New HP offerings help customers manage downturn, thrive in recovery

MANILA, Philippines - HP has announced new products, solutions and services that enable organizations to address the short-term cost reductions required by today’s challenging economy, while laying the groundwork to exit the downturn stronger and more competitive.

Economic downturns can more than double the likelihood that a business significantly changes its industry ranking, and those that make it to the top quartile during a downturn typically sustain their market premium for an average of three years.

Technology plays a major role in determining an organization’s success before, during and after a downturn. In a 2007 survey, 99 percent of chief executive officers said technology is integral to the success of their companies.

Additionally, in a new study conducted across Americas, the Asia-Pacific, and Europe and Middle East, 48 percent of respondents from the Asia-Pacific indicated they see the current economic climate as an opportunity to restructure their technology environments for the future.

“Winning chief information officers or CIOs are focused on both strategic cost reductions and supporting long-term business growth,” said Jim Wagstaff, vice president and general manager for the StorageWorks Division of HP Asia-Pacific and Japan.

“It’s not about spending more: best-in-class IT organizations spend about half as much as the average company on technology as a percentage of revenue. Instead, they strategically spend and prioritize technology investments. HP offers an unprecedented range of solutions to help organizations emerge stronger when the economy recovers,” Wagstaff said.

HP’s new hardware, software and services allow organizations to change how they produce, distribute and consume technology resources by:

• Standardizing, optimizing and automating technology to deliver short-term cost reductions;

• Prioritizing new technology investments based on business value; and

• Adopting flexible sourcing options to keep critical projects running and align costs to actual use.

Standardize, optimize and automate

New HP StorageWorks Storage-Area Network (SAN) Virtualization Solutions help customers simplify the provisioning, management and optimization of virtualized server and storage environments.

The new StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array 6400 and 8400 (EVA6400 and EVA8400) cut storage administration costs by up to 50 percent.

The enhanced HP SAN Virtualization Services Platform 2.1 (SVSP 2.1) is a network-based storage virtualization solution that increases available storage capacity. It also streamlines storage operations by reducing the time required for migration, replication, backup and bringing new applications into production.

Solutions like the SVSP 2.1 allow customers to reduce storage acquisition costs by up to 50 percent, according to market research firm IDC.

Enhanced HP Data Protector software and services provide one data protection solution for all physical and virtual environments.

HP Data Protector is easy to use, provides a wide variety of backup options and supports de-duplication and other backup services.

This is the industry’s most comprehensive protection for virtual environments and flexible data reduction options, delivering up to 70 percent cost savings.

Prioritize technology investments

As part of its Applications Management Services portfolio, EDS, an HP company, is now offering clients the option of tiered levels of service, which lower the cost of running less-critical applications while maintaining the highest service levels for critical applications.

This flexible approach to managing services helps maximize the business value of applications and can reduce overall application maintenance costs by up to 40 percent. 

New Consolidation and Virtualization ROI services can validate the expected savings and return on investment from technology projects.

The risks of long project approval and implementation cycles are minimized, so customers can move quickly to adjust to the changing economy, while aligning technology investments with business growth objectives.

Multi-Tiered Hybrid Design is a new service that helps customers design an entire data center facility to more accurately reflect the different infrastructure and availability requirements of the business.

Often, an enterprise data center is built to a single specification to meet the most exacting standard, even though this is not needed for all systems. By designing a “hybrid” data center with two (or more) tiers of service, data center capital costs can be reduced by 15 to 25 percent.

Adopt flexible sourcing

An enhanced suite of EDS infrastructure services helps reduce costs and create efficiencies while offering predictable pricing. EDS’ enhanced Managed Services give clients more sourcing choices and control through a set of modular, standard packages that provide fast implementation and rapid client value. The offerings cover server and storage operations, service desk and managed messaging.

HP also offers flexible financing and leasing options through HP Financial Services. A new HP white paper released this month shows how chief information officers can help chief financial officers ease the pain of a tough economy by choosing advanced strategies such as technology life cycle management through leasing.