HP Launches New, Smaller-Size ProLiant 'Scale-Out' Servers

The ProLiant SL6000 product line includes a smaller, physically lightweight, power-draw-efficient modular systems architecture -- the first major rebuild of the ProLiant server since 2001. They can be deployed with up to 672 processor cores and 10 terabytes of storage capacity per standard 42U rack.

Hewlett-Packard on June 10 launched a new line of ProLiant servers, called the ProLiant SL Extreme Scale-Out portfolio, engineered specifically for the growing Web 2.0, financial services and high-performance computing markets.

"Scale-out" is a relatively recent data center industry buzzword referring to architectures for systems running thousands of servers that are required to scale nearly ad infinitum in order to comfortably handle a massive number of online users. Amazon, Facebook, eBay and Google are Web 2.0 companies specializing in both the deployment and the optimization of scale-out architecture.

The ProLiant SL6000 product line -- which HP is also calling ExSO -- includes a smaller, physically lightweight, power-draw-efficient modular systems architecture -- the first major rebuild of the ProLiant server since 2001, John Gromala, director of product marketing for HP's industry-standard server group, told eWEEK.

They are also powerful. These new servers can be deployed with up to 672 processor cores and 10 terabytes of storage capacity per standard 42U rack, HP said. Like all HP data center products, the ProLiant SLs are built on industry standards, so they are designed to work in a mix-and-match, storage-and-computing data center environment.