HP is standardising its high-end systems on the Itanium chip. Virtualisation lets users run multiple applications or operating systems on a single system through the use of virtual machines. The technology increases system utilisation and reduces the amount of physical hardware needed in a data center.

HP officials said that virtualisation-which started in the mainframe world and has extended to industry-standard systems and even processors-is getting more interest from IT administrators and many enterprises are making the move from talking about it to implementing it.