HP blade strategy to have strong channel play 26 June, 2006 By Paul Weinberg

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The new c-Class is backwards compatible with the HP BladeSystem b-Class, stated Chris Christianopoulos, business development manager in the industry standard servers group at HP. "The c-Class is a logical extension to our current b class of blades."

Furthermore, the management and deployment tools for both c and b Class are generally consistent, he continued. "The partners and customers don't have to learn a brand new tool set."

Hewlett Packard will continue to make HP BladeSystem b-Class available in the market until 2007 and it will provide support for the b-class until 2012.

This is being done to facilitate an orderly transition for users transferring to the newer technology, explained Christianopoulos.

Because of the comprehensive nature of the new HP Blade technology, there should be plenty of business opportunities for channel partners, explained Christianopoulos.

"This is not just a different form factor, but a total infrastructure, with different pieces -- networking, servers and storage -- and services wrapped around it."

In addition, certification training on the new c- Class Blade systems will be made available for HP partner technicians through Ingram Micro across North America.

Christianopoulous did not have available the range of pricing for the HP blade offering -- that will come out in July. But he indicated that it would be "more appealing to customers looking at the capital costs of deploying blade."

Michelle Warren, an IT industry analyst with Evans Research, suggests that the new HP BladeSystem is ideal for organizations with high server and data management requirements.

Channel partners can also assist in helping end users set up the climate controlled environment where the blades will be placed, continued Warren. "They can do all of the dotting of the i's and cross of the t's."

She points to one significant feature in the new c-Class -- the availability of more efficient cooling fans that are designed to lessen the generation of heat by the blades. She describes this as an "evolving" solution to a challenging problem.

A server in the blade chassis in the new c-Class generates the same amount of heat that come out of servers in the rack mount, stated David Hill, an industry analyst and storage specialist at the Mesabi Group.

"[Heat in blades] was one of the key issues that hampered the growth of the blade server market in the first place."

Although the data management features in the new HP BladeSystem have been billed as something that even a non-IT specialist can handle, this may be more of a message for small and medium sized clients, Hill explained.

"I mean if you get into a large number of servers and a more complex environment, I don't know if I would want a nonprofessional doing [it]."

Most announcements involving the data centre are evolutionary and involve single incremental steps so to speak but the new HP BladeSystems represents "a fundamental change," added Hill.

"If you look at each thing separately, and distinctively, you can say that is nice. But together in a synergistically way they have changed the name of the game, for blade."