Citrix welcomes HP virtual portfolio

HP has launched a new virtualisation management range, the Data Centre Transformation portfolio, which it has claimed enables it to design a whole datacentre for enterprises.

The vendor has announced numerous virtual datacentre offerings including design services, consolidation services for businesses wanting to pare the number of datacentres in operation, and new software.

As a result of its February acquisition of EYP Mission Critical Facilities, HP’s portfolio contains critical facilities services, which are designed to reduce the cost of datacentre operations.

Other new services include data centre consolidation services and data centre virtualisation services, which are aimed at reducing energy costs and education services.

Roger Perton, business continuity service manager for the UK and Ireland at HP, said: “The products are an expansion of HP’s already established virtualisation offering.”

“This is not HP’s first virtualisation offering. HP’s products have been around for years; we practically invented virtualisation,” he added.

Also announced this week, Citrix and HP have jointly developed an integrated server virtualisation solution called Citrix XenServer HP Select Edition through a strategic development agreement.

John Glendenning, vice president of server virtualisation for EMEA at Citrix, denied that HP was treading on the toes of Citrix and HP’s other technology partners.

“The virtualisation market is expanding. It was being held back with the lack of choice,” he added.