2011 January 19 - Microsoft and HP announced first appliance optimized for SQL Server 2008 R2, PowerPivot and SharePoint Server 2010

HP and Microsoft have delivered the first ever self service business intelligence appliance, optimized for SQL Server 2008 R2 and SharePoint Server 2010. Deploy the solution in days, with minimal IT resources.

Key Benefits

• Quickly extend usage of business intelligence to users across organization enabling them to share insights for better, faster, and more relevant business decisions.
• Boost productivity across the entire organization by empowering collaboration around PowerPivot workbooks and SharePoint reports.
• Reduce operational complexity through an appliance management console and optimized support offerings from HP.

Implementation (excerpt from Penton media review):

Instead of spending months on installing, tuning, and testing a variety of hardware and software combinations in search of the best combination of components, IT can install a new appliance in an existing rack, and then spend approximately an hour running a configuration wizard to prepare the appliance for use.  The wizard prompts the administrator for a server name, the domain to join, and a domain account with permissions to join the appliance to the domain. After the process of joining the domain is complete, the wizard requests a domain user account to add as a local administrator on the appliance and adds that account as the SharePoint farm administrator. It also prompts for a user account to set up as a SQL administrator. Then installation of the prerequisite software and all software components begins.

After installing the server software, the wizard proceeds with configuration of the environment and optimization of the software for the appliance. The installation process also adds the Appliance Home Page and the Appliance Administration Console to SharePoint and installs a System Center Management Pack for the appliance. 

Hardware

The HP Business Decision Appliance is a high-performance solution designed to run on a powerful rack-mounted 1U server component with high-capacity storage using serial attached SCSI (SAS) disks. The hardware components shipping with the appliance include:

• HP ProLiant DL360 G7 (X5650 processor) with 96GB RAM
• 8 x internal 300GB SFF 6G SAS disks

Software

The software for the HP Business Decision Appliance ships with the hardware, but requires installation using a configuration wizard. After execution of this wizard, the following server software is installed in the appliance:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition with PowerPivot integration for SharePoint
• Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Edition Prerequisites for SharePoint and PowerPivot
• Appliance Administration Console
• Appliance-specific SharePoint Home Page

Read more

• Microsoft announcement and more information...
• Penton media review...
• HP Proliant DL360G7 server specs...
• Unboxing of the HP Business Decision appliance