Hewlett-Packard earlier this week announced the HP ProLiant Generation 8 (Gen8) line of servers, based on the HP ProActive Insight architecture. The technology behind the architecture and the servers results from Project Voyager, a two-year initiative to redefine data-center economics by automating every aspect of the server lifecycle.
You can read the HP press release on the announcement, which covers all the basics, and you also can peruse coverage at a number of different media outposts online.
Voyager Follows Moonshot and Odyssey
The Project Voyager-related announcement follows Project Moonshot and Project Odyssey announcements last fall. Moonshot, you might recall, related to low-energy computing infrastructure for web-scale deployments, whereas Odyssey was all about unifying mission-critical computing — encompassing Unix and x86-based Windows and Linux servers — in one system.
A $300-million, two-year program that yielded more than 900 patents, Project Voyager’s fruits, as represented by the ProActive Insight architecture, will span the entire HP Converged Infrastructure.
Intelligence and automation are the buzzwords behind HP’s latest server push. By enabling servers to “virtually take care of themselves,” HP is looking to reduce data-center complexity and cost, while increasing system uptime and boosting compute-related innovation. In support of the announcement, HP culled assorted facts and figures to assert that savings from the new servers can be significant across various enterprise deployment scenarios.
Taking Care of Business
In taking care of its customers, of course, HP is taking care of itself. HP says it tested the ProLiant servers in more than 100 real-world data centers, and that they include more than 150 client-inspired design innovations. That process was smart, and so were the results, which not only speak to real needs of customers, but also address areas that are beyond the purview of Intel (or AMD).
The HP launch eschewed emphasis on system boards, processors, and “feeds and speeds.” While some observers wondered whether that decision was taken because Intel had yet to launch its latest Xeon chips, the truth is that HP is wise to redirect the value focus away from chip performance and toward overall system and data-center capabilities.
Quest for Sustainable Value, Advantage
Processor performance, including speeds and feeds, is the value-added purview of Intel, not of HP. All system vendors ultimately get the same chips from Intel (or AMD). They really can’t differentiate on the processor, because the processor isn’t theirs. Any gains they get from being first to market with a new Intel processor architecture will be evanescent.
They can, however, differentiate more sustainably around and above the processor, which is what HP has done here. Certainly, a lot of value-laden differentiation has been created, as the 900 patent filings attest. In areas such as management, conservation, and automation, HP has found opportunity not only to innovate, but also to make a compelling argument that its servers bring unique benefits into customer data centers.
With margin pressure unlikely to abate in server hardware, HP needed to make the sort of commitment and substantial investment that Project Voyager represented.
Questions About Competition, Patents
From a competitive standpoint, however, two questions arise. First, how easy (or hard) will it be for HP’s system rivals to counter what HP has done, thereby mitigating HP’s edge? Second, what sort of strategy, if any, does HP have in store for its Voyager-related patent portfolio? Come to think of it, those questions — and the answers to them — might be related.
As a final aside, the gentle folks at The Register inform us that HP’s new series of servers is called the ProLiant Gen8 rather than ProLiant G8 — the immediately predecessors are called ProLiant G7 (for Generation 7) — because the sound “gee-ate” is uncomfortably similar to a slang term for “penis” in Mandarin.
Presuming that to be true, one can understand why HP made the change.
Twilight in the Valley of the Nerds 