VMware makes HP’s global IT consolidation a realityHewlett-Packard

The challenge: intangible consolidationTo date, HP has done what many other companies havedone—as server infrastructures grow, the common strategyhas been to add another server or piece of hardwareto the system. And, each new application server, mailserver and firewall in that environment calls for anotherpiece of hardware, or several, depending on power andfailover requirements. The new hardware then needs tobe configured and integrated into the IT environment.This “server sprawl” situation can be costly, both in termsof underutilized hardware and augmented managementrequirements.

Currently, HP has over 20,000 HP ProLiant servers installedworldwide, but the IT company has a distinct goal todramatically reduce this number as part of its DataCenter Consolidation (DCC) program. Over the last fouryears Paul Bennett, HP’s IT Server & Storage, WindowsService Engineering Project Manager, has been leadingthe internal server virtualization initiative in an attemptto do more with less, reduce costs and achieve higherservice levels.

• “Primarily our challenges were that we are avery large company and extremely enterprise-focused. We’ve got a number of very largebusiness units that make up the company. AndHP is also worldwide-focused; very driven byregional components. For the most part, alarge part of our applications were executedindividually by regions, and consequently wewould implement the infrastructure in eachregion, then each region’s IT manager wouldcarry out its management. We would act as a

Executive summary:In recent years, corporations worldwide have struggledto squeeze more value from information technology invest-ments and it’s no different even for one of the world’slargest IT corporations: Hewlett-Packard. Commonly knownas HP, the over 65 year-old company is headquarteredin Palo Alto, California, and has a global presence(Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacificregions) in the fields of computing, printing, and digitalimaging, and also provides software and services.

HP’s global IT infrastructure is growing rapidly and theneed to explore successful strategies such as consolidation,enhanced service delivery and cost reduction are allcritical to their business goals. It becomes an attempt, aswith any other company, to find the right combination ofagility to meet evolving requirements and control overtechnology standards and expenses.

“From an HP standpoint we’ve demonstrateda substantial enterprise environment that’sinvolved with VMware, which supports a solidproduction environment.”– Paul Bennett, HP-IT Server & Storage,Windows Service Engineering ProjectManager, Hewlett-Packard

is very difficult to reassign resources quickly.Bennett and his team at HP needed topositively impact overall utilization numbersand ultimately optimize service levels.

The solution and success: solidify a worldwidestandard solutionIn that time, HP began to look for solutions basically toalleviate a lot of the expanding infrastructure costs. Themost likely option was implementing an IT consolidationstrategy that uses virtualization by applying VMwareInc.’s virtual machine software (VMware) to create virtualmachines (VM). After a proof-of-concept, HP beganusing VMware two years ago in both production andtest development servers worldwide.

• “VMware has been a leading aspect ofvirtualization now for many, many years. Theyare considered the cream of the industry in thisarea; they’ve been doing most of the drivingof the technology. They have proven themselvesto us prior to being involved with them, andthey have proven themselves afterwards.”VMware solutions consists of a virtual machinethat can execute its own guest operating system,such as (but not limited to) Windows 2003and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. In simple terms,VMware allows one physical machine to runnumerous operating systems simultaneously.Other HP and VMware products [VirtualMachine Management (VMM) Pack, ServerMigration Pack (SMP) from HP and VMotionand VirtualCenter from VMware] help manageor migrate VMware virtual machines acrossmultiple host machines.

consolidating function, trying to put the overallstandards across the regions and then theywould complete the implementation.” HPrealized that they could benefit from movingtowards a centralized type of environmentrather than individual regional standardizations.The idea was that if they could consolidate asmuch as possible, then there would be aspectsof fixed costs HP could reduce. Consolidatinginto an industry-standard enterprise infrastructurecould maximize both hardware and softwarecapabilities while reducing management andmaintenance tasks. Bennett adds, “We neededto be confident in a solution that was not afly-by-night type of technology.”

