HP Helps Enterprises Scale Up

HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced that scale-up HP ProLiant servers are the leading choice for enterprise clients relying on large-scale, data-intensive workloads and databases to drive innovation.

Scale-up servers are the highest capacity, most powerful x86 systems available, specifically designed for tackling the toughest application workloads, often with a single server. Clients choose HP scale-up systems over a server farm or mainframe to simplify management, lower costs and save space in the data center.

The No. 1 worldwide vendor of x86 systems,⁽¹⁾ HP offers a family of scale-up solutions that includes the HP ProLiant DL980 G7, HP ProLiant DL580 G7, HP ProLiant BL680c G7 and HP ProLiant BL620c G7 servers, and has the leading results for six of the industry’s critical benchmarks. With scalability of up to eight sockets, 80 cores and 4 terabytes (TB) of memory within a single server, these systems enable clients to efficiently keep pace with data growth and respond to new opportunities.

HP ProLiant improves service levels for leading enterprise clients

Enterprise clients such as Easynet Global Services and Gruppo Mediaset have implemented HP ProLiant server technology as part of an HP Converged Infrastructure to improve operational efficiencies and speed application delivery within their IT environments.

To expand its managed hosting services and update data center operations, service provider Easynet Global Services selected HP ProLiant DL580 G7 servers, which include the new Intel® Scalable Memory Buffer. With double the memory capacity and increased compute power, Easynet can efficiently process data-intensive workloads and speed application performance, resulting in significantly improved service levels.

Italian broadcast organization Gruppo Mediaset reduced acquisition costs nearly 60 percent by replacing its legacy Cisco environment with an HP Converged Infrastructure made up of HP ProLiant BL680c G7 and BL620c G7 servers with HP Virtual Connect.⁽²⁾ The HP systems with HP Virtual Connect enable system administrators to connect servers and virtual machines to local and storage area networks using less equipment. HP’s integrated solution allows Mediaset to reduce component sprawl and improve content distribution while increasing performance and flexibility.

"In the incredibly fast-paced world of broadcasting, HP ProLiant BL620c G7 and BL680c G7 server blades with HP Virtual Connect keep us well ahead of our competition,” said Christiano Fumagalli, system architect, Gruppo Mediaset. "We chose HP ProLiant servers for our data centers because the modular design can be quickly scaled or upgraded to fit changing needs, allowing us to combat data center sprawl.”

HP enables university researchers to accelerate scientific discovery

Hideo Mabuchi, professor of Applied Physics at Stanford University, needed a high-performance computing environment to conduct data-intensive research. After evaluating competitive offerings, Mabuchi selected the HP ProLiant DL980 G7 equipped with HP PREMA Architecture and smart CPU caching technology.

The HP solution delivered increased scalable capacity, as well as a 900 percent⁽²⁾ improvement in performance of key applications, which enabled Mabuchi to rapidly expand research models and accelerate scientific discovery.

HP ProLiant scale-up x86 servers deliver record-breaking results

HP ProLiant scale-up servers provide clients a cost-effective high-performance computing environment that delivers:

• Superior processing capabilities for compute-intensive workloads, such as online transaction processing, business intelligence and scientific calculations, with the HP ProLiant DL980 G7 server. The DL980 G7 delivers the top system performance result for eight-socket x86 servers as demonstrated in SPEC CPU2006 benchmark.⁽³⁾
• Maximum scalability and compute power in a small footprint, supporting more than 25,000 SAP SD benchmark users on a single eight-processor HP ProLiant DL980 Windows®-based server. HP is the first system vendor to deliver these performance levels on the two-tier SAP SD standard application benchmark on a single server.⁽⁴⁾
• Improved scalability by supporting the highest number of virtual machines per server for two- and four-socket HP ProLiant BL620c G7 and HP ProLiant DL580 G7 systems. The servers are able to maintain a consistent throughput rate as resources are added to the system, enabling clients to maximize virtualization capabilities with minimal server footprint as measured by VMmark 2.0 benchmark.^(5,6)

More information about the latest benchmarks achieved by the HP ProLiant family is available at http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/benchmarks/index.html.

More information on the HP scale-up portfolio is available at www.hp.com/go/scaleup.

In a world of continuous connectivity, the HP Converged Infrastructure is a key element to delivering the Instant-On Enterprise. The Instant-On Enterprise embeds technology in everything it does to serve customers, employees, partners and citizens with whatever they need, instantly.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure at the convergence of the cloud and connectivity, creating seamless, secure, context-aware experiences for a connected world. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.

(1) Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, International Data Corporation (IDC), Feb. 28, 2011.

(2) Based on internal testing results.

(3) The HP ProLiant DL980 G7 server delivered performance of SPECint_rate2006 of 2,080 and SPECfp_rate2006 of 1,420 for SPEC CPU2006 results recording No. 1 x86 eight-socket position. The DL980 G7 system had 80 cores, eight sockets and 10 cores per chip and was configured with Intel® Xeon® Processor E7-4870 2.4-GHz, 1 TB RAM and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (x86+64) SP1. The stated ProLiant results and competitive results reflect published results as of June 1, 2011. The latest SPEC benchmark results are available at the SPEC website at www.spec.org.

(4) The HP ProLiant DL980 G7 server earned the No. 1 eight-processor Windows performance result, with Microsoft® SQL Server 2008, on the two-tier SAP SD standard application benchmark (Certification No. 2011021). The server achieved a performance result of 25,160 SAP SD benchmark users and 137,470 SAPS. The DL980 G7 server was configured as an eight-processor system with 2.40-GHz 10-core Intel Xeon processors model E7-4870 (eight processors/80 cores/160 threads), and 512 GB main memory, running Microsoft Windows® Server 2008 R2 Datacenter x64 operating system. The DL980 G7 server ran with SAP enhancement package 4 for the SAP ERP application 6.0 running Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition database. Results as of June 3, 2011; details available at http://www.sap.com/benchmark.

(5) The HP ProLiant DL580 G7 server delivered No. 1 overall four-socket result for VMmark with score of 17.11@21tiles. This result was published on May 3, 2011. The DL580 G7 ran with VMware ESX 4.1 U1/vCenter 4.1 U1. The systems were configured as two total hosts with eight total sockets, 80 total cores and 160 total threads. Each DL580 G7 was configured with Intel Xeon E7-4870 (2.40-GHz four processors/40 cores/10 cores per chip/two threads per core), 512 GB (64 x 8 GB, Dual Rank PC3-10600 DDR3 1,066-MHz RDIMMs). The latest VMmark results are available at www.vmware.com/a/vmmark.

(6) The HP ProLiant BL620c G7 server delivered No. 1 overall two-socket result for VMmark with score of 9.29@11tiles. This result was published on April 19, 2011. The BL620c G7 ran with VMware ESX 4.1 U1/vCenter 4.1 U1. The systems were configured as two total hosts with four total sockets, 40 total cores and 80 total threads. Each BL620c G7 was configured with Intel Xeon E7-2870 (2.40-GHz two processors/20 cores/10 cores per chip/two threads per core), 256 GB (16 x 16 GB, Dual Rank PC3-8500 DDR3 1,066-MHz RDIMMs). The latest VMmark results are available at www.vmware.com/a/vmmark.

SAP and the SAP logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and several other countries. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Intel and Intel Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries. SPEC and the benchmark names SPECint and SPECfp are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC). VMware and VMmark are trademarks or registered trademarks of VMware, Inc.

© 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.