INDUSTRY

HP and the Singapore government's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) today announced that they will establish a joint research project in Singapore to help enable the next-generation data center. Under the three-year research agreement, HP Labs and A*STAR will create the HP Shared Services Platform Laboratory and collaborate on developing technologies that optimally match IT resources with user requirements in a shared services delivery model. A*STAR's mission is to promote development of R&D facilities in Singapore. The joint laboratory will initially be located at A*STAR's national research center -- the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC). IHPC and the laboratory will be relocated in Fusionopolis when phase one of the project opens in late 2007. Fusionopolis is an industrial complex that will house public and private research institutes that will share state-of-the-art IT and communications facilities and test beds. "HP wants to help our enterprise customers solve their business challenges through automation tools that will allow them to create an agile, cost-effective and predictable IT service environment," said Dick Lampman, HP senior vice president, research, and director, HP Labs. "We hope that through this collaboration with A*STAR we can generate some of the next-generation IT technologies that will serve the needs of the public and business communities around the world." A combined team of more than 30 researchers will develop virtualization and automation tools aimed at enabling the next-generation data center (NGDC) -- a 24x7, "lights-out" operation that runs securely, reliably and with minimal staffing. The work of the Singapore lab on a shared services platform will be a critical element in helping enable the NGDC. "Singapore recognizes the importance of utility computing in the scientific and business communities. We hope this collaboration will position Singapore as one of the leaders in cutting-edge data management service technology," said Boon Swan Foo, managing director, A*STAR.