Today was the first day on the HP Campus and our schedule is jam packed with sessions with HP experts. We started off watching a video about how HP provided data solutions for the new stadium for the Dallas Cowboys. They have over 200 concession stands and each one needed it’s own server to run properly. They run those 200 Windows 2003 servers on 16 HP blades running VMWare. They went from 500 servers in their old datacenter to 250 blades in the new stadium. This not only cut the amount of space and power that was required but also sped up some of their basic tasks 50 times what they were with the old setup.
After the video Gary Thome, Chief Architect for ISB presented an overview for the Infrastructure Software and Blades division as well as presenting his thoughts for Data Center trends for 2010. One of the key points of his presentation was virtualization of the data center, including power. After Gary’s presentation was complete we had a partner presentation from a HP Partner on their business and why they partner with HP. Before we broke for Lunch we had a great presentation on Virtual Connect and how HP views standards like FCoE and other standards.
After we broke for lunch we split up into two groups. My group went into the BladeSystem lab to discuss the HP Blades. We then visited the Insight Software group to learn about the Infrastructure Software HP is working on. After we went over the Infrastructure Software we then went back into the BladeLab to go over a competitive difference session. Stay Tuned for more in depth posts of these sessions coming in the next few days!
We ended our day at HP with a discussion from Paul Perez, CTO of Storage for HP. Paul had some very interesting views and ideas of where storage is going toward the future. One of the items he was very passionate about was something called a memristor, a new type of storage that he believes will fuel the next generation of storage products.
This trip was sponsored by HP. HP paid for the travel arrangements and most meals for 10 bloggers to visit the HP Houston campus.