HP: New Strategies for Virtualization, Consolidation

Solution providers emphasizing cost savings of server consolidation and virtualization solutions should start shifting the focus toward business problem solving.

That's the word from Hewlett-Packard, which commissioned research from IDC to demonstrate that businesses are starting to look at new server technologies as more than a way to save a few bucks in the data center. They are looking at server consolidation and virtualization as strategies to improve business processes and quickly provision new services for customers, according to HP executives.

"If [solution providers] are having a cost-cutting dialog they are missing an opportunity to add new products and high-margin services in the mix," Steve Fink, director of IT Consolidation Solutions at Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, Calif.

He pointed to University of Utah, which used virtualization to consolidate workloads to save the IT group from purchasing 80 additional servers in the first phase of the project. The money saved on servers is now redirected to purchase storage that will be used for an electronics record project at the 500-bed facility, said Bryan Peterson, principal systems engineer for the data resource center at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Though money is being saved in aggregate, Peterson noted that the success of the project is being measured not by cost reduction but by patient satisfaction via regular surveys.

Peterson said University of Utah worked on the project with Avnet Enterprise Solutions, the former division of distributor Avnet that merged with Phoenix-based Calence late last year.