Space really is the final frontier

Hewlett Packard has announced its latest range of servers aimed at application and internet service providers (ASPs and ISPs), and told journalists that capacity demands mean property costs will become a significant factor in the market.

Hewlett Packard (HP) has announced its latest range of servers aimed at application and internet service providers (ASPs and ISPs), and told journalists that capacity demands mean property costs will become a significant factor in the market.

Alberto Bozzo, operations manager at HP's NetServer division, Europe, Middle East & Africa, said: "Real estate costs continue to represent one of the remaining constraints facing ISPs, ASPs, hosting companies and collocation firms. Industrial real estate prices are continuing to rise across Europe."

He said that firms in London face particular problems, as estate agents and vendors could jam their foot in the door of data centres and charge premium rates safe in the knowledge that service providers need to be close to the heavily fibred capital.

"In London, with industrial space currently renting at $1500 per square metre and office space rising to $4000 per square metre, it is clear that maximising the performance per square metre will remain an immediate priority for the service provider sector," said Bozzo.

HP's new 1U and 2U netservers, he said, offered the "highest power performance per square metre of floor space", and said that a 2m rack loaded with HP's LP1000r servers could facilitate up to one billion web pages each day. The servers support Unix, Linux and Microsoft-based operating environments.

Pricing for the 1U-high LP1000r starts at about £2360, while the 2U-high LP2000r costs from about £2750.

HP announced e-utilica, a plug and play data centre that lets existing or emerging providers instantly launch services, and Instant Support, a set of online self-help tools for the service provider product range.

The company also claimed that its SureStore Disk Array 2100, a 1U 4-slot disk system, squeezes more data storage capacity out of limited rack space.