HP’s new switch blades take on rivals

From the ‘Sharp Edged Networking Gear‘ files:

HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced a new line of blade switches for its c-class BladeSystems. The new switches (switch blades if you will) are called the HP ProCurve 6120 series and includes the ProCurve 6120XG Blade Switch (pic above left) which is a 10 GbE switch that can give networking connectivity for up to 16 blade servers.

What’s interesting about this news isn’t so much about the fact that there are new blade switches for HP’s Bladesystem, but that the new switches are actually from HP.

“Today HP does offer blade switches from other vendors to support different customer use models,” Matt Zanner, HP ProCurve director of data center solutions told InternetNews.com. “What’s different is this the first time the two business units (HP and HP ProCurve) have combined forces to have a more tightly integrated solution set that ties into all the management layers as well as bring into the c class all of the elements of ProCurve.”

That is really the critical news from my point of view.

For years, HP has not fully integrated its ProCurve networking gear more directly into its HP hardware systems. That’s no longer the case.