SMBs Get a Taste of HP's New and Customized Networking Services
SMBs Get a Taste of HP's New and Customized Networking Services by UCStrategies Staff
Last week, Hewlett-Packard launched its new storage, networking and virtualization services in its ongoing campaign to make enterprise-level functionality available for small and medium level business customers.
StoreVirtual Storage, a scale-out product used for storage, is based upon the LeftHand and ProLiant Generation 8 server technology of HP, and is included in the new SMB lineup. HP seeks to support virtualization further.
By developing its Client Virtualization SMB Reference Architecture for Cirtrix VDI-in-a-Boc, this desktop virtualization – which is focused on SMB – provides Citrix, which was acquired through last year's purchase of Kaviza. This will support half or more of all users.
HP StoreEasy Storage is also new in the lineup; this manages file and application workloads, and additionally showcases deduplication and encryption. Supporting up to 10,000 users, this product allows SMBs to deal with the increasing number of unstructured data which is created through the use of mobile devices.
By force-feeding enterprise products to smaller customers, vendors make the mistake of sticking the “SMB” label onto them; but HP is not doing the same in this instance. Partners of HP are happy with the new products and the focus centered on the needs of SMBs.
Midwest HP partner Heartland Technology Solutions CEO, Arlin Sorenson, said: “These new offerings look like perfect answers to many of the troubling issues that SMB companies are facing around storage, financing and mobility.”
The CEO of Salina, Kansas-based ISG Technology (a HP partner), John Gunn, has made a $1 million deal featuring only HP products, including servers, storage, networking and HP financing. He said: “There are thousands of small resellers in the channel that need to have virtualization, storage and networking solutions for their SMB customers. HP has been talking about catering to SMBs for some time; it appears they are on the right path.”
The vice presidents at Salisbury, Maryland-based Inacom Information Systems (a HP partner), Travis Fisher, has discovered that virtual storage is appropriate for the SMB space through using LeftHand in the past.
Fisher said: “Standalone SANs are expensive to build up. A lot of organizations are beginning to see benefits from sophisticated management but don’t really have enough data or budget to have that kind of infrastructure right now. I see StoreVirtual as a great gateway for walking organizations with 100-plus users into a SAN-like solution, one hardware generation earlier than they would otherwise find cost-effective.”
The new M220 Series Access Point of HP's networking ensemble includes clustering technology which allows for the configuration of up to 10 network access points into a single network entity. This also features a web-based wizard interface.
HP's M220 Series Access Point will be available November 12 through HP and its channel partners, and comes at a starting price of $319. On December 4, the HP StoreVirtual Storage 4130 and 4330 models will be released at a price of $11,500. The company's StoreEasy Storage system will be released a few days later on December 10 for prices starting at $5,192, for 8 Terabytes of capacity.
By providing qualified SMB customers with the ability to lease the new products without payment for 90 days (through its Financial Services service), HP is allowing users to additionally lease select HP equipment at a less-than-zero implicit lease rate. (CY) Link