I was reading HP CEO Michael Hurd’s biographical piece on Fortune magazine and it struck me how cost conscious HP management is. Article attributes this culture to Hurd’s mid-western background.

In that context I read this announcement by HP that the two leading visual effects companies have gone with HP blade server to drive down data center cost. This is significant as it shows companies are not only  buying advanced gears but also buying with intention to reduce cost.

HP today announced that two world-leading visual effects companies have selected HP blade server technology to increase production of computer-generated imagery (CGI) and drive cost-saving data center initiatives.

CGI is used as visual effects in films, television programs and video games. With CGI, development of a typical 90-minute film often requires the production and storage of more than 2 million hours of digitally created content.

These extreme performance and storage requirements, coupled with the rising demand for visual effects, have put competitive pressure on companies to increase production. At the same time, they must drive operational costs out of the business. With high-performance computing blade solutions from HP, visual effects companies are now able to produce larger volumes of digital content much faster and more cost-effectively.

Customers realize cost and space savings with HP high-performance computing solutions

Australia-based Animal Logic is the visual effects creator for the motion pictures “Happy Feet,” “300” and “Australia.” As the company approached maximum capacity in its data center, it turned to HP for servers that would be more energy- and space-efficient without sacrificing system performance.

Animal Logic’s upcoming animated film, “Guardians of Ga’Hoole,” will be created using 1,000 HP ProLiant BL2x220c server blades housed within HP BladeSystem c7000 enclosures. The film is expected to be released in the summer of 2010.

Also worth highlighting that space optimization is part and parcel of efficient energy management:

“Creating award-winning digital imagery requires incredibly powerful, efficient computing technology,“ said Alex Timbs, head of information technology at Animal Logic. “The HP BL2x220c delivers the same peak performance of our previous system, but utilizes only a fraction of the power and physical space. HP’s two-in-one blade packs double the compute power in our existing space, allowing us to keep up with the demands of our business without physically building out our data center. We are achieving significant advantages in terms of cost benefits – both capital and operational – by moving to HP blade servers.”

Another interesting aspect is the global awareness of this value. Bangalore based – DreamWorks partner – Paprikaas is another company mentioned in HP press release.

Paprikaas is part of the global Technicolor business and a strategic partner of DreamWorks Animation. When its Bangalore, India, data center was out of available power and nearly out of physical space, the company turned to HP for energy-saving server technologies.

Paprikaas chose HP ProLiant BL460c G5 servers to increase performance and establish an energy-efficiency standard in its data center. With its low-power module and the latest low-watt quad-core processor from Intel, the HP ProLiant BL460c is optimized for power-constrained environments.

In case you are wondering why this matters then check this number from IDC (pdf – refers to IBM Cool Blue product line):

IDC estimates that it would cost almost $400,000 annually to power a 1000-volume server-unit data center.1 At the current industry pace, it could be cheaper to build a new data center rather than try to accommodate existing servers for power and cooling.

There is a huge opportunity to reduce cost and still be environmentally right. We will follow up this topic to understand cost savings promised by Sun Microsystems and IBM blade servers.

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