HP Readies Four-CPU Blade Server

Computerworld - Hewlett-Packard Co. last week introduced a four-processor blade server, becoming the first major hardware vendor to detail plans to ship a blade device of that size.
But corporate users will have to wait for nearly two months before they can buy the four-CPU system. Hugh Jenkins, vice president of marketing for HP's industry standard server group, said the new ProLiant BL40p device isn't due to be available for ordering until mid-March.
The BL40p will be based on Intel Corp.'s Xeon MP processors and will include built-in connections to Fibre Channel storage-area networks (SAN), Jenkins said. He added that the SAN connectivity capabilities will let IT managers hook the blade server to large storage clusters for use in running corporate applications such as messaging or enterprise resource planning systems.
Blade servers pack the functionality of traditional rack-mounted systems onto a single high-density circuit board, reducing the amount of space that the hardware takes up in data centers. HP and other top server vendors last year began shipping blade devices with one or two CPUs.
Behind a Start-up
HP's move to the four-processor level comes 10 months after Egenera Inc., a Marlboro, Mass.-based start-up, announced a blade server that also includes four Xeon chips and built-in support for Fibre Channel SANs.
Other vendors also have such systems in the works. IBM said it plans to introduce four-processor blade servers with SAN connections later this year. Dell Computer Corp. has four-CPU devices on its road map but declined to disclose its delivery plans.
CenterBeam Inc., an IT outsourcing vendor in Santa Clara, Calif., uses HP's existing blade servers to hold mirror images of the applications and files that it manages for customers.
Glenn Ricart, CenterBeam's chief technology officer, said the company plans to evaluate the BL40p once it's available. The four-CPU device could make it easier for CenterBeam "to scale both processing and SAN [capabilities] to meet whatever demands our clients have," Ricart said.
Pricing on the BL40p will start at $8,999, Jenkins said. HP also plans to release by mid-March an upgrade of its two-processor BL20p model with faster Xeon chips and the same SAN connectivity that's coming in the four-CPU device. The new BL20p will start at $3,399, Jenkins said.

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