On Friday, the 9th of November, 2018, students of the Tech Club 18-19′ from both 1st and 2nd PU classes were taken to Hewlett-Packard Enterprise as an educational foray into the world of networking, data security and cloud computing organised by the Head of Department of Computer Science, Mr. Anil Srivastava.
On the way to the presentation room, we feasted our eyes on the entire history of Hewlett-Packard from 1936 to the present day, laid out beautifully on the walls of the corridor.
Our first presentation gave us an insight into the world of HP Enterprise and what they do and what differentiates them from HP Inc. We learnt how HP Inc. built consumer electronics and products for the end users (i.e Printers, mouse, keyboards, desktops ). HP Enterprise took care of the back-end and provided solutions for a larger customer (i.e cloud computing solutions, servers, data security, etc).
We also learnt about how HP Enterprise goes along their Product Designing Processes (PDPs), predominantly the ‘Waterfall Method’ and the ‘Agile PDP’ in our second presentation. This presentation enlightened us about how a product is designed, manufactured, tested, marketed and maintained. We were given information as to how a product is first ideated, then defined, how prototypes are built and beta products are tested by feedback teams and finally, how the product is marketed and released. Maintenance is also a very important part of the product cycle and ensures a long life cycle of the product as a whole.
The students were then taken to the labs by Mr. Santhosh and Mr. Venkatesh to have a first-hand look at the hardware that powers HP Enterprise and the maintenance required to keep it running. We learnt about different form factors of storage devices, like Small-Form-Factor (SFF) and Large-Form-Factor (LFF) which are used in their servers. We could also feast our eyes upon their state-of-the-art Synergy Server which was truly an amazing sight to behold. We were given an estimate of the kind of expenses companies like HP Enterprise run into maintaining these servers and keep the hardware running cool and optimally. We were also taken to the Customer Interaction Labs where Customers could come in, discuss their requirements with the executives and they would suggest solutions. We were also shown various ARUBA sensors that HP has implemented in their facility to keep things secure and was also shown how it is used in airports and other large public destinations like museums to help people navigate through the area.
As a side note, the architecture of the building, both inside and out, was commendable as it was laid out beautifully and we had no problems finding our way inside the facility.
Overall, this was an immensely educating and informative trip to a state-of-the-art facility and we consider ourselves extremely fortunate and are grateful to have been given the opportunity to visit it.
– David Paul Frazer, 2 ‘C’, Tech Club 18-19′
