“The debate is over: cloud is a hybrid world,” stated Kerry Bailey, senior vice president, Cloud Worldwide go to market, HP, at the company’s Discover event in Barcelona. “That is a clear story going forward.”
HP can claim some authority in this areas as it is listed by Forrester as the “sole leader” in private cloud solutions, and features high in Gartner’s magic quadrant for the segment.
Research quoted said that 40% of enterprises say they are currently in a hybrid environment and 75% of IT executives plan to pursue a hybrid cloud delivery model by 2016.
To that end, HP said that it is focused on delivering hybrid solutions that bridge traditional IT with private, public and managed clouds, with new solutions within its CloudSystem range for building and managing private clouds.
The next-generation CloudSystem includes a what HP calls a “new consumer-inspired” user interface, simplified management tools and an improved deployment process that enables users to set up and deploy a complete private cloud environment in hours, compared to weeks for other private cloud solutions.
As the foundation of a hybrid cloud solution, CloudSystem can burst to multiple public cloud platforms, including three new ones: Microsoft Windows Azure, and platforms from Arsys, a European-based cloud computing provider, and SFR, the French telecommunications company.
CloudSystem integrates OpenStack-based HP Cloud OS technology, the foundation for its hybrid cloud architecture, providing a hardened, tested OpenStack distribution that is easy to install and manage. The next-generation CloudSystem also incorporates HP’s new Hybrid Cloud Management Platform, a comprehensive management solution that enables enterprises and service providers to deliver secure cloud services across public or private clouds as well as traditional IT.
All of this adds up to new capabilities to leverage existing infrastructure even in deploying new cloud solutions, according to Saar Gillai, senior vice president and general manager, Converged Cloud, HP.
The Hybrid Cloud Management Platform integrates HP’s Cloud Service Automation (CSA) version 4.0, which includes native support for both HP CloudOS with OpenStack and the open-source standard Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications (TOSCA), enabling easier application portability and management of hybrid and heterogeneous IT environments.
To help with designing and implementing a hybrid cloud strategy, HP has added a new hybrid-design capability to its global professional services capabilities. Hybrid Cloud Design Professional Services offer a highly modular design approach to help organisations architect a cloud solution that aligns with their technical, organisational and business needs. The new consulting services helps organisations to evolve their cloud strategy and vision into a solution based on delivering business outcomes and ready for implementation.
The Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) offerings were also expanded, with a range of new services from a standardised self-service to a customised, fully managed service model. The latest version of Managed VPC now allows users to choose among virtual or physical configurations, multiple tiers of storage, hypervisors and network connectivity types.
As part of its overall hybrid delivery, HP offers Flexible Capacity (FC), an on-premises solution of enterprise-grade infrastructure with cloud economics, including pay-for-use and instant scalability of server, storage, networking and software capacity. Now FC supports existing user third-party equipment for a true heterogeneous environment. CloudSystem also can burst to HP FC infrastructure for customers needing the on-demand capacity without the data ever leaving the premises.
“The reality today is that CIOs want and need the benefits of cloud computing, but they are dealing with the complexities of a hybrid IT environment,” said Gillai. “HP Cloud solutions provide enterprises with a holistic and simplified approach for deploying, securing and managing workloads across hybrid delivery models, ensuring a successful cloud journey.”
The focus on flexibility recognises the fact that all organisations are not only on different stages of their cloud journey, but that each journey is unique.
“There is no one size fits all for cloud: there will be multiple journeys, even in one enterprise,” said Gillai.
HP said that its next-generation HP CloudSystem will be available in the first half of 2014, with the Hybrid Cloud Design Professional Services and HP FC available immediately with pricing based on “geographic location and service customisation”.
Availability of the VPC Portfolio varies, with the Public Cloud VPC available in the United States and Managed Virtual Private Cloud is available worldwide.
The Hybrid Cloud Management Platform will be available worldwide in January 2014 starting at $19,600 (€14,246).
www.hp.com
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