HP Improves Performance, Reduces Costs with Support for Virtualized Server Environments


New support services optimize business-critical applications on HP ProLiant servers

PALO ALTO, Calif. - HP today announced a comprehensive support solution that enables clients running business-critical applications on virtualized HP ProLiant servers to improve performance and availability while reducing costs and complexity.

The new HP Critical Advantage service provides clients with an assigned account team to deliver support and maintain uptime of business-critical, virtualized environments. Account teams focus on problem resolution and process improvement, which enables clients to redirect staff resources toward innovation.

"As enterprises virtualize their industry standards-based environments to control costs and gain flexibility, they are realizing the vast complexities the technology can introduce," said Matt Healey, research manager, Software and Hardware Support Services, IDC. "End-to-end support services such as HP Critical Advantage can improve availability and reduce downtime of business-critical applications so that clients can fully realize the potential of virtualization."

Innovative approach reduces risk of downtime, expands client choice

HP Critical Advantage is the first comprehensive service offering from a major technology vendor that delivers support for business-critical applications in virtualized x86 environments. As more organizations implement business-critical applications on virtualized x86 servers, the need to avoid unplanned downtime while accelerating performance has increased. HP Critical Advantage services maintain clients' uptime by offering support levels based on needs and budget.

- The HP Global Mission Critical Solution Center reduces frequency and duration
of outages by providing rapid reactive support and incident resolution for
complex business-critical environments.

- A defined set of proactive services based on industry best practices for change
management and process improvement helps prevent unplanned downtime by
anticipating potential issues.

- Flexible credits provide a range of services suitable for clients' needs. Credits
accumulate with the amount of HP Critical Advantage purchased.

HP Critical Advantage Flexible Proactive Services include:

- Performance & Capacity Analysis for Virtual Environments guides clients on virtualization capacity planning to align performance with business demands.

- Virtualization Readiness Workshop for Critical Applications provides infrastructure planning and assessment that help clients quickly achieve virtualization's benefits while mitigating potential risks.

- Availability Analysis in Virtual Environments improves efficiency and maintains
uptime by optimizing virtualized environments.

"Clients are facing challenges in maintaining high availability when running
business-critical applications on virtualized infrastructures," said William Loupakos,
senior vice president, Professional Services, American Digital Corporation. "As an
HP Services Sales Elite partner, we can now offer clients services to increase
performance of their ProLiant environment, while expanding their choices of support
options."

Pricing and availability

HP Critical Advantage is available now through HP Technology Services.

Additional information about HP Critical Advantage is available at
www.hp.com/services/criticaladvantage.

With mission-critical support for virtualized HP ProLiant servers, HP Critical Advantage services advance clients toward an HP Converged Infrastructure, a key
foundation of an Instant-On Enterprise. In a world of continuous connectivity, the
Instant-On Enterprise embeds technology in everything it does to serve customers,
employees, partners and citizens with whatever they need, instantly.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world's largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at www.hp.com.

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