HP Dramatically Simplifies Network Storage for Small and Medium Businesses
639964
HP (NYSE:HPQ) (Nasdaq:HPQ) today announced the industry's first easy-to-use storage systems that drive down cost and complexity for small and medium businesses (SMBs) grappling with the exponential growth of data.
357853
Cisco Systems is aggressively targeting small and midsize businesses with a set of Ethernet switching products designed to greatly reduce the cost and complexity of operating a network.
681917
Fujitsu Siemens readies storage area network bundle for small businesses.
404561
In an effort to push mobility into thin clients, Hewlett-Packard is adding a laptop with minimal storage and wireless networking features to its lineup.The HP Compaq 6720T Mobile Thin Client has 1GB of internal flash storage and will be more of a terminal than a full-blown PC, with data storage and system management handled from a remote server, the company said Thursday. The laptop boots off Windows XP Embedded OS in the flash module.Because data isn&#39;t stored on the laptop, there is less risk of a company losing data, said Thai Nguyen, HP worldwide product marketing manager for thin clients. The thin-client laptop is also managed from a server, diminishing management challenges such as issuing software updates, Nguyen said.Along with better security and easier system management, thin-client architecture uses less power than traditional PCs, said Klaus Besier, vice president for thin clients at HP. The thin-client laptop does not have a fan or moving parts such as a hard drive.The product is targeted at vertical industries such as health care and insurance, Nguyen said.Weighing 5.4 pounds (2.45 kilograms), the laptop is powered by an Intel Celeron M processor. It includes 802.11a/b/g wireless networking, wired networking, integrated graphics, three USB ports and two PC Card slots. It includes a DVD-ROM drive and stereo speakers.The laptop comes with terminal software, including HP Session Allocation Manager, which establishes a secure network connection to remote servers.Priced starting at $725, the 6720t thin client will be available in North America and Japan later this month.Users may not be inclined toward the HP thin-client laptop, said analyst Roger Kay, founder and president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. Terminal users such as financial brokers prefer powerful thin clients that support multiple monitors, and mobile workers want something like Research in Motion&#39;s BlackBerry, he said.The biggest problem with the HP thin client could be its lack of mobility. &quot;You don&#39;t want a situation where you can&#39;t use it unless you are connected,&quot; Kay said. With minimal storage and no network connection, it would be useless on an airplane, for example.HP could be experimenting or demonstrating the laptop as a new concept to the thin-client market and as a predecessor to future HP products, Kay suggested. &quot;It&#39;s an odd product. It won&#39;t be all that successful,&quot; Kay said.However, the thin-client laptop isn&#39;t aimed at &quot;mobile warriors&quot; who spend a lot of time on the road, said Tad Bodeman, director blade PC and thin client solutions at HP. &quot;We&#39;re not trying to replace every laptop PC,&quot; he said.The laptop works better in environments like hospitals, where nurses walk around with laptops on carts wirelessly pulling patient data from a central server, he said, adding that it may also be useful within an office environment. The laptop minimizes the risk of data loss related to theft and gives corporations a device that is low in cost to support and maintain.Bodeman declined to comment about HP&#39;s plans for future thin-client products.HP competes with IBM and ClearCube Technology in the thin-client hardware and software space.
401438
(InfoWorld) - As large enterprises embrace the concept of virtualization to more efficiently manage their information technology systems, vendors are now targeting the small-to-medium size market. VMwareÂ on Monday is introducing a new low-cost service plan to give small-to-medium businesses (SMB) a taste of what virtualization can do for them. It's entry level bundle includes a free download of the VMware Server software for virtualizing servers and a $1,500 support plan called Virtual Center. Although less than the $5,000 support program for enterprise customers, the $1,500 support plan is limited to three two-socket physical servers that could be converted into multiple virtual servers. If an SMB customer wants to virtualize more servers, the support would cost an extra $400 for each extra server. Virtualization refers to the practice of managing a data center holistically to make the best use of the hardware available, reduce the capital cost of new servers and the operational cost of electricity to run them. Virtualization software like VMware Server makes it possible for one server to run multiple software applications at the same time. VMware sees growth potential in the SMB market, given that 70 percent of 1.2 million downloads of the free VMware Server software since June 2006 have been to SMB customers, said Ben Matheson, vice president of product management for VMware, a division of storage vendor EMC. He defines small-to-medium businesses as those with fewer than 1,000 employees or an average of 100 physical servers in their businesses. "There is a lot of market awareness of the value of virtualization in the enterprise...but we think it's useful for all companies," said Matheson. He anticipates many of the SMBs downloading the free VMware Server are just taking virtualization out for a test drive. "There are definitely a lot of trials, getting it into their labs and using things like virtual appliances and testing them. But there is also quite a bit of production use," he said. Server vendors have also been making overtures to the SMB market. Hewlett-Packard began offeringÂ a Virtualization Assessment Service on Feb. 1 to analyze an IT infrastructure to see how it might benefit from virtualization. The service is being offered through HP's resellers who typically serve its SMB customers, while HP's own sales and engineering force tends to large enterprise customers. IBM even calls its initiative a "Virtualization Test Drive." IBM launched in 2006 a virtualization education and sales initiative targeted at SMBs. IBM said that more than 65 percent of their virtualization sales are driven by IBM partners targeting SMBs.
133452
IBM last Friday announced that it will release a low-price disk server aimed at midsize companies that want to establish storage area networks.
326071
Users at Storage Networking World are developing information life-cycle management schemes within their storage networks to more efficiently and cost-effectively store data according to business policies.
513910
Service firm solves problem of transferring large, complex files easily and safely.
