PALO ALTO, Calif., March 16, 2009 - HP today announced the new, entry-level HP Integrity NonStop NS2000 server family, which delivers high performance and fault-tolerance at the lowest cost available for a multi-core Integrity NonStop system.

The NS2000 is ideal for small and midsized organizations in the healthcare, financial services and telecommunications industries, as well as customers in emerging markets. It allows organizations to cost-effectively meet the high availability and scalability of their business. Designed with the full benefits of HP NonStop technology, the NS2000 family paves the way for future growth without the worry of application compatibility.

“There is a large segment of smaller enterprise customers that tends to be priced out of the market for high-end, fault-tolerant servers,” said Jim Johnson, chief executive officer of the research company Standish Group. “For those customers, the NS2000 server offers significant value and additional choice for application availability and fault tolerance.”

The new rack-mounted NS2000 servers are simple to manage and fully leverage the power of Intel® Itanium® multi-core processors to deliver:

• Double the performance capacity of previous NonStop entry-class systems.
• 24/7 data availability and real-time access to critical business applications.
• A cost-effective development and test platform for HP Integrity NonStop BladeSystem customers. The NS2000 closely matches their production environments with a common software and I/O infrastructure.
• A target migration platform for current HP Integrity NonStop S-series customers. The NS2000 runs the same applications, offering complete investment protection by extending existing solution capabilities.

“Customers with limited IT resources are looking for cost-effective solutions that quickly and easily deliver the fault-tolerant capabilities they need to minimize risk of downtime,” said Winston Prather, general manager, NonStop, HP. “The NS2000 Integrity family delivers the performance and reliability our customers need right out of the box, at a very competitive price point.”

The HP Integrity NonStop NS2000 server family is available worldwide in a variety of configurations based on specific customer requirements. Customers have a choice of four- or eight-core hardware base bundles, 8 gigabytes (GB) or 16 GB memory per processor, as well as AC and DC powered versions.

Pricing information is available by contacting a local HP representative.

More information on HP Integrity NonStop is available at www.hp.com/go/integrity/nonstop/ns2000.

SAN JOSE Calif. - March 16, 2009 - Cisco today unveiled an evolutionary new data center architecture, innovative services and an open ecosystem of best in class partners to help customers develop next-generation data centers that unleash the full power of virtualization. With today’s announcement, Cisco is delivering on the promise of virtualization through Unified Computing - an architecture that bridges the silos in the data center into one unified architecture using industry standard technologies. Key to Cisco’s approach is the Cisco Unified Computing System which unites compute, network, storage access, and virtualization resources in a single energy efficient system that can reduce IT infrastructure costs and complexity, help extend capital assets and improve business agility well into the future.

Today’s announcements extend Cisco’s data center portfolio and are a critical step in the company’s Data Center 3.0 strategy. To help customers accelerate the transition to the Unified Computing architecture, Cisco is paving the way with a comprehensive suite of new Unified Computing services. In addition, Cisco today announced collaboration with industry leaders on the Unified Computing System and architecture.

• The Cisco Unified Computing System: Based on industry standards, the Unified Computing System is a new computing model that uses integrated management and combines a “wire once” unified fabric with an industry standard computing platform to optimize virtualization, reduce data center total overall cost, and provide dynamic resource provisioning for increased business agility.
  • Reduces total cost of ownership: up to 20 percent reduction in capital expenditures (CAPEX) and up to 30% reduction in operational expenditures (OPEX).
  • Improves IT productivity and improves business agility: provision applications in minutes instead of days. Shifts the focus from IT maintenance to IT innovation
  • Increases scalability without added complexity: managed as a single system, whether it has one or 320 servers with thousands of virtual machines.
  • Improves Energy Efficiency: significantly reduces power and cooling costs
  • Provides interoperability and investment protection through industry standards-based infrastructure
• Innovative Design for Next Generation Data Centers

Taking a clean slate architectural approach to data center infrastructure, Cisco today introduced the Unified Computing System which unites compute, network, storage access, and virtualization into a scalable, modular architecture that is managed as a single system. The Unified Computing System is the first offering in a new family of products which complements the Cisco data center portfolio. Key Unified Computing System elements include:

