Hewlett-Packard Tuesday enhanced its Converged Cloud platform to allow businesses and solution providers to manage services across public and private clouds and created links to cloud providers Amazon Web Services and Savvis as well as the HP Cloud.
The development of this hybrid cloud capability reflects the growing interest in using a mixture of cloud services to host diverse IT resources.
In April, amid some fanfare, HP joined the OpenStack Foundation to support open standards for cloud building. By opting to create easy access to Amazon, the company is showing it's playing no favorites.
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"Offering access to solution providers to Savvis and Amazon as well as the HP Cloud is consistent with choices and opportunities we think are going to be created in the cloud," Frances Guida, manager of Cloud Solutions for the Enterprise Group at HP, said in an interview with CRN.
One analyst said HP was moving in the right direction by offering users many cloud providers from which to choose.
"Working with the Amazon cloud is a smart move to reduce barriers to adoption for any new set of cloud services," said Al Hilwa, program director for Applications Development Software at research firm IDC. "Amazon is an early leader in this space and the odds of an organization [having] deployed applications in the Amazon cloud are high."
HP, Palo Alto, Calif., also introduced an upgraded version of HP Cloud Service Automation, making it easier to manage applications and infrastructure on HP's cloud platform. The company upgraded its Cloud System Service Provider program as well and recruited new members to its Cloud Agile Service Provider program.
In addition, HP introduced Application Performance Management 9.2 for Converged Cloud to help users improve performance management of cloud and mobile environments.
In other news, HP introduced cloud services for the airline industry. The company released Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service offerings specifically designed for airlines as well as a SaaS platform for airline passengers.