• “Everything was basically on individual physicalservers, all the way from small 2-CPU servers,up to large 8 socket servers on the Windowsside, and significantly it was the same type ofdeal with HPUX: HP’s own Unix operatingsystem. What we had found is that a largeamount of test development servers, and evenproduction servers based on those test/devservers, including each application had theirown server. That’s what drove us to acquiringwell over 20,000 servers in the infrastructure.”The result of that finding was that a lot of HP’sservers were at a very low utilization level, bothat the central processing unit (CPU) and atmemory utilization. But most notable was theunderutilization of the CPU in terms of perform-ance as the speed of the processors picked up.Moreover, dedicated servers could impose arisk of under-servicing the business because it

“The VMware implementationeliminates a large amount ofcosts for hardware contractsand ups the utilization of theservers; so HP ends up gettinga better bang for the buck.”– HP-IT S&S,Windows Service EngineeringProject Manager,Paul Bennett,Hewlett-Packard (HP)

• “With VMware we’ve found a 25-30% reductionin actual costs of the physical servers...We’vealso found a fairly good average of overallutilization. So the actual physical hardware isnow showing up to 40-50% utilization levelsof each overall unit.” Today there are approxi-mately 70 HP ProLiant DL760 G2 8 socketservers running VMware with about 1,000virtual machines across HP’s physical serversglobally. VMware ESX is being used to virtualizephysical servers into virtual machines. TheseVMs run a wide range of applications fromdevelopment machines, Web hosting, internallydeveloped applications and database solutionssuch as Microsoft SQL Server. The solution isused primarily to consolidate under-utilizedservers into virtual machine implementations.A typical HP ProLiant DL760 G2 server nowhas 20 virtual machines running, with moreheadroom to add additional virtual machinesas needed.

In the future scope, Bennett and his team are planning tomove into production with HP’s comprehensive andpowerful HP ProLiant DL585 (4 socket, AMD dual-core)Host servers and an HP BladeSystem solution. And as anyinfrastructure is upgraded to a newer hardware platform,it may be advantageous to keep existing applicationsrunning under their current operating systems. Withvirtualization, HP can now upgrade and run their applica-tions without modification inside a virtual machine.

Much like VMware Inc., HP continues to take a cutting-edge role in the technology industry. By using VMwareinternally, HP is most significantly taking that leading roleonce again. Adding virtualization to HP’s Data CenterConsolidation program was the most cost-effective way toleverage an investment and add flexibility to its environ-ment. VMware is important to HP because it gives the ITinfrastructure teams the ability to achieve the aggressiveconsolidation plans going forward and to reach thelevels of flexibility required to service a complex globalcompany like Hewlett-Packard.

About HPHP is a technology solutions provider to consumers,businesses and institutions globally. The company'sofferings span IT infrastructure, global services, businessand home computing, and imaging and printing. For thefour fiscal quarters ended Jan. 31, 2006, HP revenuetotaled $87.9 billion. More information about HP (NYSE,Nasdaq: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

To learn more, visit www.hp.com

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Challenges Solution Results

• Hardware:

• 70 HP ProLiant DL760 G2 servers (eight processors)

• Transitioning to HP ProLiant DL585 and HP BladeSystem in HP’s Data Center Consolidation (DCC) program

• Software:

• VMware ESX 2.5 operating system (OS)

• Windows OS 2003 Virtual Machines

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS Virtual Machines

• VMware VirtualCenter and VMotion

• HP Systems Insight Manager and HP ProLiant Essentials Virtual Machine Management Pack and Server Migration Pack for migrations into the VMware environments

• Planning for HP ProLiant EssentialsRapid Deployment Pack andHP Systems Insight Manager forHP BladeSystem

• HP Services:

• HP Consulting & Integration services

• IT Infrastructure for implementation and ongoing project management

• Consolidate, streamline andstandardize global IT infrastructure

• Raise service levels

• Reduce technical-support requirements

• Simplify server configuration andmanagement

• Reduce time-to-deploy physical server

• Improve server performance andutilization

• Reduce IT costs

• Simplicity

• Reduced costs through fewer required servers, less demands for data center space, and less power and cooling

• Improved management

• Agility

• Increased utilization of physical servers

• Reduced complexity of moving VMs from one system to another using zero-downtime VMotion technology

• Reduced time-to-deploy VMs vs. a physical server

• Value

• Breadth of support with HP systems and storage

• Simplified management with existing OpenView and other management software

• Increased service levels globally

• Reduced application downtime via VMotion and SANs

• Consolidating a standards-based global IT infrastructure

* This customers results depended upon itsunique business and IT environment, theway it used HP products and services andother IT factors. These results may not betypical; your results may vary.

© 2006 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to changewithout notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statementsaccompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additionalwarranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Intel is aregistered US trademark of Intel Corporation. Printed in the USA.