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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Blades are one of the fastest-growing segments in the IT industry. Already accounting for nearly 10% of all server shipments, blades are expected to grow to represent more than 25% of server shipments by 2011. For all this success, however, blades have been primarily limited to large-scale deployments into the enterprise market because they can help alleviate the power and cooling and space constraints felt by large datacenters and because they tend to scale cost-effectively with large-scale deployments. In contrast, many midmarket customers house their servers in a spare closet or an office and do not have the same datacenter challenges of large enterprises; furthermore, the up-front investment in the blade server chassis has generally meant that blades are not as cost-effective as rackmounted servers for typical midmarket deployments of only a few servers. HP is looking to change this dynamic with the launch of its new HP BladeSystem c3000, a complete blade server and storage solution designed from the ground up with the needs of the midmarket in mind. With 8 bays, the HP c3000 enclosure is half the size of its larger sibling, the HP c7000, which has 16 bays, reducing the required up-front investment for midmarket-scale deployments. In addition, with the launch of a new line of storage blades, HP is making all critical IT infrastructure components available within the HP c3000 enclosure, greatly enhancing the value to the midmarket customer. Finally, with a power supply that can be plugged into a standard wall outlet or an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), and the fact it is designed to be operated without the need for any special cooling requirements, the HP c3000 is designed for the type of server rooms commonly found among midmarket customers. This white paper examines the requirements for servers, storage, and blade systems in the midmarket; describes the features and capabilities of the HP c3000; and outlines some of the challenges and opportunities HP will face as it seeks to extend its innovative HP BladeSystem c-Class product line to serve the needs of the midmarket.
THE BUSINESS CONTEXT FOR BLADES IN THE MIDMARKET
Growth of Blades in the Enterprise
Recent years have witnessed a dramatic turning point for blade technology, with enterprise datacenters increasingly adopting them for mainstream deployments. Bringing advantages in price-performance, power and cooling, reduced floor space footprint, and management and control over rackmounted servers, blades are proving themselves to be the form factor of choice for many large-scale server deployments. Because of the greater server density achievable through blades, the primary attention initially on blades was focused on solutions such as server centralization and consolidation. Today, however, IT administrators are recognizing the operational management and cost benefits of blades, particularly for large-scale deployments, and are deploying blades to drive down both capital and operational expenses.
This shift toward blades can be seen in the sales figures. According to IDC’s Quarterly Server Tracker, blades are the fastest-growing server segment and accounted for 9.4% of all server shipments, an increase of 38% from two years ago. U.S. blade server revenue reached $2.9 billion in 2006 and is projected to grow to $11.8 billion in 2011, at which time IDC expects blades to account for 26.4% of all server shipments (see Figure 1).
The Midmarket: Big Computing Needs, Limited Available Resources
Midmarket companies more often than not compete against larger enterprises to attract and retain an increasingly demanding set of customers. Midsize firms often have computing and storage infrastructure needs similar to those of their larger brethren, with typical requirements spanning reliability, scalability, manageability, and affordability. But even though midmarket customers are increasingly interested in the kinds of advanced technology solutions available to enterprises, they are constrained in a variety of ways that have until recently limited their adoption of blade system-based solutions.
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