New Moonshot apps for application delivery, video transcoding, and a Web infrastructure-in-a-box solution for Web hosters, allow HP to target more custom markets with Moonshot.

HP has announced several new cartridges in its Moonshot server portfolio, which builds on earlier solutions of this type HP introduced in February, and broadens Moonshot’s ability to target specific applications. The new solutions are: an integration with Citrix XenApp to broaden application delivery; a dramatic improvement of video transcoding with transcoding vendors Harmonic and Vantrix; and a Web infrastructure-in-a-box solution for Web hosters.

“In February, we brought two Moonshot solutions to market which targeted web serving and hosted desktop infrastructure with Citrix XenDesktop,” said Susan Blocher, Vice President of Product Management, Marketing and Business Development for HP Moonshot. “What we are doing now, with the maturity of the Moonshot solution, is further customizing the overall end-to-end solution to target specific applications.”

The Citrix solution extends the one HP announced in February, which was for XenDesktop, and was about dedicating a server to an end user to provide consistent end user performance.

“This one is about the application delivery for the mobile workspace as a whole, which doesn’t mean just mobile devices, but that when your workforce is mobile, how do you get the right applications to your community of users regardless of the device they are using,” Blocher said. “We partnered with Citrix, who specialize in this with XenApp, and built an end to end solution with them.”

Blocher said this Moonshot solution uses the new HP Moonshot ProLiant m710 server, and is able to host any application in the datacentre and deliver it as a service to end users.

“We are able to do this because we are leveraging the Intel Xeon E3-1284Lv3 processor with Iris Pro Graphics, which has an integrated GPU, so our solution does not require a discrete graphics processor to be plugged in,” she said.

While the XenDesktop and XenApp Moonshot solutions are two separate ones to be purchased, Blocher said they are managed as one solution.

“This will give customers a single part number to manage,” she said. “They are different server cartridges that we slot into the chassis but it’s all one Moonshot look and feel.”

The video transcoding application is designed to assist broadcasting companies and carriers in dealing with the issues of massive increases in content combined with the adoption of ultra-high definition (4K) resolution format, which place great pressure on existing transcoding infrastructures. Like the Citrix app, it also uses the HP Moonshot ProLiant m710 server.

“This provides video transcoding vendors like Vantrix and Harmonic with the ability to port their applications to leverage the integrated graphics capability,” Blocher said. “On the Moonshot platform, this allows us to reduce the cost per stream — the critical metric for transcoding — by 80 per cent, as measured by Vantrix.” Using Moonshot servers also allows support of 20 times more transcoded video streams per rack.

“As the market moves to ultra-high definition transcoding, reducing cost per stream by 80 per cent and reducing data centre footprint by 90 per cent with Moonshot will be a huge differentiator,” Blocher said.

HP is also announcing a new end-to-end solution for web infrastructure in-a-box based on the Moonshot ProLiant m300 server. The web infrastructure in-a-box features a LAMP stack solution that includes an exclusive Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription model for HP Moonshot servers using Intel Atom processors to lower TCO. It also leverages the Juju, Charms and MAAS (Metal-as-a-Service) solutions from Canonical, which simplify the deployment of scale out workloads, including load-balancing, web serving and databases across dedicated groups of servers within the HP Moonshot chassis. The result is the automation of provisioning of applications for scale out and cloud, and a dense computing solution designed to scale easily to deploy complex workloads quickly.

“This web infrastructure in-a-box solution is for web hosters, so the channel will be especially critical to us here,” Blocher said. “We are working with SIs and managed web hosters and service providers.”

Blocher said that other applications for Moonshot are on the roadmap.

“We have a road map of future solutions around Hadoop, Big Data and analytics, as well as mobile workspace and workspace as a service, and also industry vertical solutions,” she said. “We also have more to come in the telco space, and a couple other industry verticals.”