There are dozens of manufactures making good network servers. One however stands out and in our opinion is more suitable for most businesses. Here is why.

1.      Installed Base

Feature
HP ProLiant is the market share leader in all major Intel-based deployment scenarios, including

• Windows

•  Linux

•  Netware

• Citrix

Benefit:
Better and more complete support of operating systems through better driver support.
Larger installed base means more tested and tried hardware/software combinations, greater support knowledge base, more robust, more supportable systems.

2.      Hardware Consistency

Feature:
HP’s hardware consistency strategy provides commonality of system components and longer lifecycles of servers, storage and options.
In contrast, other vendors are constantly chasing the price/performance curve and constantly changing underlying technologies (eg. network cards, disk controllers, RAID controllers, video cards, BIOS, motherboards etc.).  This leads to hardware, firmware and driver differences between systems.

Benefit:
Proliant delivers a highly standardised, easily supportable environment with high levels of commonality and compatibility across the product range.

3.      Operating System Certification & Support

Feature:
As a result of a long-standing commitment to thorough testing and certification, HP has more systems appearing on the Microsoft, Novell and Red Hat hardware compatibility lists than any other vendor.

Benefit:
HP is a single point of support and accountability for problems resulting from hardware/software interaction.  HP has access to the highest levels of technical support and escalation with Microsoft, Novell, Red Hat (and other Linux distributions).

4.      Guaranteed Service Life

Feature:
HP guarantees spare parts availability for 5 years from date of last sale.

Benefit:
There is no risk of pre-mature retirement or obsolescence of hardware platforms due to inability to service and repair.

5.      Management Instrumentation

Feature:
Proliant servers feature the industry’s most comprehensive built-in hardware management features, with monitoring and pre-failure alerting of CPUs, fans, power supplies, disks, memory and environmental factors such as input voltages and temperature.

Benefit:
System-initiated pre-failure alerting results in less unplanned downtime due to hardware or environmental issues.

6.      Quality of Components

Feature:
HP is the largest consumer of OEM components such as hard drives, memory, CPUs and disk drives. As such, we demand the most stringent testing procedures.

In many cases, component batches that fail HP-specific testing are “down-graded” and sold at reduced prices to other system manufacturers.

Benefit:
Reduced incidence of system downtime through hardware component failure.

7.      High Level of Integration

Feature:
HP Proliant servers use HP-developed BIOS, RAID controllers, hard drive firmware, tape drive firmware and operating-specific drivers, for the highest levels of integration

In contrast, many other vendors use off-the-shelf components with very little integration or testing for compatibility.

Benefit:
Proliant provides a single consistent approach to managing firmware and driver updates an diagnostics for all system components. All firmware and driver updates are tested by HP prior to release.

All drivers are sourced and supported through HP. This results in a reduced incidence of user-level testing and troubleshooting of issues related to incompatibilities between different firmware and driver versions.

8.      Serviceability

Feature:
HP Proliant servers feature the industry’s best system design including hot plug power supplies, hot-plug fans, hot-plug memory, hot-plug disk, hot-plug PCI cards. These features plus modular internal components, tool-free serviceability and advanced cable management, provide the highest levels of in-rack serviceability.

Benefit:
Proliant servers are easier to service and faster to repair, resulting in less downtime.

9.      Supportability

Feature:
HP Proliant servers are backed by the industry’s most comprehensive technical training and certification program. The Accredited Systems Engineer (ASE) program extends to internal HP service and support engineers, HP reseller technical staff and customers’ own technical support personnel.

Benefit:
A readily available and easily accessible pool of technically trained professionals is available to help customers implement and support Proliant server infrastructure.

If you are interested in HP network servers please contact us and we will be more than happy to assist your needs.