Welcome to May's technical newsletter. This month is a HP Server special. HP have recently introduced some key changes to their server portfolio, with new models, power supplies and new disk capabilities.

Last month HP announced the first Generation 6 (G6) platforms with Intel's Xeon 5500 family of processors (otherwise known as ‘Nehalem-EP'). The first group of G6 servers are two socket Intel platforms with four socket Intel with the next generation AMD powered platforms following later this year.

HP have also introduced a new family of power supplies that are more efficient and you can now choose the power supply that best fits the usage profile of the server - again helping to ensure that the server can be operated at it's most efficient.  Internal storage has also seen a marked improvement - the 1U DL360 G6 now supports up to 8 x SFF SAS/SATA drives whereas the 2U DL380 G6 now supports up to 16 x SFF or 6 x LFF SAS/SATA drives.

The new disk capabilities are significantly enhanced by a new generation Smart Array controller family that offers up to 200% greater performance and 100% backward compatibility.