In a move to counter Cisco's planned entrance into the data  center, Hewlett-Packard is forming alliances, launching new products and authoring new initiatives. It's a three-pronged strategy that HP hopes will help the company and its partners gain more market share in a competitive arena.
For starters, HP ProCurve, the networking division of HP, on Monday expanded its Adaptive Networks vision -- a vision that sees networks adapt to users, applications and organizations' needs.
Additionally, two new initiatives will make way for customers to address rapidly changing enterprise data-center needs and improve network-application efficiency . HP ProCurve also unveiled data-center switches and management software to help customers lower costs, mitigate risks, and drive business growth.
But what got analysts' attention is strong industry support for the HP ProCurve Open Network Ecosystem, also known as HP ProCurve ONE. It's a multi-vendor alliance program that aims to optimize the performance of enterprise-class applications with HP ProCurve infrastructure .
A Unified Front
Microsoft , Avaya, McAfee, F5 and Riverbed, Aastra, AirTight Networks, Ekahau, InMon, .vantronix and VBrick are participating in the partnership, collaborating with HP ProCurve to help customers strengthen security , reduce complexity of network management, increase network and data-center performance, deploy new VoIP services, and improve manageability.
"To help customers address the increased pace of change within their businesses, HP ProCurve is combining its own technology with some of the most innovative, respected and visionary companies in the world," said Marius Haas, senior vice president and general manager of HP ProCurve. "Establishing partnerships with major technology companies to deliver open-standards choices delivers business value by increasing the efficiency of network applications."
The goal of HP ProCurve ONE is to allow customers to securely integrate a wide choice of network applications and services from alliance partners that work directly with the HP ProCurve infrastructure. HP ProCurve ONE partner applications are tested and certified to ensure interoperability with the new HP ProCurve ONE Services zl Module.
"HP ProCurve ONE will help customers resolve interoperability concerns by delivering an open standards-based solution that is effective and efficient," said Tim Sinclair, general manager at Microsoft. "The combination of the HP ProCurve ONE initiative and Microsoft Network Access Protection will provide customers with enhanced security and policy-based access that helps reduce downtime and boosts return on investment." (continued...)
|
Rackspace: It makes a difference when you focus on support.
House Lawmakers Push Ban on Peer-to-Peer Software
GAO: Los Alamos Computer Security Has Weaknesses
Computer Security Firm Fortinet Plans IPO This Week
Flat Shipments Hurt Dell Despite Increased Earnings
New Pogoplug 'Personal Cloud' Does Social Networking
Apple Tablet Rumored Delayed as Publisher Gears Up
Smartphones: A Bigger Target for Security Threats
FBI Says Hackers Targeting Law Firms, PR Companies