HP Refreshes SDN Products, Creates Converged Systems Unit

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HP has made two major announcements related to data center hardware. First, the company revamped its software-defined networking (SDN) product lineup. Second, it created a new “Converged Systems” business unit that will sell hardware purpose-built for specific applications, like big data.

NetworkWorld’s Jim Duffy reported, “HP this week refreshed its switch line and fortified its SDN portfolio with three new systems and a router, along with management and provisioning software extensions. The new offerings are designed to better meld the physical with the virtual in data centers, SDNs and clouds, territory very hot right now in Ethernet switching. Brocade is rolling out a similar hardware/software combination, and Cisco, Arista, Juniper and all major switching competitors are devising software-defined fabrics.”

All Things D quoted HP’s Bethany Mayer, who said, “The idea is that we’re trying to create more automation, less constraint, and have the network be more abstracted so that there are few manual processes in the data center. It’s meant to bring more simplification and flexibility to the data center. In all of these products we have enabled OpenFlow. We now have 40 platforms that are OpenFlow-enabled. And we have about 20 million ports out there in the marketplace today that are OpenFlow-ready.”

Computerworld’s Agam Shah covered the second announcement, writing, “Hewlett-Packard on Monday said it has created a business unit that will deal in purpose-built systems based on specific applications and usage models, and also announced the reorganization of its server unit. The HP Converged Systems business unit brings together dedicated resources to ‘deliver purpose-built technology for social, cloud, mobile and big data solution,’ HP said in a statement.”

CRN’s Steven Burke added, “The new big data organization, referred to as the HP Converged Systems business unit, brings together a wide variety of resources to deliver big data ‘converged application appliances,’ including systems based on Apache Hadoop, HP Vertica, SAP HANA and HP Cloud System. The Converged Systems unit will be led by Tom Joyce, formerly vice president of marketing, strategy and operations for storage at HP.”