Global CIO: HP Claims Server Supremacy And Tells IBM: Migrate THIS!

Kumho Tires: A leading South Korean tire manufacturer, Kumho needed to update its legacy IBM mainframe to support its growing business, HP said. After evaluating several vendors' products, Kumho selected the HP Integrity Superdome server running the HP-UX operating system.

Bernalillo County: New Mexico's most-populous county decided to replace its IBM mainframe environment "with an infrastructure that could improve the reliability of its applications, maximize efficiencies and reduce costs," HP said. "By deploying Integrity server blades with HP-UX operating system, the county decreased the number of physical servers, improved overall performance as well as reduced power and cooling requirements by 40 percent."

Union National Bank: Based in the United Arab Emirates, Union National consolidated its core banking system from a multiple AIX clusters—"server sprawl," as Wagner called it—to HP Integrity Superdome 2 servers.

Asked how he would compare and contrast to a prospective customer the server philosophies of HP and IBM, Wagner replied, "When it comes down to choosing HP versus IBM, we think it's not only a server question but it's an infrastructure question.

"We differ on how that venue is defined, and we consider it's larger than just servers: it also hast to include storage and networks and management—we think it's vital to recognize that very different scale to the question," Wagner said.

"And the HP approach is to have common infrastructure, common management, and overall a common set of core optimized infrastructures, all working together in one simple way: that's our Converged Infrastructure concept.

"We feel the IBM concept is a more siloed approach, where they seek to optimize certain environments in certain ways," Wagner said.

"And, clearly, there are some advantages to that approach: you can optimize a specific box for a certain specific purpose—but, when you go that route and build optimized silos, you also 'de-optimize' your ability for them to work together and be managed together simply and effectively."

So for CIOs, it looks like an absolutely fantastic time to be doing some buying, because the sellers are aggressively pushing their different approaches and are becoming increasingly vocal about how they're portraying those strategies and the results of their efforts.

On top of that, with Oracle and Dell each offering its own unique approaches, the server market might not be the Wild West free-for-all of the late '90s, but there are clearly a range of approaches, options, and bundles for CIOs to consider.

Our column 12 days ago called Global CIO: IBM Details Raids On Customers From HP And Oracle triggered HP's response, and we're glad to be able to offer this public discussion of the two companies' approaches.

In that earlier column, IBM offered this perspective: "Customers are turning to IBM for risk-mitigation in moving off Sun and HP platforms and for IBM's long-term investments in integrated systems—industry-leading hardware, systems software and middleware. These systems are designed to handle emerging workloads such as business analytics. For example, businesses can use IBM technology to connect with millions of prospects and customers, and gain real insight about buyers of cars, insurance, retails and other products by mining global data about those buyers and analyzing that information to their benefit."

Along with my colleague Alex Wolfe and his excellent "Server Den" columns—including Server Den: HP Fires Back At Oracle--we'll do our best to help you keep up with the latest strategies in this highly dynamic part of the market.

RECOMMENDED READING: Global CIO: IBM Details Raids On Customers From HP And Oracle Global CIO: Larry Ellison Vows To 'Go After' HP; Is Alliance Dead? Server Den: HP Fires Back At Oracle Global CIO: Apple, IBM, Or Microsoft: Who Has World's #1 Most-Valuable Software Product? Global CIO: Larry Ellison's Heightened Attacks On HP Doom Alliance Global CIO: Larry Ellison Puts HP In Crosshairs Via Slap At New CEO Global CIO: In Larry Ellison's Legal Battle With SAP, HP Is Collateral Damage Global CIO: HP CEO Apotheker Has Deep Expertise But Checkered History Global CIO: Are HP And SAP Perfect Match Or Train Wreck? Global CIO: Hewlett-Packard's Missing Link Is Analytics Global CIO: Burying Mark Hurd: Hewlett-Packard And Its Future Global CIO: Hewlett-Packard's CEO: The Top 10 Challenges Global CIO: Has HP Found Its Next CEO? Global CIO: Larry Ellison And Mark Hurd: The Job Interview Global CIO: Resurrecting Mark Hurd: Larry Ellison's War With IBM Global CIO: Gunning For IBM And Oracle, HP Plans Optimized Systems Blitz Global CIO: HP's $130-Billion Gamble Global CIO: An Open Letter To HP CEO Leo Apotheker Global CIO: Top 10 Most Influential Vendors, Part 2 (Microsoft And HP?) Global CIO: Can HP's CEO Survive? The Board Talks It Over Global CIO: HP CEO Leo Apotheker's Agenda: What Will He Do First? Global CIO: IBM Details Raids On Customers From HP And Oracle Bob Evans is senior VP and director of InformationWeek's Global CIO unit.

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