HP Adds ServeIT and ServicesIT to Just Right IT Offerings for SMBs

One of the challenges of managing IT for a small or medium-sized business is that you’re often left with two extremes: underprovisioning or overprovisioining.

But like Goldilocks, SMBs really need IT that’s just right. They need to invest strategically to stretch dollars and purchase equipment with the future in mind so that their infrastructures aren’t crippled as they scale.

That’s why HP has built out its Just Right IT solution set, which it rolled out in October last year and offers through its channel partners like CDW. The Just Right IT program puts together specific products and configurations that meet the business needs and objectives of an SMB at the appropriate size and phase.

“These solutions are designed with three configurations for starting out, building momentum and expansion,” says Lisa Wolfe, leader of worldwide small midmarket business in the HP Enterprise Group.

This week, HP is formally adding two new additions to the Just Right IT program: HP ServeIT and HP ServiceIT.

HP ServeIT is focused on HP’s industry-leading track record in x86 server technology and is built on the company’s ProLiant Gen8 servers. The solutions HP has put together will work on either Microsoft’s Hyper-V or VMware’s vSphere.

These packages, which HP refers to Flex-Bundles, look like this:

• HP Flex-Bundles for Microsoft Windows® Server with Hyper-V Virtualization Solutions and for VMware vSphere with Operations Management Virtualization Solutions: Designed to simplify the design and implementation of virtualization for businesses just getting started with virtualization or requiring moderate workloads.
• HP Flex-Bundles for SMB First Server Solution with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2: The HP ProLiant MicroServer Generation 8 (Gen8) with Microsoft Windows Server operating system delivers increased compute power in a form factor that fits easily into even a home office.
• HP Flex-Bundles for Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Solutions: Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 on HP ProLiant Gen8 servers offers a complete communication solution that can improve productivity with email, calendars and contacts.

One of the key reasons an SMB will be interested in the HP ServeIT offerings is its ability to handle Big Data projects.

“[HP ServeIT] will give mid-sized businesses an affordable way to mine that set of unstructured data incoming from all the different mobile devices,” Wolfe says.

On the services and support side, HP ServiceIT gives SMBs a suite of resources around support, financing and cloud computing.

The company breaks down HP ServiceIT into three distinct offerings:

• HP Technology Services: Delivers the right support experience for SMBs. HP Foundation Care Services deliver reliable problem resolution, HP Proactive Care Services deliver problem prevention and advanced problem resolution, and HP Lifecycle Event Services help customers deploy technologies quickly and easily.
• HP Financial Services: Offers flexible investment solutions that can help SMBs maximize current technology environments and accelerate their move to new IT platforms. Providing a wide range of capabilities that support the entire IT life cycle, SMBs can access the latest HP products through simple, scalable and predictable monthly payments that align technology and financial requirements to business needs.
• HP cloud services: Provides access to a broad range of cloud services via HP’s extensive worldwide partner network. HP’s partners offer a wide array of cloud services including scalable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for compute, storage and content delivery networks, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions focused on key SMB workloads such as email, CRM, collaboration, backup and recovery, and development/test.

With regard to the cloud, HP believes that while the cloud is experiencing high growth, it won’t completely displace on-premises IT anytime soon. Additionally, the company’s public cloud is built on OpenStack, which makes it friendly to open-source shops.

“We're looking to link together on-premises and off-premises, because we don't think it's gonna be just a cloud world, it's gonna be a hybrid world,” says John Flowers, technology services marketing lead in the HP Solution Partners Organization.

Even when SMBs are bringing cloud into the mix, they’re largely doing so with specific tasks — such as email, CRM or collaboration — in mind.

“Small and mid-sized businesses are bringing in cloud services 1 at a time, 2 at a time. They're making pragmatic decisions, they're not just throwing it out,” says Wolfe.