5 Pay-As-You-Go Data Center Infrastructure Offerings Partners Need To Know

The Future Of Data Center Infrastructure

Cloud computing has changed the economics of the data center, forcing traditional IT vendors to create competitive, pay-as-you-go offerings that, in some cases, could cost even less than cloud services from the likes of AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Research firm IDC estimates that by 2020, consumption-based procurement will dominate in data centers. IT leaders like Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell Technologies have launched flexible pay-per-use consumption-based models where customers pay for usage without needing to buy costly hardware. Customers can make monthly payments for the hardware and IT consumption, such as compute and storage, enabling customers to scale as needed.

Here are five pay-as-you-go offerings that partners need to know about in 2018.

HPE-Rackspace OpenStack

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Rackspace launched OpenStack Private Cloud last year with pay-per-use infrastructure delivered as a managed service. Customers pay for the cloud-like meter pricing in a private cloud environment located either in their own data center, a colocation facility or a data center managed by Rackspace. HPE said it enables customers to handle unpredictable growth and bursts in workloads without having to pay for additional fixed capacity. With the flexible capacity model, customers typically will save 40 percent or more compared to the public cloud, according to the vendors.

Dell EMC Cloud Flex

In May, Dell EMC unleashed Cloud Flex for its hyper-converged infrastructure product line. Cloud Flex gives customers a cloud-like consumption model with monthly payments, built-in price reductions by up to 30 percent annually, and no upfront costs. The appliances can be returned to Dell EMC with no fee after the first 12 months. Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell recently told CRN that the flexible consumption models would bring channel partners significant business.

Cisco Open Pay

Cisco Open Pay is a pay-per-use model for the company's flagship Unified Computing System (UCS) servers, storage, converged and hyper-converged platforms. Customers pay for the portion of compute and storage consumed and can easily dial capacity up and down as needed. Cisco said there is no hidden charges or backdoor fees, just a quarterly fixed cost that's lower than a full lease on all of the equipment.

Dell Flex On Demand

Another flexible consumption-based model launched by Dell last year was Flex on Demand, which covers all its storage platforms. Flex on Demand lets customers pay only for the storage capacity needed, reducing costs associated with overprovisioning, said Dell. The program, run by Dell Financial Services, provides instant access to additional buffer capacity during spikes with payments adjusting to match usage.

HPE GreenLake Flex

In November, HPE unveiled its next-generation GreenLake Flex capacity consumption model for on-premise offerings including HPE Synergy, AzureStack, Gen10 blade servers, 3Par storage, StoreOnce, Converged System 700, and SimpliVity. Additionally, the company launched on-premises workload services offerings, dubbed HPE GreenLake, which provide public cloud pay-as-you-go models backed by a set of advisory, professional and managed services from HPE's Pointnext organization. HPE GreenLake is an end-to-end service offering with on-site consultants and professional services.