HP launches 'Shorty' blade for the mid-market
HP is targeting what is calls the “global 500,000” mid-sized (100-999 employees) companies with a series of new services and products, led by ‘Shorty,’ a compact blade system that the company said reduces the cost and expertise required to deploy applications.
The new HP BladeSystem c3000 rack-based version is 10.5-inches-high and holds up to eight 2 to 4 processor Xeon, Opteron or Itanium blades, and plugs into a standard 110- or 220-volt socket. A tower version of the c3000, expected to be available early next year, requires about two square feet of floor space.
“One of the things the mid-market told is that they like the idea of blades, but they are currently too big,” , said Deborah Nelson, senior vice president, Marketing & Alliances for HP Technology Solutions. She estimates that the ROI breakeven point is three blades. Results will vary based on whether Ethernent of Fibre Channel connectivity is deployed. Pricing for c3000 starts at $4,299.
The c3000 is also supports the HP ProLiant, Integrity and StorageWorks server and storage blades.
In addition, HP introducted the StorageWorks All-in-One SB600c, a blade for the c3000 with 1TB of shared storage built-in, expandable to 9TB, and support for NAS and iSCSI SAN.
HP claims that experts aren’t needed to manage the device and offers application storage wizards for Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server. Pricing starts at $9,968.
Earlier this Dell and NetApp introduced new storage solutions for the mid-market with similar claims.
HP is also offering Solution Blocks, tested and documented blueprints for developing HP-based solutions with the c3000 enclosure.