HP Launches Modular System For Branches

Hewlett-Packard has launched a modular system designed to reduce the number of boxes and the amount of cabling in branch offices.

The Branch Office Networking Solution adds application-specific modules to HP’s standard office switches, creating “the world’s first integrated branch office solution,” according Marius Haas, vice president of HP’s networking business – although the product is clearly aimed to compete with Cisco’s products in this area, such as the Integrated Services Router (ISR).

Branch workers are second class

Branch workers feel like second class citizens, according to Haas, although 75 percent of workers are outside head office. Most branch offices have a stack of ill-assorted network boxes, and a mass of cables holding them together, but HP is giving all that a make-over, according to Haas.

HP and its partners are creating a range of speific modules to fit inside the switches that the branch already has, so instead of a separate box to manage VoIP or provide WAN acceleration or firewalls, there is a module slotted into the chassis.

Modules announced so far include Avaya Aura, NetScout nGenius, Citrix NetScaler, an HP wireless LAN module, and Riverbed. With a bunch of these modules inside, the switch would use 87 percent less cabling, half the power, and two thirds the rack space, compared with a stack of separate units, said Haas,

Other companies aiming to provision the branch office include wireless vendor Aruba, which claims to be able to put the whole branch switch system into the cloud.

HP has chosen Barcelona for a major worldwide launch this week, which also included high-density servers optimised to use GPUs for high performance computing, and a major increase in the role it sees for containerised data centres.

“This is our biggest year for new products,” said Dave Donatelli vice president for enterprise at HP, at the Barcelona event.