Veritas, Intel team on server provisioning
In the latest step toward utility computing, Veritas Software and Intel are joining forces to help companies better manage servers.
The companies on Wednesday announced plans to bundle Veritas' OpForce software with new Intel Enterprise Blade Server Family and Itanium processor-based server hardware building blocks. The software, which will ship under the moniker "Intel Deployment Manager by Veritas OpForce," aims to help companies set up servers more easily.
Customers using a variety of Intel Enterprise Blade Server and Itanium processor-based server hardware can use the "provisioning" software to automate the configuration and implementation of multiple servers at once, instead of requiring a system administrator to configure servers manually and individually, the companies said.
Blade servers are typically thin systems that slide into a larger chassis that provides shared resources such as power supplies and external network connections.
"Easy-to-use software that works across Intel-based hardware building blocks is key to the success of modular computing," Abhijit Talwalkar, general manager of the Platform Products Group at Intel, said in a statement.
Intel first plans to bundle the OpForce software with its Enterprise Blade Server Family products and eventually include OpForce with Itanium processor-based server products, said Pat Buddendaum, a product manager at Intel.
Server provisioning is part of a broader industrywide effort to make computing more like a utility, where customers don't have to worry about the technology underlying the service they receive.
The announcement also shows Intel expanding into new turf. Historically, Intel has left it up to its customers, such as Hewlett-Packard, to ship software.
Other companies with software to provision servers include Sun Microsystems, HP and IBM.
The OpForce software product stems from Veritas' acquisition of Jareva Technologies earlier this year. Veritas has been moving beyond its roots as a storage software company and into the utility computing arena.
Although its known for its microprocessors, Intel makes motherboards and servers that are ready for another company to put its label on and sell.
The chipmaking giant is building blades and complete blade server systems for smaller manufacturers, such as China's Lenovo and Russia's Kraftway, to spur adoption of blades.
As part of this push, Intel on Wednesday released a complete blade containing two Xeon processors and said that a blade containing four Xeons, code-named McCarran, will appear in the fourth quarter. The products are members of what Intel is calling the Enterprise Blade Server Family. By the end of the year, more than 15 computer makers will resell the Intel parts.
Intel has manufactured servers for the past few years. Many of the Itanium servers on the market were designed and manufactured by Intel and then sold under the brand name of a computer manufacturer. Intel doesn't insert the memory or hard drive in its servers, but these are relatively simple tasks.
The new blades, though, are more ornate that Intel's earlier servers. They will be loaded with networking capabilities and the management software from Veritas. "The provisioning software that we are making available is another step in the integration," Buddendaum said.
CNET News.com's Michael Kanellos contributed to this report.