HP's new blade appliance is like a preloaded fridge

June 24, 2008 (Computerworld) Hewlett-Packard Co. is entering the fast-growing warehouse appliance market with all-in-one servers designed to ease configuration issues and provide one-stop hardware and software customer support.

The HP BladeSystem for Oracle Optimized Warehouse includes database blade servers and storage blades. Preconfigured to optimize performance and energy use, it offers few customization options to users.

The system comes in a c7000 enclosure with 16 blades: nine database server blades using Intel dual processors in a two-socket processors blade and seven storage blades with one Advanced Micro Design dual-core processor on each blade. The system can support up to 4TB of storage, with the maximum storage available through the use of four enclosures. It will be available in July through resellers. Pricing is not yet available.

On a basic level, what HP and other vendors in this area offer is a server that's set up with everything needed to run a data warehouse.

Dan Vesset, an analyst at IDC, said there is an emerging market for prepackaged servers because they speed up deployment. But he noted that users who want to run other workloads on such hardware could face limitations. Systems such as the latest from HP are typically aimed at data mart uses, meaning they are optimized around a particular function, something a large company might use for an individual department, he said.

HP is entering a market that has seen rapid growth among firms such as Netezza Corp. in Marlboro, Mass. In first quarter results reported on May 29, Netezza said revenue was up 56% to $39.6 million. That revenue compares to $25.3 million that Netezza brought in during the same period a year ago.

In another indication of the market's strength, warehouse appliance vendor DataAllegro Inc. in Aliso Viejo, Calif., last month received some $19.6 million in new venture capital funding.