Hewlett-Packard appears ready to completely refresh its ProLiant server line, according to what appears to be the leak last week of some details about upcoming Gen8, or Generation 8, ProLiant servers.
Details about HP's Gen8 series of servers came up on the HP Web site after a search on the term "gen8," as first reported by IT World. The term "Gen8" was used to describe the upcoming servers, even though current server model names use "Gx" instead of "Genx," as in G6 for Generation 6 and G7 for Generation 7.
The search results with the information about the Gen8 servers were shortly removed. A search on gen8 Thursday brought up a series of results pointing to various ProLiant services and support information as well as information about current and older ProLiant servers.
An HP spokesperson said the company could not comment on anything related to ProLiant Gen8 or G8 servers.
However, HP next week will hold its 2012 Global Partner Conference in Las Vegas, an event at which it could possibly introduce the new servers.
HP in early 2010 unveiled its ProLiant G7, or Generation 7, servers in both Intel and AMD versions.
HP is planning to release ProLiant Gen8 servers in a variety of form factors, including rackmount, tower and blade versions, some of which are labeled as "configure to order."
The new servers will be based on Intel's Xeon E5 2600 series of processors, expected to be released this quarter. Details of the processors slated to go in the ProLiant Gen8 servers can be found on the CPU World Web site, including the models 2609, 2620, 2630, 2640, 2650, 2660, and 2665.
Among the highlights of the new Gen8 server line will be a couple of blade servers. The ProLiant BL460c Gen8 Server series will offer "significantly improved performance, increased memory, and considerably enhanced networking, I/O, storage, and management capabilities over the previous generation," according to HP. The BL460c Gen8 will include one or two Intel Xeon E5 2640 or 2660 processors.
