HPE Aims To ‘Leapfrog’ Competitors With Hybrid Cloud AI Ops Based HPE GreenLake For Block Storage: HPE VP Sanjay Jagad

The new offerings include HPE GreenLake Block Storage For AWS, which allows HPE partners to “seamlessly manage” block storage across on premise GreenLake and AWS public cloud environments, according to HPE.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Wednesday unleashed a new version of HPE GreenLake for Block Storage designed to “leapfrog” competitors and establish HPE as a leader in hybrid cloud AI based storage, said HPE Vice President of Product Management Cloud Data Infrastructure Sanjay Jagad.

In fact, the new fourth release of GreenLake for Block Storage marks a “pivotal point” in HPE’s all out bid to “reshape” the storage landmark with what it is calling the industry’s first disaggregated, scale out block storage offered as software defined storage with AWS support, said Jagad.

“This particular announcement and these releases are a pivotal point to reshape what the storage landscape is going to look like from a block storage standpoint, whether it is storage, operations, you name it from a hybrid cloud experience,” said Jagad. “This is a stage where we leapfrog our competition.”

The new release - built on the next generation HPE Alletra MP storage line- also marks a new front in HPE’s AI Ops based capabilities for block storage with Infosight AI Ops cross stack analytics, allowing partners and customers to measure storage performance and cost across hybrid environments, said HPE.

The HPE GreenLake for Block Storage also now supports NVMe capacity scaling to 5.6 petabytes, up from 2.8 petabytes.

“We want to take a leadership role,” Jagad said. “We want to take market share and partners are an important element for that. We have various incentives for our partners to help us drive this market and establish ourselves as the leader, growing this market.”

In fact, Jagad said HPE is making a “heavy investment” in training, sales and go to market to drive partner hybrid cloud sales growth.

“Partners are an important integral part of HPE’s selling motion,” he said. “We are looking to train them, get them ready so they go on offense. We need to go on offense!”

HPE is determined to be the “leader” in the fast growing hybrid cloud market, said Jagad.

“We want to capitalize on this market, we want to be the leader,: he said. “We have the value with the GreenLake cloud platform – a common hardware plane with HPE GreenLake for Block Storage that delivers a true hybrid cloud experience through AI Ops and other things. We expect to be the leader.”

Here is what partners need to know about the new HPE GreenLake for Block Storage.

A Full Breadth Of AI Capabilities For Managing Block Storage

The new GreenLake for Block Storage release includes new AI operations management capabilities with a federated and hybrid AI engine, said Jagad.

HPE GreenLake for Block Storage also now provides Infosight AI Ops cross stack analytics, allowing partners and customers to measure storage performance and cost across hybrid environments.

HPE AI Ops are fueled by what HPE called a “global telemetry data fabric” aimed at providing AI insights across the entire hybrid storage infrastructure.

“Customers are challenged today from an IT perspective,” said Jagad. “They need this full breadth of AI capabilities that optimizes their environment. It allows our partners to use this as differentiated value with our customers.”

Jagad said HPE is not getting the “due credit” it deserves for the “investments and leadership” it has in AI Ops.“When other vendors talk about AI Ops they are talking about support experience,” he said.

In contrast, HPE is providing a full stack self driving AI experience, said Jagad. “We are the only vendor that has the capabilities that extend beyond the support experience,” he said. “We use AI Ops in the way we manage the infrastructure from deployment to green field to brown field where we help (partners and customers) through the protection policies they want. We give them recommendation and insights into their data protection and replication pairs and how they need to set up (storage) to meet your SLAs (Service Level Agreements).”

HPE AI Ops analytics also provides detailed insights on storage utilization, and adjusts storage infrastructure quality of service with AI, said Jagad.

HPE OpsRamp – which HPE acquired last May- is also now providing telemetry on infrastructure, providing the ability to detect end to end storage anomalies, said Jagad. That allows partners to detect storage bottlenecks, he said.

“Automated AI Ops through our AI Engine is something unique to us that no one else offers,” he said.

The HPE GreenLake For AWS Hybrid Cloud Advantage

The new HPE GreenLake for Block Storage for AWS sets HPE apart from competitors as the “industry’s only” disaggregated software defined block storage in the hyperscalar public cloud environment.

“This is a huge opportunity for customers looking to optimize their cloud spend and maximize their investments,” said Jagad. “That means they can balance their cloud spend, bringing them on premise and apply that resource and investments into other areas.”

HPE GreenLake for Block Storage for AWS – which is available to order beginning at the end of May- comes with HPE seeing increased momentum around hybrid cloud, said Jagad.

More customers are looking to “repatriate” from public cloud based on cost and security and governance issues, said Jagad.

“A customer today can now deploy the same GreenLake for Block Storage whether it is on premise or in the cloud and have it centrally unified and managed through the GreenLake cloud platform using the same AI Ops capabilities to get the same data management and data protection and all the software value they are used to getting on prem,” said Jagad.

The Next Step Beyond HPE GreenLake For Block Storage for AWS

HPE intends to offer Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud support in the future, said Jagad.

“Our goal is to become a true hybrid cloud platform for our customers- to be able to deliver this unified experience and value through the GreenLake platform whether it is AWS, Azure, Google or some other private clouds,” said Jagad.

The call to action for HPE partners is to leverage the hyperscalar public cloud providers to capitalize on the hybrid cloud opportunity, said Jagad. “You are now becoming the consulting experts to customers to build these hybrid cloud capabilities.”

Jagad sees increased opportunities for partners helping customers repatriate from public cloud to a true hybrid cloud to maximize investments.

“The partner opportunity is huge because they now have the ability to bridge the on premise and cloud world through this unified (HPE for GreenLake Block Storage) offering,” he said.

HPE’s New Timeless Program Investment Protection

HPE GreenLake for Block Storage now includes the “HPE Timeless Program” which ensures customers can move to a next generation storage controller from HPE without doing a costly forklift upgrade.

Under the Timeless Program, HPE partners selling Alletra MP or Block Storage to a next generation storage controller when renewing a subscription.That investment protection, HPE said, results in an average savings of 30 percent of total cost of ownership.

The Timeless Program – which will be available in the third quarter this year- includes a 100 percent data availability Guarantee and HPE StoreMore guarantee with what HPE called predictable multi-year economics and guaranteed service levels.

HPE GreenLake for Block Storage opens the door for partners to move customers away from legacy storage to a modern cloud native storage architecture that “future proofs” their investments, said Jagad.

New HPE GreenLake For Private Cloud Support

HPE Alletra MP and HPE Simplivity Gen11 are now available as offerings with HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Business Edition. That simplifies virtual machine management across on premise and public cloud environments.

Putting those products under the HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Business Edition is yet another example of HPE providing partners and customers with a “true hybrid cloud experience,” said Jagad.

HPE Alletra MP and HPE Simplivity Gen11 with HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Business Edition is available in July.

The HPE Private Cloud Business Edition capabilities combined with the pivotal new release of HPE GreenLake for Block Storage puts HPE into a leadership position in the hybrid cloud AI Ops market, said Jagad.

“HPE is ready to take a leadership role,” he said. “We are at the right place in the market where we belong. We have the (storage) portfolio. We have the (HPE GreenLake for Block Storage) offering. We have the AI Ops and the GreenLake cloud platform that helps from an operational standpoint and delivers value added services. We have a comprehensive portfolio that allows us to win in the entry level market as well as with the top enterprises which require a full breadth of portfolio items…This is a win win situation. We are taking a leadership (position). We are taking market share moving forward. This is the partner opportunity to join us and be part of the revamp that is happening in this market.”