720468
Hewlett-Packard Wednesday introduced a business desktop with a slim form factor that packs a flash-based solid-state drive, giving the system faster boot times than PCs with hard drives.The HP Compaq dc7800 Ultra-Slim Business Desktop, dubbed by HP as its smallest enterprise desktop model, provides improved power efficiency and support for tools, including Intel&#39;s vPro, that makes it easier to manage PCs.Measuring 2.60 by 9.90 by 10.0 inches (6.6 by 25.15 by 25.4 centimeters), HP said this desktop is 46 percent smaller than previous models. The PC is loaded with power-efficient features, including solid-state drives (SSDs) that consume less power than hard drives, said an HP spokeswoman.The SSD can replace a hard disk as the PC&#39;s primary storage drive and delivers performance and durability improvements, including quicker access to data, durability, the spokeswoman said.Random reads require the head to continuously seek the exact location of data on a hard drive. SSDs have no moving parts or rotating platters, which results in instantaneous seek times, leading to faster boot times and quicker data access.A 16GB SSD will be available with the system, although users can select hard drives with storage capacities of up to 160GB when buying the product.The system includes support for TPM (Trusted Platform Module) 1.2, a hardware-based authentication technology for system security.The Compaq dc7800 Ultra-Slim Business Desktop runs Intel&#39;s Core 2 Duo, Celeron D or Pentium processors, and supports Intel&#39;s vPro technology, a platform that helps service and manage PCs. It comes with Gigabit Ethernet and an integrated Intel graphics media accelerator. Users can select between the Windows Vista, Windows XP or FreeDos operating systems.Pricing for the desktop, which is available now, starts at $1,258 with the solid-state drive.There are already a few vendors that include SSDs in their hardware. Dell&#39;s Alienware, a gaming systems manufacturer, includes them in its gaming desktop PCs and Toshiba includes SSDs in its laptops. Intel is providing SSD storage as an option to put on motherboards for its upcoming ultramobile Menlow platform, and Lexar Media is offering SSD storage under the Crucial brand.HP also announced the HP Compaq dc5800 Business PC. The business desktop will be powered by Intel&#39;s Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Pentium dual-core or Celeron D processors. It will include up to 500GB of hard-drive storage, Gigabit Ethernet networking, integrated Intel graphics, a DVD drive and a 16-in-1 media card reader.Priced at $579, the desktop will be available starting next month.
579882
This paper introduces some techniques for making backups without needing to stop the business applications. It also describes ways to simplify and reduce the cost of system operations.
471371
HP added the ability for block data and file data storage to its Enterprise Virtual Array family of arrays in Windows or Linux environments and integrated Cisco's MDS switch into its blade servers, among other product announcements.
690392
Tiny 20-GB wireless drives are coming this summer from Seagate, the world leader in magnetic storage. In Gadget Lab.
293482
As small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) save more data and rely on it more, they are turning to networked storage even under the burden of limited budgets and IT expertise.Regulatory requirements, more sophisticated applications and reliance on Web-based supply chains all are forcing small businesses to collect and store more information, according to IDC analyst Rick Villars. They may not have enough data to fill an enterprise-class storage system today, but they want systems that let them add more capacity as they grow, he said.EMC is aiming at this growing market with its Clariion AX4, a platform that can scale from a few terabytes of storage to 60TB and take advantage of many advanced EMC storage management applications designed for large enterprises. The company was set to announce and ship it Tuesday.Swervepoint, a provider of promotional gifts in Middleton, Mass., has less than 1TB of data between its two locations but wants to be able to add storage capacity without buying new servers.&quot;We should buy our servers for the server qualities and buy storage for our server needs,&quot; said Kevin Phoenix, principal in charge of operations and administration.The 15-employee company&#39;s main concerns about networked storage are cost and complexity, and the AX4 eased those worries, Phoenix said. Swervepoint, which counts EMC as one of its own clients, has been a beta tester of the AX4 and purchased a unit. It came with management software that was easy to use, said Phoenix, who said he handles IT for the company but is not an IT specialist.The AX4 comes with at least 3TB of storage and can be expanded by stringing together as many as five systems with 12 drives each. Each AX4 can be ordered with either a Fibre Channel or a iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Interface) connection, meeting demand for IP (Internet Protocol) connectivity among SMBs, according to Barry Ader, senior director of Clariion marketing at EMC. Smaller companies tend not to have expertise with Fibre Channel, which is typically used in large enterprises, he said. On the AX4, there is no price difference between the two interface options.The systems will come with 750GB drives at first, but 1TB drives will be available starting in March, opening the door to the AX4&#39;s top-end storage capacity of 60TB, Ader said. Within the full AX4 system and even within each enclosure, users can mix and match SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) and SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) drives. Companies can use management tools including snapshot, failover, business continuity and Microsoft Exchange replication capability with the AX4.By mixing SAS and SATA drives, users can set up a tiered storage system in which the more critical data is on better-performing, more expensive SAS drives and less critical on lower-performance SATA disks, said Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT. Support for enterprise-class software is another benefit of the AX4, which goes up against SMB storage products from competitors including Network Appliance and Equalogic, King said. In particular, its support for virtualization software from EMC&#39;s VMware subsidiary appears to be stronger than in competing products, King said.
584869
Clever 'perpendicular recording system' boosts storage capacity
691315
Think disk made out of trees Technology Forum HP is going greener than a green thing from a green land with its latest storage boxesâ¦
290873
Company aggressively addresses smaller businesses with products that reduce the cost and complexity of operating a Cisco network.
574992
Big Blue is the latest to embrace iSCSI, a protocol increasingly being used to build low-cost storage area networks.