HP Discover, Las Vegas – HP yesterday asserted itself in its quest to be the world’s leading cloud computing vendor with a number of new announcements around its Converged Cloud portfolio, the most prominent being HP Cloud OS, a platform that leverages the power of OpenStack technology to enable workload portability, simplified installation and enhanced lifecycle management across hybrid clouds.
The company say the latest announcements deliver the next phase of a common OpenStack-based architecture for HP’s private, managed and public cloud offerings. In addition to HP Cloud OS, it also announced new software and services to accelerate time to market for private cloud implementations and new capabilities in HP’s managed and public cloud solutions.
“This really is an exciting day for us,” says HP executive VP and chief operations officer, Bill Veghte.
“Three years ago we set course on openness and transparency around the hybrid [cloud] world and, headline one: we’re doing what we said we were going to do – we have a strategy and we’re provisioning it; headline two: on the basis of that strategy and vision we are winning in the marketplace; and headline three: we have increased the set of innovations, product and services to accelerate our customers on their journey to the cloud.”
Veghte says it is clear that the market is ready for cloud computing.
“Look one year ago and compare it to where we are today,” he says. “Clearly, the use of cloud has expanded – I think it has absolutely accelerated, whether it is measured in customer spending or on the number of small pilots evolving into large scale cloud. It is all about speed and agility, and how they deploy it for their own customers.
“And it is no longer about a single delivery model,” he adds. “It is about a combination of private, managed and public cloud – our customers want hybrid cloud.”
Veghte says that just looking at the numbers confirms the escalating speed with which cloud is being adopted.
“We currently have 5 600 customers going on the cloud journey with us,” he says. “We have done hundreds upon hundreds of workshops – and we’re doing it all through and with our partners. Today, there are more than 5 000 certifications out there and more than 130 Centres of Excellence for cloud.”
The company says that HP CloudSystem, its private cloud offering, already embeds HP Cloud OS technology, offering customers greater choice in deployment options. To help customers get started quickly with an initial private cloud deployment, HP also is offering the HP CloudSystem Enterprise Starter Suite.
This solution provides a rapid, cost-effective way for organisations to get started with rich application cloud services, and reduces up-front costs by up to 20% with the bundled offering.
HP Moonshot servers will also be offered with HP Cloud OS, providing simplified provisioning and management for specific cloud workloads such as dedicated hosting and large-scale Web sites. HP Cloud Services, HP’s public cloud offering, also leverages HP Cloud OS technology, providing one of the leading public clouds based on OpenStack technology.
Further, for customers to evaluate and understand the benefits of an OpenStack-based architecture for their cloud needs, HP is offering HP Cloud OS Sandbox for experimentation at no cost.
HP has also introduced the HP Converged Cloud Professional Services Suite. These new offerings include HP Converged Cloud Support, HP Cloud Design Service, HP Cloud-ready Networking Services, HP Proactive Care for CloudSystem, and HP Cloud Security Risk and Controls Advisory Services, as well as enhancements to HP Applications Transformation to Cloud Services.
HP Enterprise Services has enhanced its portfolio of cloud service offerings to address increased customer needs for mobile and enterprise applications. These include:
* HP Enterprise Cloud Services for Enterprise Applications that give clients choice and flexibility when integrating and deploying applications in the cloud while maintaining business continuity and ensuring data security.
* HP Mobile Enterprise Cloud Solution that provides a fully managed and integrated set of mobile consulting and management services to securely enable applications and data sharing from many device types.
* HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Private Cloud that enables clients to quickly adopt cloud services by designing, building and managing a complete Infrastructure as a Service that creates the foundation for an enterprise-wide shared IT services model.
* HP Cloud Security Risk and Control Advisory Services, a new offering in the HP professional services portfolio that helps clients safeguard their information, manage potential for data breaches and remain compliant while transitioning applications to public, private and hybrid clouds.
In addition, HP Autonomy introduced the Autonomy Marketing Cloud, a cloud-based version of the Autonomy Marketing Performance Suite, enabling organisations to understand, attract, engage and convert customers in realtime.