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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Systems/Enterprise:
HP ADAPTIVE ENTERPRISE STRATEGY HELPS MORE THAN 100 CUSTOMERS
HP announced that it has helped more than 100 companies worldwide move their
business-critical applications from mainframe-based to more open,
standards-based information technology (IT) environments.
Customers such as CitiStreet, Atmos Energy Corp and Aquila Inc are reaping the
benefits that HP products, services and partners deliver to enable greater
business agility -- the ability to respond rapidly to changes in market
conditions or customer demands -- while lowering overall IT costs.
Companies worldwide are scrutinizing the agility, costs and labor issues
associated with ownership of aging mainframe systems as rapidly changing
business demands require more computing flexibility and access to the latest
business applications. While newer mainframes have a role to play in some
specialized, niche environments, customers with older mainframes have turned
to HP's Adaptive Enterprise strategy and standards-based platforms for
increased flexibility to synchronize business and IT while keeping costs under
control.
"To meet evolving business requirements, IT organizations must minimize
underlying infrastructure complexity while establishing the foundation for a
new era of virtualized, utility-based, adaptive infrastructure," said Carl
Greiner, senior vice president of Infrastructure Strategies for META Group.
"IT expenditures must have strong business justification such as clear cost
savings and improved agility."
CitiStreet is the second largest record-keeper in the United States and a
premier provider of defined contribution, pension and health and welfare plans
servicing more than 6 million participants. The company's legacy environment
did not offer the always-on infrastructure and failover configurations needed
for their business to grow. CitiStreet found that it could double performance
with the HP Superdome server and reduce costs by 37 percent over three years
for hardware maintenance and software license expenses.
"As a company in the competitive benefits space, CitiStreet must respond
quickly to ever-changing client needs," said Barry Strasnick, chief
information officer of CitiStreet. "We are migrating from our mainframe
systems to HP to increase our agility, reduce costs and accommodate growth. We
anticipate a twofold performance increase and the scalability we need, as well
as the ability to make changes quickly to meet market and client demands."
Recent customer evolutions from mainframes to HP systems also include:
- Atmos Energy Corp is one of the nation's largest pure natural gas
distributors. After realizing its current mainframe environment was at its
limits, Atmos Energy considered a newer mainframe but soon realized it could
not provide the capacity, expandability and speed needed to accommodate the
company's growth. The company opted to offload its applications onto HP
servers to be more agile and ensure the ability to adapt in real time to
business needs. As a result of implementing HP systems, Atmos Energy has been
able to accommodate the growth in its IT needs and to increase manageability,
removing the 24-7 support needed with the mainframe environment and relying on
HP OpenView management software to automate systems management and proactively
alert IT managers to issues.
- Aquila Inc, an operator of electric and natural gas distribution facilities
in seven states and Canada, faced the challenge of delivering greater IT
infrastructure flexibility and capacity to support business initiatives while
keeping costs down. After reviewing the costs associated with mainframe
maintenance, Aquila found that HP's servers gave them the flexibility to run
applications on multiple platforms and helped drive costs down for the
organization.
- The chief information officer for operations of a major European retailer
was looking for an IT environment that could support its growth while at the
same time reduce costs and improve cash flow. With the help of the HP
Financial Services sales-leaseback program, HP purchased the company's
mainframes and leased HP Superdome servers bundled with software and refresh
options. As a result of the migration, the firm has exceeded initial project
expectations by reducing IT costs in one year by 30 percent. The company
expects to achieve a return on investment in 24 months.
Other organizations around the world that have transformed their mainframe
environments to more adaptive systems based on HP solutions include: Hyundai,
GM Daewoo and KorAm Bank in Asia Pacific, KCM in Europe and ABSA Bank Ltd in
South Africa.
To help its customers update their IT environments, HP offers a range of
standards-based platforms including HP ProLiant and HP Integrity systems as
well as HP NonStop servers, which offer unparalleled availability and
scalability. For many customers, data housed on a mainframe can be better
utilized with complementary applications from Microsoft, BEA or Oracle running
on HP servers. The systems provide excellent price-to-performance ratios and
scalability, while working with HP offers greater integration options,
operating system choices, platform breadth and a simple, direct approach
updating the IT environments.
In addition, many mainframe customers are adopting the benefits of HP
StorageWorks storage area networks to reduce their total cost of ownership
through open, networked storage while delivering high returns on investment of
as much as 100 to 500 percent.
HP also offers an Agility Assessment service of customers' existing
environments to help get them started. With this service, companies can assess
current levels of IT flexibility, find opportunities to incorporate new
technologies, and determine their ability to integrate newly deployed
applications and implement new business processes.
In addition, HP helps organizations incorporate IT management processes that
use industry-leading practices in services management. HP Financial Services
offers IT transition, acquisition, management and disposition services --
including innovations in pay-per-use -- to help customers increase return,
reduce risk and improve business agility and bottom-line performance.
About HP
HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and
institutions globally. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure,
personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and
printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended April 30, HP revenue totaled
$76.8 billion. More information about HP is available at www.hp.com .
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