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HP Strengthens Client Virtualization Portfolio with Bundled Blade PC and Citrix XenDesktop Offering
Thursday 12. February 2009 - Building on its extensive client virtualization portfolio, HP today announced with Citrix a simplified solution that integrates affordable, high-performance HP Blade PCs and Citrix XenDesktop 3 to help businesses reduce costs and enjoy better manageability, scalability and security than with traditional PCs.
At the core of the solution are the new HP BladeSystem bc2800 Blade PC and HP BladeSystem bc2200 Blade PC, which offer advanced infrastructure control and scalability. These products are combined with Citrix XenDesktop 3 to provide a high-definition user experience and centralized desktop management. The combined offering leverages the power of both the data center and endpoint devices to significantly reduce desktop total cost of ownership.
“By combining HP blade PCs with XenDesktop, weve created a simple, low-cost virtualization solution that helps companies efficiently manage and scale their computing environments while delivering the high-performance experience knowledge and power users demand,” said Roberto Moctezuma, vice president and general manager, Desktop Solutions Organization, HP. “Particularly in this challenging economic environment, we see client virtualization as a cost-efficient alternative for companies needing to economically update and better manage their personal computing infrastructures.”
“This joint offering with HP demonstrates our continued commitment to deliver products and solutions that provide customers best-in-class desktop virtualization solutions, delivering a high-definition user experience and streamlined architecture for quick, easy and cost-effective deployments,” said Raj Dhingra, group vice president and general manager, Desktop Delivery Group, Citrix Systems.
Simplified and highly secure management
Built for professionals who interact with confidential and business-critical data, centralized client virtualization solutions from HP keep data protected within the data center, ensuring the highest levels of security while helping businesses meet regulatory standards.
To help simplify IT management and allow better infrastructure control and scalability, HP blade PCs with XenDesktop 3 offer advanced administrator tools, including remote access, control of hardware and software configuration and quick setup, as well as user allocation tools.
Customers get a streamlined client architecture that delivers an enhanced, high-definition user experience for graphics and multimedia content from any device on any network. All HP blade PCs with Citrix XenDesktop 3 can be seamlessly deployed with a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure environment to build a comprehensive, integrated client virtualization solution.
Dedicated performance for a consistent user experience
At 25 watts per blade, the HP BladeSystem bc2200 offers the highest rack density and lowest power usage of any blade client solution in the market today. With capacity for 280 blades per rack and using only 7.4 kilowatts, the HP BladeSystem bc2200 helps businesses maximize available rack space and implement larger deployments without having to build additional and costly power and cooling systems.
The highly efficient HP BladeSystem bc2200 and HP BladeSystem bc2800 reduce individual employee power usage while maintaining the full functionality of a desktop PC. HP blade PCs also include 90 percent-efficient, redundant power supplies to reduce power consumption and increase system reliability. Combined with energy-efficient HP thin clients, the new blade PCs create a complete client virtualization solution that uses significantly less energy than a traditional desktop PC.
HP blade PCs provide a desktop experience with a fully dedicated CPU plus graphics, up to 8 gigabytes(1) (GB) of memory and an 80 GB(2) hard drive for a consistent, uninterrupted user experience. This helps ensure workers can maintain full productivity despite varying workloads or the range of desktop applications in use. In addition, the HP BladeSystem bc2800 is available with HP Remote Graphic Software, which provides a highly secure, collaborative remote desktop access to rich multimedia applications.
The HP BladeSystem bc2200 blade PC features a single-core AMD Athlon 64 processor,(3) 520 MHz memory speed and integrated ATI graphics. The HP BladeSystem bc2800 high-performance blade PC features an AMD Turion X2(4) TL-66(5) dual-core processor, 767 MHz memory speed and integrated ATI graphics.
Both HP Blade PCs come preinstalled with Microsoft Windows Vista Business edition and support a range of operating systems, including Windows Vista Enterprise 32-bit, Windows Vista Business 64-bit, Windows XP Professional SP 3 and Linux. The HP BladeSystem PCs plug vertically into the HP BladeSystem PC Blade Enclosure and include two Broadcom 5906M 10/100 Integrated Network Controllers.(6)
Availability
The HP BladeSystem bc2800 Blade PC and HP BladeSystem bc2200 Blade PC are expected to be available in March.
Availability of the HP BladeSystem and Citrix XenDesktop bundle, configuration and pricing is to be announced. These bundles are expected to be available direct from HP, HP resellers and joint HP-authorized Citrix resellers.