HP debuts its Proliant Generation 9 server range

HP has taken the wraps off its new mid-market and enterprise-focused HP ProLiant Generation 9 Server range.

The hardware giant said the range would be a good fit for the financial services, manufacturing and retail vertical markets, while some of the smaller products within it would suit the needs of SMBs.

Iain Stephen, vice president and general manager of HP Servers EMEA, told IT Pro the Gen9 addresses a variety of IT problems by assuring faster deployment, lower operational costs, increased storage space and simpler manageability.

He said: "The number of servers per administration will improve so that one person can manage more things."

The Gen9 portfolio incorporates blade, rack, tower and scale-out architectures to support modern workloads and future business endeavours, he said.

Users will also be able to use the technology for big data and real-time analytics purposes, and capitalise on business opportunities in real-time, it is claimed.

HP revealed the technology is already being used by several of its customers, including credit union Redstone, who claimed the Gen9 servers allow it to complete four million transactions in minutes and develop an app in 90 days.

UPS doubled its performance using Gen9 servers and consumed 40 per cent less energy, the company claims.

Meanwhile, VelociData has reportedly used the kit to process 400 million tweets in two minutes to gain a snapshot of consumer behaviour.

Compared to the previous generation of Gen8 servers, HP said the new additions are more cost-effective to run and have an important part to play in its wider compute strategy.

Bill Veghte, the EVP and general manager of the enterprise group at HP, explained: "Servers used to be isolated, but 'compute' dynamically applies services to create business outcomes."

The strategy aims to enable customer success in the realms of big data, mobility and the cloud, HP added.

"Traditional server silos are too inefficient and slow for the New Style of IT. HP is reimagining the server and thinking instead about compute the vast pool of processing resources that are converged, software-defined, cloud-ready and workload-optimized for business growth," the company said in a statement.

Gen9 servers have been designed with SmartCache and FlexFabric adapters to deliver better performance.

They also promote a software-defined enterprise with converged management across servers, storage and networking.

Other elements include PCIe accelerators and DDR4 SmartMemory to increase compute capacity. As well as embedded management such as UEFI and RESTful APIs for hybrid cloud environments.

These allow for faster set-up, monitoring and firmware maintenance, according to HP.

HP ProLiant Gen9 servers will be available via HP from 8 September this year while prices will depend on the model and configuration users opt for.

More product specs and information will be released about the server range in September at the Intel Developers Forum in San Francisco.