HP says it can cut the pricey-but-neglected costs of networking virtualized environments by 55%. Your average VMware ESX server busily hosting virtual machines requires six network connections, which means network expansion cards, switches and cables - all of which add up.

Especially those darn network switches needed to increase the bandwidth required by additional virtual server workloads.

So HP has created the Virtual Connect Flex-10 Ethernet module, described as the industry's first interconnect technology to allocate the bandwidth of a 10Gb Ethernet network port across four NIC connections.

And users can assign different bandwidth requirements to each connection.

That's supposed to eliminate the need for additional networking hardware and, according to HP's calculations, can save a user up to 55% in network equipment costs - at least compared to IBM.

It's also supposed to save an estimated 240W per HP BladeSystem enclosure or 3,150 kilowatt hours a year compared to traditional models.

The head of HP's blade operation Mark Potter claims the widgetry can produce the "real benefits of virtualization without the downside."

The recently announced ProLiant BL495c virtualization blade includes built-in Virtual Connect Flex-10 functionality that supports 24 NIC connections.

HP claims that means it can accommodate more virtual servers than Dell or IBM.

Existing HP c-Class customers can upgrade with a Flex-10 expansion card.

HP's also got a direct connect storage bundle for its BladeSystem and Opteron 2300 quad-based ProLiant rack-based DL385 G5p server that includes two StorageWorks 3Gb serial-attached SCSI (SAS) BL switches and an MSA2000sa storage array.

It's a simplified shared storage solution.

BladeSystem administrators used to have limited direct-attach or shared storage options and had to rely on personnel with special knowledge to build a storage area network (SAN)-based solution.

HP's newfangled low-cost storage option lets administrators deploy scalable shared SAS storage without the usual costs and complexity SANs.

By buying additional MSA2000sa arrays, they can deploy up to 192TB of external shared storage directly connected to a 32-server HP BladeSystem enclosure.

Between the BL495c virtualization blade server, Virtual Connect Flex-10 modules and the shared SAS storage bundle one should be able to reduce the cost per virtual machine by more than 50% against competitive solutions, according to HP.

HP has also enhanced its Virtual Connect 4Gb Fibre Channel module to allocate storage resources on a per-virtual-machine basis, simplifying storage and virtualization deployments for Fibre Channel storage. Customers can assign up to 128 separate SAN volumes per server blade for greater performance and flexibility.

The HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 Ethernet module is $12,199; the HP NC532m Flex-10 NIC upgrade card is $699; the HP Virtual Connect 4Gb FC module is $9,499; the HP ProLiant DL385 G5p is $2,259; and the HP direct connect storage for HP BladeSystem bundle is $9,999.