With the Hewlett-Packard corporate split complete, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise is ramping up its hybrid cloud strategy with the launch of Synergy, a new hardware-software platform that delivers what HPE calls "composable infrastructure." Here are the key details from HPE's announcement at Discover 2015 in London:
Based on groundbreaking new architecture developed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HPE Synergy leverages fluid resource pools, software defined intelligence and a unified API to provide the foundation for organizations to continually optimize the right mix of traditional and private cloud resources.
Supporting these two very different operating models requires rethinking the way IT infrastructure is built. HPE Synergy addresses this challenge by leveraging a new architecture called Composable Infrastructure which consists of three key design principles:
1. Fluid Resource Pools
a. Compute, storage and fabric networking that can be composed and recomposed to the exact need of the application
b. Boots up ready to deploy workloads
c. Supports all workloads - Physical, Virtual and Containerized.
2. Software Defined Intelligence
a. Self-discovers and self-assembles the infrastructure you need
b. Repeatable, frictionless updates
3. A Unified API
a. Single line of code to abstract every element of infrastructure
b. 100% infrastructure programmability
c. Bare-metal interface for Infrastructure as a Service
HPE Synergy physically brings together compute, storage and networking fabric, and through a single interface powered by HPE OneView, composes physical and virtual resources into any configuration for any application. As an extensible platform, it easily enables a broad range of applications and is ideal for customers looking to deploy a scalable hybrid cloud environment and enable continuous DevOps.
The unified API provides a single interface to discover, search, provision, update and diagnose the composable infrastructure required to test, develop and run code. With a single line of code, HPE’s innovative Composable API can fully describe and provision the infrastructure that is required for applications, eliminating weeks of time-consuming scripting.
HP is claiming that Synergy can reduce application overprovisioning by up to 60 percent, while dramatically increasing the speed with which IT departments can deploy applications.
One-stop support will be available for Synergy, and HPE is also planning to offer a program wherein Synergy customers have an option to return a percentage of unneeded servers within a year. Synergy is set for launch in the second quarter of next year through HPE and partners.
HPE Makes A Statement
On one level, consider Synergy a newly planted flag in the enterprise soil for HPE, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller.
"For HPE to compete it needs to provide what its public cloud competitors provide—a flexible scaling and priced computing construct, formed of compute, storage and networking," Mueller says. "So it really comes back to how much on-premises IT infrastructure enterprises will buy. If they buy it then HP has put down a compelling infrastructure, leveraging its very good market position with its OneView management product. The question now is how will competitors such as Dell, Lenovo, et al respond."
"We see this offering having potential due to the cost savings HPE can offer, with a more flexible resource allocation and related savings," Mueller adds. "At the same time HPE will have to show success selling Synergy to smaller public cloud providers, e.g. the Telcos, SIs, to also tap into the spend happening on the public cloud side."
HPE's Public Cloud Play
Recently, HPE announced a deal with Microsoft wherein Microsoft Azure will be a preferred public cloud option for HPE, while HPE will be a preferred Microsoft parnter for Azure services. HPE is planning to shut down its Helion public cloud early next year.
More details of the agreement were announced at Discover and are available here.