• Compute - Cisco designed an entirely new class of computing system which incorporates the new Cisco UCS B-Series blades based on the future Intel® Nehalem processor families (the next generation Intel® Xeon® processor). The Cisco blades offer patented extended memory technology to support applications with large data sets and allow significantly more Virtual Machines per server.
• Network - The Cisco Unified Computing System provides support for a unified fabric over a low-latency, lossless, 10 Gigabit-per-second Ethernet foundation. This network foundation consolidates what today are three separate networks: local area networks (LANs), storage area networks (SANs) and high performance computing networks. This lowers costs by reducing the number of network adapters, switches, and cables and by decreasing power and cooling requirements.
• Virtualization - The Cisco Unified Computing System unleashes the full potential of virtualization, by enhancing the scalability, performance and operational control of virtual environments. Cisco security, policy enforcement, and diagnostics features are now extended into dynamic virtualized environments to better support changing business and IT requirements.
• Storage Access - The Cisco Unified Computing System provides consolidated access to both storage area networks (SANs) and to network attached storage (NAS). Support for a unified fabric means that the Unified Computing System can access storage over Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet or iSCSI, providing customers with choices and investment protection. In addition, IT staff can pre-assign storage access policies for system connectivity to storage resources, simplifying storage connectivity and management, and helping to increase IT productivity.
• Management - Management is uniquely integrated into all the components of the system, enabling the entire solution to be managed as a single entity through the Cisco UCS Manager. The Cisco UCS Manager provides an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI), a command line interface (CLI), and a robust application programming interface (API) to manage all system configuration and operations. Cisco UCS Manager helps to increase IT staff productivity, enabling IT managers of storage, networking, compute and applications to collaborate on defining service profiles for applications. Service profiles help to automate provisioning and increase business agility, allowing data center managers to provision applications in minutes instead of days.

• Energy Efficiency - IT managers can achieve more energy efficient data centers with the Cisco Unified Computing System - it uses one-half the components, and requires less cabling and power/cooling than legacy server installations.
• Cisco Unified Computing Services
  • Building on more than a decade of experience in the data center, Cisco today launched a suite of new Unified Computing Services to help customers capture the full technical and business benefits of the Cisco Unified Computing architecture.
  • Strengthening the data center portfolio already offered by Cisco and our partners, the new services range from architecture design, planning, and migration, to operations, and remote management. These services touch all aspects of data center resources people, processes, and technologies.
  • Cisco’s unique collaborative services model combines Cisco Services’ deep intellectual property with best-in-class services partnerships to deliver integrated solutions to our customers.
• Open Partner Ecosystem - Cisco is collaborating with an open ecosystem of industry leaders to help stimulate technology innovation, augment service delivery, and accelerate market adoption of Unified Computing. More details on these partners available here.
• The Cisco Unified Computing System and associated services will be generally available to customers starting in the second quarter of 2009.

LAS VEGAS - (PMA BOOTH NO. R260) — Mar. 3, 2009 - WD® (NYSE: WDC), the world’s leader in external storage solutions, today announced that WD ShareSpace™ network storage systems now offer 8 TB (terabytes) of capacity, up to 30 percent faster transfer speeds, and DLNA¹ media streaming capabilities. Combined with its ease-of-use and small footprint, WD ShareSpace is now a more compelling solution for small offices and digital media enthusiasts who want to store, protect and share massive amounts of content. 

Responding to small-business customers’ needs for increased shared storage, WD incorporated its industry-first 2 terabyte WD Caviar® Green™ drive into WD ShareSpace’s flexible four-bay design, creating a massive 8 TB’s of storage in a small footprint. 

The included WD Anywhere Backup™ software provides automatic and continuous protection for the valuable data from every PC and Mac on the network. 

To speed up both backup and storage, WD improved WD ShareSpace’s read and write speeds up to 30 percent for large media files. Current WD ShareSpace owners may download the new firmware update (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/wdsharespace/) to experience these performance improvements. 

Twenty-six percent of broadband households worldwide find it very appealing to be able to play PC-stored content on their TV, and the majority of consumers buying network storage cite as important the ability to serve content to other devices (58 percent), according to a recent Parks Associates studies (Aug. 2008). 

To meet the needs of digital media enthusiasts, WD added a DLNA Certified media server to the WD ShareSpace system, making it easy to stream music, photos and videos to popular DLNA-Certified devices including Windows® Vista® PCs, Playstation®3, and Xbox 360®. The previously included iTunes® Music Server lets anyone on the network stream the music collection on WD ShareSpace to any PC or Mac running iTunes. 

“With its huge capacity and small footprint, WD ShareSpace has become a popular choice among small business owners. By doubling capacity and increasing transfer speeds, the new 8 TB WD ShareSpace offers more value to small business users,” said Jim Welsh, senior vice president and general manager of WD’s branded products and consumer electronics groups. “Digital media enthusiasts, on the other hand, will really appreciate the new streaming support which lets them easily stream to PCs, Macs and game consoles. With the new WD ShareSpace, we have made important improvements for all our customers.” 

