According to HP, ProLiant 500 series servers can increase return on investment for customers by delivering improved performance, management, options, design and connectivity. When combined with the latest in virtualisation technologies, the four-processor HP ProLiant ML570 and DL580 can also help customers consolidate business-critical application environments to reduce complexity and cost while increasing business agility, HP adds.

Says Andrew McNiven, business unit manager, industry standard servers, HP. The combined technologies from HP and Intel will help customers address their business needs more effectively and maintain a competitive edge.

Designed for performance and virtualisation, HPs balanced system approach aims to maximise dual-core processor performance. To help increase total system performance for critical applications and virtual server environments, recent architecture enhancements include HP Smart Array Raid controllers, multifunction networking and increased memory capacity, HP adds.

The servers will use small form factor Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) disk drives, aiming to eliminate the need for customers to make multiple drive transitions while simplifying system management needs. The drives consume half the power of larger models, while improving storage performance and reliability, HP claims.