HP expands ProCurve One Alliance offerings

Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) has announced an expansion to the HP ProCurve One Alliance Program that it launched in January, including a new category for service provider solutions and several new pre-configured and approved vendor provider solutions.

Launched in January, HP ProCurve One is a multi-vendor alliance program that offers HP VAR partners and customers the ability to sell third-party networking and security solutions from vendors such as Microsoft, Riverbed and McAfee that have been pre-tested, configured and certified by HP to work on its ProCurve One Services zl Module, a blade for its ProCurve Switch 5400zl and 8200zl series.

Corey Copping, product marketing manager, HP ProCurve Networking, said the program helps HP’s channel partners by having HP and the alliance partners take over the heavy-lifting of configuration and interoperability testing, certifying the applications for use with HP’s blades. The blade format also saves rack-space, and gives partners a good upsell opportunity with their current install bases.

“They can go into their install base of customers that have our switches already and lead with our products, or if they’re concerned about security lead with McAfee or Fortinet,” said Copping. “You don’t need to run them on a new server, just add them to the blade. It’s simplicity and ease of deployment.”

In a recent follow-up to the January program launch, HP announced a new Services Provider category to the Alliance program, which includes select service providers that can deliver joint security solutions and services.

“We’re basically expanding and continually looking at growing the ProCurve Alliance partner base, and expanding into areas that fit well on the network, such as the service provider category,” said Copping.

HP also announced a number of new partners for the original program, and new solutions that have been certified and added to the roster from existing partners.

Among the newcomers is StillSecure, which offers network access control solutions that will integrate with HP’s ProCurve Identity Driven Manager, as well as Traversa Solutions, a networking and network security vendor. As well, interoperability has been newly certified with select products from Avaya, F5, Fortinet, McAfee, Microsoft, SonicWall and Sourcefire, among other vendors.

While the licensing and pricing schemes for the partner applications vary by vendor, Copping said in general the ProCurve One offerings have scaled down very well into the mid-market, and have found good success in the SMB-dominant Canadian market.

“A lot of SMB customers are using these boxes as core switching boxes,” said Copping. “It gives customers the flexibility to deploy leading-edge vendor technology into the core network, and it gives them quick and easy access to a wide variety of leading-edge vendor technology.”

Copping said the early response to the program from the channel has been strong, although it has been the larger partners that have been the early adopters. However, with the talk around converged network infrastructures he feels the program is set to take off.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Jeff Jedras
Jeff Jedras
A veteran technology and business journalist, Jeff Jedras began his career in technology journalism in the late 1990s, covering the booming (and later busting) Ottawa technology sector for Silicon Valley North and the Ottawa Business Journal, as well as everything from municipal politics to real estate. He later covered the technology scene in Vancouver before joining IT World Canada in Toronto in 2005, covering enterprise IT for ComputerWorld Canada. He would go on to cover the channel as an assistant editor with CDN. His writing has appeared in the Vancouver Sun, the Ottawa Citizen and a wide range of industry trade publications.

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