HP Launches CloudStart to Fast Track Private Clouds

Company partners with Carnegie Mellon to deploy private cloud in 30 days

SAN FRANCISCO, HP today announced HP CloudStart, the industry’s first all-in-one solution for deploying an open and flexible private cloud environment within 30 days.(1)

Built on an HP Converged Infrastructure, HP CloudStart simplifies and speeds private cloud deployments. Consisting of hardware, software and services, HP CloudStart empowers businesses to deliver pay-per-use services reliably and securely from a common portal, and it offers the ability to scale and deploy new services automatically. Real-time access to consumption and chargeback reports allows clients to operate their private clouds in the same fashion as a public cloud.

With HP’s open architecture approach, clients are able to integrate their private clouds with third-party enterprise portals, public cloud services, usage billing packages and multiplatform resource management.

“To better serve the needs of their enterprises, clients are asking us to help them become internal service providers with the ability to deliver applications through a highly flexible private cloud environment,” said Gary M. Budzinski, senior vice president and general manager, Technology Services, HP. “With CloudStart, HP is enabling clients to optimize applications for private cloud computing today, while providing a platform for a comprehensive, open and hybrid environment in the future.”

HP CloudStart delivers private cloud compute service in 30 days

HP CloudStart is delivered by HP Cloud Consulting Services, which provides the expertise needed for clients to transform their existing delivery approaches into more efficient shared-services models.

HP BladeSystem Matrix, enhanced with HP Cloud Service Automation software and data services provided by HP StorageWorks, forms the backbone of the CloudStart offering. It enables clients to reduce provisioning times up to 80 percent(2) with one-touch provisioning across infrastructure, applications and business services.

Other benefits include:

* Seventy-five percent reduction in compliance-management time through advanced automation and governance functionality;
* Improved business response time to changing market demands by delivering technology services on an as-needed basis rather than through a dedicated system;
* Simplified addition and management of pools of network, storage and server resources, including enhanced data services such as unified provisioning and disaster recovery on HP storage;
* Best-practice guidance from HP Services, which provides expertise in deploying, customizing and executing on the long-term vision for creating a private cloud that is tuned specifically for the client’s environment.

“When CIOs have a simplified way to map their path to the private cloud, including all the necessary components from infrastructure and applications to services, they are more likely to identify a comprehensive and realistic deployment scenario for their organization,” said Matt Eastwood, group vice president, Enterprise Platform Group, IDC. “With the HP CloudStart solution, clients now have a way to accelerate the adoption of service-oriented environments for a private cloud that matches the speed, flexibility and economies of public cloud without the risk or loss of control.”

HP teams with Carnegie Mellon and VMware to deliver a private cloud

HP has teamed with Intel, Samsung, VMware and Carnegie Mellon, a Pittsburgh-based global research university, to implement a private cloud environment based on HP Converged Infrastructure. Carnegie Mellon’s private cloud will serve as a test bed for research on cloud computing. Using HP CloudStart, the university will replace multiple dedicated clusters with a single cloud environment for performing simulations and data analyses, as well as supporting data storage and data-intensive applications. Samsung Green DDR3 (double-data-rate three) memory delivers further energy-efficiency benefits.

“We deployed a cloud environment for a dual purpose: to help our university to better meet an increased need for infrastructure flexibility and to have a production state-of-the-art installation to study in our research on the cloud,” said Professor Greg Ganger, Carnegie Mellon University. “We partnered with HP, VMware, Intel and Samsung to integrate an automated private cloud environment into our existing infrastructure in less than 30 days, providing compute power and storage to several departments with growing needs, as well as a standards-based environment for private cloud research.”

Application services for the cloud

HP also announced Cloud Maps for use with solutions from VMware, SAP AG, Oracle and Microsoft to significantly speed application deployment and reduce risk by providing engineered, tested and proven configurations. Cloud Maps are imported directly into client cloud environments, enabling them to rapidly build a catalog of cloud services for the business.

Availability

The HP CloudStart solution is offered now in Asia-Pacific and Japan and expected to be available globally in December.

Additional resources for private cloud

Educational resources for clients include:

* Cloud Boot Camp – a crash course in all phases of deploying, managing and governing a cloud environment is available at VMworld on Sept. 2 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. PT at the Westin Hotel in a session with HP Services experts.
* Cloud Scorecard – enables clients to assess their readiness for transforming to a private cloud computing model.
* HP Cloud Advisors – are at the forefront of cloud innovation in the industry, representing the best technical and strategic minds in information technology today. They will be at VMworld to answer client questions.

More information on HP at VMworld is available at www.hp.com/go/HPatVMworld2010.

Follow HP at VMworld on Twitter at #HPCI #VMworld.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com/.

(1) HP CloudStart solution is for compute services. Claim based on typical duration time after hardware and software installation as well as consulting service terms and conditions for starter solution.

(2) IDC White Paper Sponsored by HP, The Business Value of HP Business Service Automation (BSA) Solutions, Doc # 10C6069, June 2010.

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