ProLiant is currently the main line of servers offered by HP. Originally marketed by Compaq the servers became Hewlett-Packard systems after a merger between Compaq and HP in September 2001. In 2015 Hewlett-Packard split into multiple divisions where their enterprise hardware became HPE (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise). In May 2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise closed a transaction with Tsinghua Holdings to create “New H3C Group” with the purpose of combining efforts to drive sales in the China enterprise hardware market.
Part of the HP Tower server range is the HPE Micro Server. These systems are ultra-compact low-cost systems designed for small or home offices and enthusiasts. Offering the user friendly platform ClearOS (optional) HP Micro Servers use an intuitive GUI for your ease of use. Favoured for on-site backups and small RAID arrays MicroServers can provide a simple solution for onsite backup needs.
As demand for hyperscale, hyperconverged and high-performance computing systems increased HPE developed the Apollo series to better fit the needs of these demanding environments. Made to be incredibly scalable, cost effective and powerful the Apollo range perfectly suits demanding applications in professional enterprises.
HP ProLiant Servers follow a model convention to easily separate ranges. 1xx, 2xx, 3xx and 4xx (For example, HP ProLiant BL460c or DL160 G6) series machines are made up of single and dual socket systems, 5xx or 6xx models comprise of quad cpu systems (HP ProLiant DL580 Gen8 or BL680c G6) and 7xx or 9xx are compatible with up to 8x processors.
Further to this convention, HP also segregate processor manufacturers. Systems ending with a 0 (HP ProLiant DL360p or SL230s) use Intel, mainly Xeon, processors and systems ending in a 5 (HP ProLiant BL495c or DL585) use AMD CPUs.
Late in 2014 HP unveiled the Gen9 range featuring DDR4 SmartMemory, better power efficiency and Intel's new Xeon E5-2600 V3/V4 series, boasting a 1.9x performance gain through Intel AVX2. The HPE G9 series offered one of the largest performance jumps in generations using upgraded RAM and processors to hugely increase bandwidth and cores per 'u'.
On July the 14th 2017 HPE announced their next industry leading series of servers, HPE Gen10. With improved security through 'Secure Compute Lifecycle' HP aimed to tackle the growing concern of hardware security with claims to be "the world's most secure industry standard servers". That year in November HPE extended their Gen10 range to include AMD EPYC processors to further economics in server virtulization using EPYC's impressive price v cores archetecture claiming to lower cost per virtual machine (VM) by 50%.