HP's Adaptive Enterprise strikes back with Lucasfilm deal

HP and Lucasfilm announced they had signed a three-year multimillion dollar technology and marketing agreement, which will include the rollout of 1,000 AMD-powered HP workstations, with Lucasfilm for the entertainment firm's facilities in Singapore and San Francisco.

HP has been cozying up to the film industry in recent years through regular sponsorship of various film festivals around the world and through the work of HP Labs on graphics and CGI animation. HP has facilities at its labs, including the one in Bristol that allow animators the use of high-powered graphics machines on a utility computing model. The company also teamed up with Stephen Spielberg's Dreamworks studio on Shrek 2, contributing animation facilities.

The agreement with Lucasfilm, one of the leading companies in the world for digital animation and sound, is a straightforward technology deal for HP systems, software and services. The systems include 1,000 workstations including a HP xw9300 environment that will run both Linux and Windows XP — in both 32-bit and 64-bit modes — and software applications for creation and editing.

"With this agreement we will continue expanding the quality of our entertainment offerings and meet the constantly rising expectations of consumers when it comes to movies and video games," said Cliff Plumer, chief technology officer at Lucasfilm.

In addition, to the system deployment, HP Services is providing the storage environment, including a 35TB capacity, HP StorageWorks XP12000 Disk Array and Cisco MDS 9509 switching.

The system will allow Lucasfilm to work with high-end graphic processing systems across two continents. HP said the products were part of its Adaptive Enterprise , the term HP uses to describe its strategy of technology which give businesses more agility and flexibility.