Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is introducing the first open hybrid cloud platform built on its composability fabric that will become available on its ProLiant DL servers and the Simplivity hyper converged platform.
Labelled as a ‘first-of-its-kind’ integrated software stack, the offering will see enterprise organisations benefit from the choice of public and private clouds with the “speed, efficiency, scale, and economics” of public cloud providers.
Such benefits are enabled through enhanced capabilities, including built- in AI-driven operations with HPE InfoSight, additional new intelligent storage features, a fabric built for composable environments, and new updates to its as-a-service hybrid cloud management tool, OneSphere.
Specifically, the new cloud stack gives customers more choice across composable-infrastructure building blocks that will include its rack servers — HPE Composable Cloud for ProLiant DL, or the HPE Synergy platform through HPE Composable Cloud for Synergy.
It can compose any workload, any service and across any cloud, with the aim to reduce infrastructure cost and complexity.
“With our new open hybrid cloud platform, enterprises of all sizes can now manage, provision and deliver workloads and apps instantly and continuously to accelerate innovation,” said Phil Davis, HPE Hybrid IT president.
According to Davis, a unique feature of the new HPE open hybrid cloud platform is a fabric built for composable environments and managed as a resource by HPE OneView, which simplifies the network, lowering costs and improving operational efficiency.
Composable Fabric was first introduced inside HPE Synergy and is now available outside of a modular architecture and across the data centre, and can also be offered separately.
HPE director of Synergy and OneView, Peter Groth, said companies can reap all the benefits of a composable environment that runs on top of its ProLiant DL line of products.
“We’re extending our thought leadership in and around the hybrid cloud services, but also our composable category,” Groth said.
“We’ve basically done all the integration, all the lifecycle management environment, all the pieces that go with being able to stand up a true private cloud and connect it straight into our private cloud offerings.”
Revamp
The Composable Cloud on ProLiant DL servers is initially supporting Red Hat OpenShift and VMware workload deployments, integrating key components including built-in artificial intelligence using HPE InfoSight software, predictive analytics and continuous learning.
The composable infrastructure platform features an automated management experience, and addresses workloads such as SAP and Oracle, as well as cloud-native applications or mixed workloads.
Meanwhile, the new HPE SimpliVity with Composable Fabric is a hyper-converged offering specifically designed to provide end-to-end software-defined automation for compute, storage and networking — all managed via a single user interface.
According to Groth, the solution brings cloud “agility, scalability and simplicity” to the enterprise data centre, in a single building block.
“This is pretty significant because the intelligence of the fabric is essentially hyper converged networking,” Groth explained.
“The idea is that it continuously self-optimises for performance, because the fabric is intelligent and it has an enormous amount of operational agility because as you are working with your environments, moving VMs or other workloads in and out of your Simplivity environment, the fabric automatically adapts to that.
“Ultimately it allows Simplivity to seamlessly scale because the intelligence in the network and fabric is one that is built for the enterprise scale – there’s not your usual roadblocks as you would expect.
“All the networking headaches that you typically run into in hyper converged networking environment are essentially solved – both on day one and in terms of ongoing optimisation.”
On top of this, HPE is also integrating its hyper cloud management platform, OneSphere directly with HPE OneView.
“One of the things that became apparent is that it would make sense to utilise these integrations even for organisations who are not looking for a full-on, private cloud all the way through all the different layers, but for organisations who would like to provision such things as bare metal to the HPE portfolio through to OneView,” Groth said.
“The OneSphere offering basically enhances the support for deployments of containers as-a-service, as it helps expand the ability to effectively control workload placement.”
Channel play
Davis branded the new offerings as a “big transformation” for the channel, with a initiatives in place to help partners navigate through this.
Specifically, channel offerings include more certifications and new tools to help partners with their own training and enablement of their teams with more than 70 per cent of HPE’s business currently conducted indirectly.
“We realise this journey will require investment and we’re aligning our rebates and compensation model to these areas,” he said.
The HPE Composable Cloud for ProLiant DL rack servers will be rolled out in the US, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, and Australia from February 2019 while enablement initiatives will also be rolled out to partners in January.
Meanwhile, HPE SimpliVity with Composable Fabric will be available December 2018 in the US, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, and Australia.
IDG News Service
Ltd
