HP redefines server economics with ProLiant

BANGALORE, INDIA: IT products and services provider Hewlett-Packard (HP) today introduced the new HP ProLiant G6 server line for Indian market. The new series comes packed with new technology features that assures double the performance of previous generation of servers.

Rajesh Dhar, director, Industry Standard Servers, HP India Sales, said that the new ProLiant models were highly energy efficient and drew half the power of the previous generation. The new series of servers also boasts on the power 'capping' function that enables better management of energy.

The new ProLiant G6 server line can help data centers to save about 50 per cent of running costs compared to the previous generation of servers. The new line of servers are basically aimed at mid and large enterprises that relay on huge data centers, the HP director said.

According to Dhar the G6 line of servers come equipped with a collection of sensors that can track heat in the server and automatically adjust components such as cooling fans to increase efficiency. The servers also house twice the memory and storage of the previous generation.

HP which is going to the world market after the Indian launch, said it choose India for the first launch as the country has emerged as one of the biggest markets in Asia-Pacific and due to logistic reasons.

“Now more than ever, customers want the best possible return on their server investments,” said Rajesh Dhar. “Building on HP’s long history of hardware and software development, G6 brings together the best HP innovations in energy efficiency, virtualization and services to enable our customers to do more with less.”

Built for energy savings

The most energy-efficient x86 servers in the industry, HP ProLiant G6 includes many energy-saving features, HP Sea of Sensors that automatically tracks thermal activity across the server through a collection of 32 smart sensors, Common Power Slot design that helps minimize power waste and HP Dynamic Power Capping, which reallocates power and cooling resources in the data center by dynamically setting or “capping” the power drawn by servers.

HP's strategy in bringing out this server line is loud and clear - exhibit power reduction and bring down transaction costs. The most striking element of difference and graduation from the G5 is 'rightsizing' of power.

The G6 range gives to customers, a flexible power supply option, depending on usage pattern and computing need. This stems out of the fact that the power supply for servers is designed in such a way that it caters to optimum performance and usage.

Thermal Logic

In some cases, the computing power used is as low as 30 of the actually capacity of the server, but consumes the same amount of power. With the G6, HP has incorporated a technology called Thermal Logic, where physical control sensors are placed inside the body of the servers, specifically in the memory and I/O slots.

The output from these sensors is linked to HP's management solution, accessible to the network manager.

In the event of a particular slot not being used actively, the dynamic power manager 'shuts off' the same, saving power and utilizing only the slots in use. Other technologies aimed at reducing power utilization are the On-Board Administrator, which does a health check of the server network, monitors performance, and incorporates power utilization into the central management console.

Along with features that monitor CPU, memory, power and hard Disk usage of Virtual machines, HP claims to reduce operating power costs by up to 55 per cent over a period of three years.