HP extends physical and virtual systems management

HP on Thursday announced software that it says will provide system managers with template structures to help reduce the risks and costs associated with downtime, as well as a new disaster-recovery capability.

Insight Orchestration and Insight Recovery are two enhancements to HP Insight Dynamics-VSE, the company's software for managing physical and virtual resources in a unified way.

Intended to help reduce the time needed to design, configure and deploy new systems, Insight Orchestration works by providing templates that specify the infrastructure required to run different applications on servers, as well as associated storage and network resources.

According to HP, the software's physical and virtual infrastructure can be automatically assigned and configured "with the push of a button". Insight Orchestration also includes a web-based portal and a workflow engine to help managers implement the software throughout a datacentre.

The Insight Recovery option lets customers restart applications running on physical and virtual servers at a remote recovery site, HP said. According to the company, it works with the HP Blade System and with VMware virtual machines. It also works with HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array-based products running Continuous Access data-replication software with HP ProLiant servers, the company said.

The Insight Orchestration option is available now on HP ProLiant servers and is expected to be available on HP Integrity servers later this year, the company said. Insight Recovery is priced at $995 (£670) per server, and Insight Orchestration is $795 (£530) per server.

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Further extensions for Insight Dynamics-VSE that now support Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, VMware ESX and HP Integrity Virtual Machines were also announced.

According to HP, the two products launched on Thursday form part of the company's strategy to provide a structure for its customers to implement "24 by 7, lights out computing" which it calls its AI, or artificial intelligence, initiative.

Commenting on the announcement, Duncan Campbell, vice president for Adaptive Infrastructure at HP, said the two products "build on [the HP] AI initiative by delivering offerings to meet challenges customers face today as they scrutinise their technology choices, and [to] help them emerge strong when the economy improves".