Turbocharged IT for SMBs: Introducing HPE Small Business Solutions for Containers

[marksimpkins]

Tap into the power of containers with these one-stop, ready-to-go solutions designed with small and midsized businesses in mind.

The containerization wave has swept through companies of all sizes in the past few years, and it still has plenty of room to unfold among small and midsized businesses. SMBs are embracing these lightweight runtime environments to achieve the same benefits that they’ve delivered for many larger organizations: enhanced productivity, especially for application development; reduced costs, since containers let you optimize use of hardware; and greater flexibility, with a unified platform for cloud and non-cloud-native applications.

If you’re not familiar with containers, a quick definition might be helpful. Basically, they are lightweight software packages that include everything needed to run an application: the application code itself, plus system tools, config files, libraries. To that extent, they’re similar to virtual machines. The big difference is that VMs include an operating system – a guest OS, which sits on top of the host operating system – as well as the application and its dependencies. Containers don’t need that guest OS layer; instead, they share the host operating system with other containers in read-only mode. That means they’re extremely lightweight, using much less memory and disk space.

I tend to think of containers as like turbocharged VMs, or VMs on steroids. VMs are pretty maneuverable, you can move them around easily from one server to another. But containers take portability to the next level; you can run them just about anywhere, on a variety of operating systems, in the cloud, at the edge, or on bare metal. They’re faster, too, delivering extremely fast startup and shutdown times.

If you’re running on-premises applications and databases that require frequent changes, or doing a lot of app development, or you want to shift some legacy apps to the cloud, container technology can give you the speed and agility you’re looking for.

HPE Small Business Solutions for Containers

To make the benefits of container technology more accessible for small and midsized businesses, HPE has announced HPE Small Business Solutions for Containers. These are reliable, ready-to-go configurations that include all the server, storage, networking, and software you need, as well as expert guidance for deploying the solution. HPE Small Business Solutions for Containers leverage the open-source Docker containerization platform. They are available in a single-server, entry-level configuration and a multiserver, high-availability configuration; both are based on our highly secure HPE ProLiant Gen10 servers.

With HPE Small Business Solutions for Containers, you can:

• Drive productivity. Developers can easily access the resources they need via self-service, accelerating time-to-market for new products. Developers and IT operations teams can collaborate seamlessly – containers are a powerful tool to support DevOps, if you’re heading in that direction. You can also simplify the modernization of traditional, non-web-native apps. HPE ProLiant Gen10 servers include automated intelligence that reduces the time and skills needed for setup and management of the solution.
• Reduce risk. HPE ProLiant Gen10 servers deliver enterprise-class protection for your apps and data with silicon root of trust security built into the hardware.
• Get more out of your hardware. Because containers are lightweight and fluid, they enable you do a lot more with the same amount of compute, increasing the return on your hardware investment.
• Increase flexibility. Containers give you true “write once, run anywhere” flexibility; they’re ideal for a hybrid cloud environment, running seamlessly across on-prem and private and public clouds. HPE ProLiant Gen10 servers are tested, optimized and validated for on-prem and hybrid use cases with Microsoft Windows Server 2019 and Microsoft Azure Cloud Services.

HPE Small Business Solutions for Containers are easy to own, with flexible financing options from HPE Financial Services, including leasing and subscription.

If your SMB is looking for a highly efficient approach to IT – one that provides the agility that today’s unpredictable business environments demand – it could be time to catch the containerization wave.

Check out our HPE Small Business Solutions Deployment Guide for Microsoft Windows-based solutions.

Learn more about HPE small business IT solutions.

Mark Simpkins
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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