Interop: HP Adds New Vendor Partners To ProCurve Ecosystem

The ONE program, which ProCurve debuted earlier this year, finds HP leveraging products by other networking and infrastructure vendors that complement or integrate with its ProCurve gear, then offering those solution sets through solution providers in the channel.

It's a decidedly opposite model than that of Cisco, which favors proprietary architecture and products -- the "one throat to choke" method -- instead of vendor alliances.

ProCurve's strategy offers channel partners more choice and a better competitive advantage, argued Frank Cohen, director of worldwide strategic alliances at HP ProCurve.

"Our portfolio and our partners get us in places we wouldn't be able to go on our own," Cohen said in a Channelweb.com interview from Interop New York Wednesday. "This is a unique set of options. It's not just a marketing alliance, it's actual relationships that can help channel partners be more solution-focused. They can use these various pieces."

According to HP ProCurve, its new ONE partners include Aastra, AeroScout, Avaya, F5, Fortinet, SonicWall, Sourcefire, and vantronix, plus two network security service providers, StillSecure and Traversa Solutions, that partner with ProCurve in a new services provider piece of ProCurve ONE.

All of those vendors have products, such as AeroScout's Wi-Fi real-time location tools or Fortinet's Fortigate suite, that can integrate with HP ProCurve products like the Services z1 Module blade.

ProCurve also added to existing partnerships with Microsoft and McAfee, the former by reaffirming ProCurve's $180 million UC alliance with Microsoft, and the latter by certifying McAfee's IPS appliance with ProCurve ONE -- meaning McAfee IPS can integrate with ProCurve's own Network Immunity Manager.

ProCurve's other strategic networking partners include AirMagnet, AirTight Networks, Aruba's AirWave, DVTel, Ekahau, InMon, Mitel, Riverbed and VBrick.

Cohen and Mark Hilton of HP ProCurve's technical product management team said ProCurve was looking for more strategic partners interested in ProCurve's open standards-based infrastructure to help position ProCurve as the best alternative in networking to market titans like Cisco.

"You see this again and again in the business," Hilton said. "Where you have one big guy that wants to lock you into proprietary infrastructure, but you see number two and number three players committed to a different approach around alternatives and open standards. ProCurve is that."