administrators.

CIOL: And the verticals you think stand to benefit the most from Virtual Connect?

Tony Parkinson: Every vertical stands to gain. Virtual Connect presents a powerful solution platform for customers of all sizes across various industry verticals.

CIOL: Are SMBs looking toward a blade server environment these days? Also, do you foresee a rapid adoption of Virtual Connect among them?

Tony Parkinson: In Asia-Pacific, SMBs are more inclined toward rack-driven servers; the adoption of blades will help them save a considerable amount of time and money. The last few quarters saw an increased implementation of blades in the region.

CIOL: How do you visualize the future of blade servers?

Tony Parkinson: The future blade servers will be measured on their energy efficient capabilities. Technologies on power and cooling help tackle the issue of rising data center power costs and enable businesses to grow and manage better.

The new HP Dynamic Smart Cooling (DSC) technology helps customers tackle power and cooling issues in a data center. DSC enables to change data center energy costs from a fixed to a variable cost, significantly increase IT scaling headroom, and ensure complete confidence in running a much more efficient data center.

CIOL: How is HP gearing up to face competition from players like IBM in the blade server segment?

Tony Parkinson: HP BladeSystems primarily address the pain points of today's infrastructure - cost, change, energy and time. With HP innovation and expertise, these pain points are turned into compelling benefits and advantages for customers. HP Virtual Connect and Dynamic Smart Cooling technology are solid proof-points of customer value and HP innovation that aligns to the ideas of change, cost and time savings.

HP's Virtual Connect innovation leapfrogs competition. Virtual Connect is the industry's first blades interconnect Ethernet and Fibre Channel modular technology that reinvents how blades connect to LAN and SAN networks. Virtual Connect demonstrates initiatives towards modular computing.

HP BladeSystem c-Class with Dynamic Smart Cooling technology is a revolutionary breakthrough in blade architecture to meet the requirements of the next-generation data center. The HP BladeSystem c-Class uses up to 27 per cent less power than IBM BladeCenter-H in similar configurations that reflect real-world customer usage of bladed environments.