With a host of new cost-efficient, ruggedized solutions, Hewlett-Packard is
taking another step closer to fully converged telephony and data center
infrastructure.
“What we've seen over the last five years is the shift from custom hardware
built to handle telephony to more commoditized products from the data center
that integrate more fully into customers’ telecom infrastructure,” says Lloyd
Mayhew, worldwide business development manager for HP's telecommunications
infrastructure products.
This move toward a convergence of IP and telephony infrastructure
necessitates a whole new approach to hardware, Mayhew says, that adds
telephony-specific requirements to readily available commodity data center
hardware. The new offerings provide telecom companies with the reliability set
by Network Equipment Building Systems (NEBS) requirements, as well as the lower
cost and flexibility of industry-standard products.
The new products are targeted at network and telephony service providers,
and include the HP BladeSystem Carrier-Grade (CG) platform, the HP ProLiant
carrier-grade rack-mount server and the HP carrier-grade storage array. The new
products can be deployed in both telephony and IT networks, enabling customers
to operate more efficiently as the two environments converge.
“These customers need products with features like minus 48-volt power
supplies and ruggedized systems that can withstand earthquakes and high
temperatures,” Mayhew says. “So, we’ve taken our most popular products and
selected those that we can easily adapt to these requirements.”
The new products include the HP ProLiant DL380 G6 rack-mount server, the HP
Integrity BL860c carrier-grade server blade designed for the HP c7000-cg blade
enclosure and the HP ProLiant BL460c G6 carrier-grade server blade.
The HP ProLiant BL460c G6 is upgraded with two 2.53GHz Intel quad-core
processors, which offer enhanced performance and power savings, Mayhew says.
The telephony features are included in the new solutions at no additional cost,
which provides a huge advantage for ISPs and network service providers, Mayhew
says.
Along with new enterprise servers and blades, HP has also announced new
carrier-grade modular storage array (MSA)
solutions for the telephony market, says Charles Vallhonrat, product marketing
manager, MSA arrays and enclosures, at HP.
The new HP StorageWorks MSA2000fc G2 with Fibre
Channel connectivity and MSA2000sa with SAS
connectivity both offer high-availability and data protection capabilities as
well as NEBS certification for the telephony industry, Vallhonrat says.
“We’re very focused on extending our entire platform, including these new
MSAs, to include features that meet the needs of telephony and data center
solution providers,” Vallhonrat says.
Computer Networking 
