By Katie Lenahan
HPE recently announced HPE GreenLake Hybrid Cloud: a managed cloud solution to help you implement, operate, and optimize an Azure Stack hybrid cloud. Here’s a summary of how this impressive solution may benefit you..
Hybrid cloud isn’t a new idea; in fact, we’ve been talking about hybrid cloud for over a decade. But the reality is that implementing and operating a hybrid cloud has proven to be quite difficult. Microsoft has done a great job simplifying hybrid cloud with Azure Stack. Azure Stack offers the same tools and capabilities as Azure but in an organization’s own environment or at the edge. That means organizations can more easily move apps and data between Azure Stack and Azure without the heavy lifting and re-architecting inherent in other hybrid cloud environments.
And now, HPE offers a managed cloud solution to help you implement, operate, and optimize an Azure Stack hybrid cloud. Here’s a quick summary of how our HPE GreenLake Hybrid Cloud solution may benefit you.
Faster time to value
Bottom line: hybrid clouds can be slow and difficult to implement. There are lots of reasons, ranging from the complexity of the technologies and changing vendor landscapes to a lack of standardization from one cloud platform to the next. But one of the main reasons is that organizations just don’t have the right cloud skills and experience. Workload placement, application portability, cloud operations, security, and compliance are just a few of the decisions that need to be made when implementing a hybrid cloud. And for most traditional ITists out there, this is new and unfamiliar ground.
Simplified IT
Getting your cloud up and running is only half the battle. Organizations are finding that operating a cloud is a totally different ballgame than running traditional IT. While many of the tasks are the same – such as managing resources, optimizing performance, and maintaining compliance - how you execute these tasks in the cloud requires a different approach, with different tools and processes. IT organizations must now balance the burden of skilling up in the cloud, managing their existing traditional IT environments, and constantly seeking innovative ways to meet new demands of the business.
This ‘balance challenge’ is one we hear often from customers. It’s a roadblock to getting to where IT needs to be. It’s commonly stated that 80% of IT’s time is spent ‘keeping the lights on’ so it’s no surprise that organizations seek help in driving innovation – be that cloud, big data, AI, or any number of other strategic innovations. With HPE GreenLake Hybrid Cloud, HPE takes on the everyday tasks of operating your Azure Stack environment for you, utilizing cloud-native tools to monitor and manage your cloud operations. This simplifies IT and allows you to focus on driving value to the business using your apps and data.
Pay-per-use
We’re all familiar with the benefits of the public cloud consumption model by now: get the resources you need when you need them and only pay for what you use. For organizations, it’s a great way to avoid large upfront capital expenses and the potential waste of overprovisioning that comes with it.
Up until now, a true consumption model was limited to public clouds like AWS and Azure. Companies that wanted an on-premises hybrid cloud, like Azure Stack, would typically buy the infrastructure to run their cloud upfront, with the inherent risk of under- or overprovisioning capacity. With HPE GreenLake, customers can now pay for their Azure Stack cloud in pay-per-use manner, either in a fully managed capacity with HPE GreenLake Hybrid Cloud or with a customized solution using HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity. This allows organizations to start with what they need today, and grow with business demand. Now you can get the flexibility and economic benefits of the public cloud in your own environment and under your own control.
Better control
While we’re on the subject of control, there are still a lot of companies out there that can’t – or won’t – put their apps and data in the public cloud. Whether it’s a data privacy issue, performance, or the need to have compute at the edge, the public cloud just isn’t the right fit for some companies or specific workloads. With Azure Stack, you get the benefit of everything Azure has to offer plus the ability to run workloads in your own environment and move to Azure public cloud if needed.
HPE GreenLake provides an additional layer of control on top, with automated tools that help ensure compliance and cost control. With continuous monitoring of over 1,500 IT, governance, and regulatory controls, organizations can mitigate risk and stay in compliance. Cost monitoring gives customers visibility into their cloud usage and costs and enables them to minimize waste and optimize spend.
Katie Lenahan works in worldwide marketing for HPE Pointnext, specializing in the HPE GreenLake consumption model and ITaaS offerings. She also has specific expertise in Flex Capacity, Hybrid Cloud for AWS, Azure and Azure Stack, Big Data, Database with EDB Postgres, Backup, and SAP HANA. Katie joined HPE as part of the Cloud Cruiser acquisition. There, she worked extensively with the Microsoft Alliance Team, co-marketing the company’s cloud cost management solution for Azure and Azure Stack.
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