Well-attended seminar on HP Converged Infrastructure

An HP converged infrastructure seminar took place at a by-invitation-only event held last week. The seminar was dedicated to a group of high level representatives and decision-makers from various local business sectors including IT companies, bank representatives and telecoms, among others.

The overall topic of the event was the HP Converged Infrastructure which is built on a next-generation IT architecture that combines virtualised computing, storage and networks with facilities into a single shared-services environment optimised for any workload. HP believes this unique approach helps businesses accelerate application delivery in a predictable, repeatable way that makes the most efficient use of IT, facility and staff resources to drive business innovation.

Different topics discussed included cloud computing, storage, servers, green computing and the latest HP offerings in these areas were presented. The attendees were shown how to reduce application infrastructure provisioning time from months to minutes; double productivity and payback in less than a year; reduce costs; seamlessly integrate into existing infrastructure; and save weeks of planning and implementation.

Examples of successful implementation of HP systems locally include Bank of Valletta and Fimbank.

HP showed how cloud computing is one of the hottest topics at the moment. It represents a new way for IT to meet the dynamic requirements of the business. It requires a new way of managing, governing and securing your hybrid services environment. Cloud computing is a style of computing where scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to customers using internet technologies.

HP Data Protection, which is becoming more and more crucial for businesses, was presented in more detail. The HP StorageWorks D2D Backup Systems with HP StoreOnce deduplication provide disk-based data protection for data centers and remote offices.

Another newcomer is the HP BladeSystem Matrix which converges computer, storage and network resources and can be easily purchased and quickly deployed.

The enterprise services presentation reviewed some of the solutions and capabilities that HP obtained with the acquisition of EDS in 2008. These included examples of HP’s offering related to e-health Solutions for the public sector and cash management for the financial institutions.

HP’s Personal Systems Group presented the newest HP notebooks, focusing on mobility, which, in this day and age is an absolute necessity for those businesses and professionals constantly on the go.

The Imaging & Printing Group presentation focused on the large format printers which are the “sign” of present and future when it comes to outdoor advertising capabilities and an opportunity for all local businesses to expand their visibility more effectively.