Hewlett-Packard and IBM continue their battle for dominance in the blade server market this week, with HP introducing a management software offering for Linux and IBM announcing growth of its Blade.org community.
The HP Control Tower software, based on technology gained last year through HP's acquisition of RLX Technologies, was introduced Wednesday and offers deployment and monitoring capabilities for HP BladeSystem installations. Working in conjunction with HP Systems Insight Manager, the software provides easy management of blade servers running on a Linux operating system, says Lee Johns, director of Velocity software, enterprise storage, and servers for HP.
"This will really enable us to simplify the management of blades that are Linux-centric," Johns says. "It is a simple-to-set-up tool that enables you to get the infrastructure up and running in about 30 minutes." About 30% of HP's BladeSystem deployments use Linux, he says.
HP Control Tower will be available next month for $199 per license.
IBM on Monday announced that Blade.org, a community of third-party companies providing support for IBM's BladeCenter platform, has expanded from the original 40 members announced at its launch in February to 60 members.
Network automation is gaining momentum. Here's how you can drive this powerful technology to its full potential.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
