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HPE GreenLake adds new private cloud virtualization capabilities in addition to new AI offerings based on deep collaboration with Nvidia.

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Executive Summary

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) held their annual HPE Discover conference in Las Vegas where they announced several new offerings that will have strong appeal to enterprise customers and set HPE apart from their competition. From private cloud virtualization to new AI offerings with Nvidia to liquid cooling, HPE is showing their aggressive drive to address shifting enterprise demand.

To kick things off and set the stage for the week of announcements, HPE CEO Antonio Neri became the first to deliver a keynote from the Sphere in Las Vegas. It was quite the experience and a perfect tee-up for the week to come.

Major Themes

HPE continues to drive innovation and value into their GreenLake platform. The announcements at Discover were centered around new offerings that address core issues facing enterprises today.

• Overall HPE GreenLake Update: GreenLake now has 34,000 customers and over four billion connected devices. HPE stated that GreenLake accounts for $15 billion in lifetime TCV. These are solid numbers for HPE and GreenLake.
• HPE Private Cloud Virtualization: HPE announced a new virtualization offering to their GreenLake Private Cloud platform. The offering leverages open-source KVM along with enterprise-grade management tools to migrate and manage virtualized systems. The solution is largely targeted toward customers looking to migrate from VMware to an alternative hypervisor.
• HPE Private Cloud AI: Private cloud AI is part of a portfolio of ‘Nvidia AI computing by HPE’ co-developed with Nvidia. As part of the keynote, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took the stage to discuss the deepening partnership and offering. The offering comes in four sizes (S, M, L, XL) and provides a turn-key private cloud AI solution. Customers can get started in as quick as three clicks and 24 seconds. For enterprises looking to leverage AI locally versus the public cloud, GreenLake’s private cloud for AI provides a viable alternative.
• Liquid Cooling: Widely shown at HPE Discover was the use of liquid cooling for systems. Liquid cooling is not new but widely suffers from a negative stigma about liquids in a data center environment. Today’s solutions are much more contained and elegant from past solutions. In addition, the increase in heat generated by faster processors (ie: Nvidia GPUs) and more densely packed racks are driving alternatives to traditional air-cooled solutions.
• OpsRamp and CloudPhysics: OpsRamp and CloudPhysics are both getting more integrated into the GreenLake platform than ever before. OpsRamp provides management oversight while CloudPhysics provides workload optimization. As private cloud expands on-prem, the demand for integrated management and optimization will grow.
• NetZero for Modern Slavery: HPE’s COO John Schultz presented an incredibly moving and disturbing presentation about how modern slavery is impacting the tech industry. John talked to the work that HPE is doing to combat these issues through their supply chains and across the globe. This is an issue impacts us all, but is largely unfamiliar to enterprises.
• Funding Innovation Through Efficiency: Many enterprises struggle to free up the capital needed to acquire new innovations like GreenLake. HPE’s Gerri Gold talked to the work HPE is doing with customers to identify efficiency opportunities to free up funding for innovation.

CIO Perspective

Enterprises are facing strong demand to build private cloud solutions in addition to their existing public cloud solutions. Not all workloads are best suited for public cloud. HPE’s GreenLake platform offers a bevy of on-prem alternatives that leverage the cloud-based methodology but address the need for on-prem solutions.

Adding support for an enterprise-grade private cloud virtualization option as an alternative to VMware will appeal to CIOs facing license increases in the multiples.

The addition of an easy-to-use AI solution on-prem addresses the need to support AI without public cloud.

Overall, the announcements show a mature Greenlake platform that is quickly adding capabilities as demand increases while making it easier to adopt and reducing time to value.

Overall Summary

This year’s HPE Discover was part victory lap for GreenLake and part setting the stage for a wholly new velocity for the platform.

GreenLake continues to show solid results for HPE as it expands the platform in new ways. The number of customers, devices and revenue demonstrate the success.

In addition, kicking off the keynote at the Sphere, while some may have seen as flashy, signaled a positive change in direction for HPE. The combination of speed to deliver and new core offerings addressing enterprise demand were a marked shift for the company well known for providing a steady pace of solutions.