Price and Availability 
The new 8 TB capacity will be available this week at WD’s online store (www.shopwd.com). WD ShareSpace network storage systems also are offered in capacities of 2 TB and 4 TB. MSRP for the WD ShareSpace storage system with 8 TB is $1,699.99 USD 

Features 
The new high-speed network storage systems feature: 

• A small-footprint, 4-bay storage system that takes up very little space and provides plenty of storage to go around; 
• GigE connectivity with data transfer rates up to one gigabit per second when used in a GigE network; 
• RAID 0/1/5 capabilities for data protection and speed; 
• E-mail alert system that monitors drive and system health and sends you an e-mail if a problem is detected; 
• UPnP/DLNA 1.5 Certified Media Server; 
• iTunes server for centralized shared music; 
• Microsoft Active Directory® directory service support; 
• Plug a USB drive into the front-mounted USB 2.0 port and push a button to transfer automatically all the data on the drive to the WD ShareSpace system; 
• Automatic and continuous² network backup software including licenses to back up 3 computers; 
• WD’s unique MioNet remote Web access service (for PC and Mac) that lets users access the drive from anywhere; 
• Download manager that supports scheduled downloads through FTP and HTTP; 
• Windows Vista® operating system ready; 
• Built-in FTP server; 
• 3 USB 2.0 ports; 
• Equipped with WD drives using WD GreenPower technology, this system, with its efficient cooling architecture and power saving mode, consumes up to 33 percent less power³ and is reliably cool and quiet; and, 
• 3-year limited warranty.

Round Rock, Texas, March 3, 2009 - Dell today introduced next-generation data center infrastructure products designed to help customers simplify and manage their data center environment while improving energy efficiency. The Dell PowerEdge 4220 and PowerEdge 2420 rack enclosures support Dell’s broad portfolio of servers and storage systems and can be used in virtually any environment, including data centers, remote offices, wiring closets or even factory floors.

The News:

• Rack design plays a key role in building an efficient and manageable data center. Data center racks now incorporate technologies designed to efficiently store, power, cool, manage and secure hardware. These features enable each rack to function as its own small data center.
• Dell’s new rack enclosures are designed to help customers enhance hardware utilization, create effective power and cooling, and reduce the server footprint in their data center.
• The PowerEdge 4220 and PowerEdge 2420 rack enclosures incorporate several new innovative features including:

  Efficient Power and Cooling : 80 percent front-and-rear-door perforation lowers the cold air restraint to the server to enhance efficiency.  The new racks are deeper than previous Dell racks (1071mm vs. 1000mm), so there’s more space for hot air to move out of the rack. The new Dell racks also feature air dams at the front mounting posts to prevent hot air at the back of the servers from leaking back to the front of the servers, which can increase server inlet air temperatures.

  Effective Power Distribution : Flexible rear and side-rack power distribution unit (PDU) options gives IT staff easy access to power outlets within the rack and doesn’t take up valuable rack space designated for IT equipment.

  Simplified Cable Management : Cable management options such as adjustable cable rings and removable “tail-bars” at the top and bottom of the rack back frame simplify power and cable routing.

  Strong and Secure : The PowerEdge 4220 rack has a static load rating of 2,500 pounds and the PowerEdge 2420 has a static load rating of 1,500 pounds. Stabilizer bars to secure the rack to the floor, or ‘ganging kits’ to bolt adjacent racks to each other are also available.

Reveal Your Hidden Data Center

• These new products enable customers to improve the energy efficiency of their data center infrastructure. Businesses can achieve optimal data center performance by also focusing on IT productivity or the amount of useful work they are getting out of the data center.
• Dell’s Reveal Your Hidden Data Center strategy focuses on server virtualization and consolidation, decommissioning out-of-use equipment, refreshing legacy systems, finding the optimal data center temperature, utilizing containment and moving cooling closer to IT to help businesses improve productivity and energy efficiency in their existing data centers.
• Dell’s goal is to first help customers find a way to prolong the use of their current data centers instead of building new ones. This ties into our larger goal of helping customerssimplify and save.

Data Center Optimization Services

• Dell offers Data Center Optimization Services through its data center consulting practice including virtualization and storage consulting, data center consolidation and migration and data center design, layout and configuration. These new services help customers further improve productivity, energy efficiency and capacity in existing facilities and avoid the significant costs associated with building a new data center.
• Dell today announced that its data center consulting practice will utilize Future Facilities‘ 6SigmaDC software suite to design and simulate data centers that maximize space utilization and energy efficiency through the optimal configuration and placement of IT hardware, racks, cabinets and power and cooling equipment.