Virtualization: Hardware vendors stress on Data Center Efficiency

The message from HP is that it wants to deliver more efficiently used assets. "Everything has to be saved now," says Phil Dodsworth, director of HP Datacentre Solutions. That means energy efficiency, power and cooling and lowering operating costs, he adds. "Our strategy is all about managing risk for our clients, and we manage risks through these processes. It's not a silver bullet."

HP sees virtualisation as an important strand in what it wants to deliver - but that is a long way from the full story. "Every other supplier seems to imagine that virtualisation is a cure all for everything," says Dodsworth, "but some applications don't lend themselves to virtualisation at all."

HP's strategy is very much cost-driven rather than technology-led. "That's what our customers have been telling us," says Dodsworth. "It's the cost of the datacentre that is crippling companies, not the strategic advantages that technology can deliver." A case in point is Barclays Bank's new datacentre in Gloucester, where the biggest selling point - smart cooling - is nothing to do with techniques for processing data, but all about power management and keeping bills down.

Illsley says, "HP is engineering-led and one of the biggest computer manufacturers in the world, so it has the capability in our labs to tackle any issue. The fact that they look at energy efficiency, expressed as dynamic smart cooling, intelligent air conditioning and blade designs, tells you what the priorities are these days for HP."

At HP, the acronyms bandied about now do not relate to applications or processing engines - they are more likely to be something like PUE (power usage efficiency).

Dodsworth comments, "Once we measured IT performance by MIPs - now the benchmark is in watts."

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