HPE Unleashes Breakthrough AI Based BlueData On Apollo

‘This is a big opportunity and it’s sticky,’ says HPE Vice President and General Manager of Big Data Patrick Osborne. ‘It’s a combination of services, subscription software and it drags a big platform sale.’

Just five months after completing the acquisition of BlueData, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Tuesday unleased a new version of its artificial intelligence BlueData big data-as-a-service offering that runs on its high performance Apollo systems backed up by HPE Pointnext deployment services.

With the new offering, HPE said BlueData software subscriptions can be ordered with HPE Apollo server and storage infrastructure in a variety of configurations. The new offering is available in the United States, United Kingdom/Ireland, Germany, France and Singapore.

“The message is if you have a AI/data science expertise and you are in the five countries we are doing business in, we absolutely want you to be participating in the HPE channel with this technology stack,” said Patrick Osborne, vice president and general manager of big data and secondary storage for Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

In fact, the new integrated offering signals the start of a partner recruitment offensive aimed at driving high margin, recurring revenue big data opportunities for the channel.

“BlueData in the past hasn’t been a big channel heavy play because it was a small company, but we are looking to expand that in those key five countries we are doing business in,” he said.

For partners making a big investment in AI and machine learning solutions, BlueData represents a “great way for them to get into a very constructive dialogue with their customers around data strategy, container strategy and the path to Kubernetes,” said Osborne.

Initially, HPE partners will be able to resell the Pointnext services with a plan down the road to get partners to do BlueData software delivery, said Osborne.“We are looking for data centric, upstack partners who want to make an investment in this area,” he said.

Currently there are a number of systems integrators including Accenture, Deloitte and DXC Technology who are helping with BlueData architect AI/machine learning projects, said Osborne.

The key customer demographic target is Fortune 500 and Global 2000 customers who are pushing the big data technology envelope. “These are larger companies with an established analytics practice with data scientists in more technology forward verticals like financial services, healthcare, pharma, manufacturing, and automotive,” said Osborne.

With AI and machine learning transforming every industry, the BlueData big data as a service offering is a high margin opportunity for partners, said Osborne.

“This is a big opportunity and it’s sticky,” he said. “It’s a combination of services, subscription software and it drags a big platform sale. It’s a land and expand methodology that starts with a pilot to prove out a couple of application stack scenarios for a customer.”

Kris Rogers, president of En Pointe IT Solutions, El Segundo, Calif., one of HPE’s top enterprise partners, credited HPE with driving big data breakthroughs for enterprise customers.

“This is pretty exciting,” said Rogers. “You can’t have any type of conversation about technology without having a conversation about AI and machine learning. It’s super exciting to see a company with HPE’s resources bringing BlueData into the fold. We are seeing a number of our clients pushing the big data envelope looking for solutions in this space. Our clients are saying we want to learn more. From our perspective our job as a solution provider is to enable those conversations.”

Rogers said BlueData’s AI/machine learning prowess combined with HPE’s channel strength puts a “great big stamp of approval” on AI and machine learning solutions. That market leadership on AI/machine learning is a credit to HPE CEO Antonio Neri and the HPE leadership team, said Rogers.

“HPE is being very thoughtful and strategic,” she said. “We are a long term partner of HPE. We are joined at the hip at a number of very strategic clients. I am very proud of being an HPE partner. There have been lots of changes over the years but from my perspective HPE has continued to be a very partner-first, channel-centric partner. The fact that they make these types of investments is one of the reasons they are a such a strategic partner for us.”