HP is betting big on its new converged vision for storage with a program that guarantees it can double physical server and virtual machine performance if its 3PAR storage technology is used in a VMware environment.

HP is pushing its 3PAR utility storage as the model for its Converged Infrastructure, which promotes using a combination of HP networking, storage and servers as the most efficient way of handling infrastructure in the data center.

Today, HP Storage Division EMEA VP Chris Johnson told DatacenterDynamics the HP Get Virtual Guarantee Program highlights the completion of HP’s end-to-end link from storage to the server.

He said while HP is still supporting all traditional storage technologies such as XP9500, EVA, NAS and Tape, 3PAR is expected to become its high-end offering designed for cloud and high-density applications, with a software layer that will allow for the virtual provisioning of storage and workloads, reducing sprawl in the virtualization environment.

“Virtualization has placed a great amount of predictability on networks and storage,” Johnson said. “A business owner could say ‘I need 500 SAP users tomorrow’, now that could be done in a server context but suddenly 500 additional users are hitting the storage infrastructure, creating real spikes and workload challenges.

“Effectively, what we had to do previously was build storage infrastructure very inefficiently to support the number of virtual machines, at double the cost and double the capacity.

“Now we can support twice as many virtual machines. If we don’t achieve that level of optimization then we (HP) will buy more software or servers or whatever it takes to give clients those guarantees.”

He said the combination of Hypergen 8 and 3PAR can increase the density of virtual machines on the server. HP said to take advantage of its Get Virtual Guarantee, clients must be using the HP 3Par storage system with its optimization suite of software for automatic load balancing and its reporter software and be running VMware vSphere version 4.1 or higher.