Microsoft Ignite 2016 ignites a fire

[EIC_Alliances]

By Carrie Francey

Some IT conferences elicit a flicker of excitement. Really good ones fan the flames of enthusiasm. And a few, like the Microsoft Ignite Conference recently held in Atlanta are true barn-burners where attendees leave the event convinced they can conquer the world … or at least the IT part of it. Here’s just some of the excitement that came out of Ignite, made even more exciting by the key role that Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is playing in bringing these breakthroughs to market.

Azure: the color of excitement
The focus of the event was on Azure and its ability to support customers in their adoption of a hybrid-cloud approach. Microsoft highlighted its continued support by announcing the availability of Azure Stack TP2. HPE was singled out as one of the three providers of the Azure stack solution. The HPE DL380 solution was presented on stage and was also demoed in the HPE booth, providing a clear demonstration of its ability to deliver the best Hybrid IT experience. Visitors to the booth were also able to see that HPE is the only Azure stack vendor with:

• Unified application and performance management across Azure, Azure Stack and traditional IT via Operations Bridge.
• Security monitoring across Azure, Azure Stack and traditional IT via ArcSight.
• Data security across Azure, Azure Stack and traditional IT via SecureData.
• A multi-cloud management solution across Azure, AWS, VMware and OpenStack via Helion Cloud Suite.
• Pay-as-you-go pricing and unified billing for Azure and Azure Stack via HPE’s unique Flexible Capacity approach that lets you provision for growth yet pay only for what you actually use

Adding to the Azure excitement was the announcement that the HPE | Microsoft alliance will jointly deliver the power of Azure in a customer’s datacenter with a powerful hybrid cloud platform in mid-2017. By defining, powering and optimizing the Right Mix of public cloud, private cloud and traditional IT, customers can increase their agility and reduce cost.

HPE will leverage our joint investment with Microsoft in our Center of Excellence (CoE) centers, which are opening soon. The Center provides a proving ground for joint HPE | Microsoft hybrid cloud solutions based on Azure and also showcase HPE hardware powering the Azure Stack Solution.

To learn more about the HPE | Microsoft alliance visit the Alliance web site.

Carrie Francey is Vice President of Strategic Alliances for Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). In this role, Carrie and her team are forging the partnership of HPE and Microsoft to drive value for Enterprise customers. In addition, she oversees the long term strategy, executive interaction, and revenue across the business units of HPE with key software partners who have a material impact to HPE as a company.