HP Expands Virtualization Services

Technology company Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) is adding new services to help businesses increase the efficiency of their current servers by allowing customers to virtualize their entire infrastructure.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based firm announced Wednesday that it is expanding the distribution of its HP Care Pack Service, which it says can increase IT asset efficiency, reduce data center operating costs and minimize risks associated with infrastructure changes.

HP's virtualization technology and services can help customers increase agility and achieve real business benefits by ensuring that IT supply automatically meets business demand,' said Nick van der Zweep, director of virtualization, HP.

With HP Virtualization Assessment Services, we're bringing customers further along the road to achieving a next-generation data center.

Virtualization pools and shares IT resources by allocating them dynamically across applications and processes. It increases efficiency by using no more resources than is necessary.

Some virtualization software, for example, allows companies to run multiple operating systems on a single hardware setup, helping today's high-speed computers run closer to full capacity. Industry experts estimate that average server utilization ranges from only 10 to 30 percent, making money invested into hardware inefficient.

The new HP Care Pack Service will be available Feb. 1