HP Expands Integrity Virtualization, Oracle Capabilities

Building on the growth of virtualization and the high rate of deployment of Oracle databases on its Integrity servers, Hewlett-Packard on Wednesday announced an extension of its Virtual Server Environment that will let customers automatically adjust resources within pooled server deployments.

With half or more of all Integrity servers shipped being used for Oracle database installations, HP believes making it easier to create and manipulate virtual environments will help expand the market for systems built on Intel's high-end Itanium processor, says Nick van der Zweep, director of virtualization and Integrity server software for HP.

"Integrity is a real database machine," van der Zweep says. "And everyone we see installing Virtual Server Environment is experiencing at least a minimum of a doubling of server utilization rates."

HP is adding a VSE reference architecture for Oracle Real Application Clusters for HP-UX 11i that dynamically scales the Integrity server when Oracle database workloads fluctuate, he says. Customers can use the capability to automatically allocate additional server capacity to workloads that have varying periods of demand, such as a financial application during a month-end close.

For customers in a Unix environment, HP has improved the integration of HP Serviceguard for HP-UX 11i with Integrity Virtual Machines. The functionality helps users to accelerate application qualification and deployment and guard against failure by automatically moving the virtual machines between servers in a VSE, van der Zweep says.Overall, HP has experienced a 70% growth in shipments of virtualization products in the past year, he says. The enhancements to VSE are available at no charge to existing customers.