This week at the annual Microsoft Ignite conference, the HPE Hybrid Cloud team is breaking news about a number of our infrastructure solutions. The team is well positioned to deliver offerings that serve some of the most vital IT requirements today, because the demand for Hybrid Cloud infrastructure has never been stronger.
This year the Ignite event outgrew Seattle and has landed in the heartland of America, taking place from November 19-22 in Chicago, IL. They’re expecting as many as 15,000 in attendance in the McCormick Center, plus the event is “hybrid” with sessions taking place on-prem and streamed online to virtual attendees. The online audience is currently estimated at another 250,000!
Speaking of hybrid, the recent Flexera 2024 State of the Cloud report shows that 9 out of 10 companies are using multiple clouds for their IT, and of those, over 70% are specifically using Hybrid cloud – a combination of on-premises and public cloud services. And to do that, a highly available, high performance data storage, compute and networking infrastructure is required that can seamlessly enable IT services, applications and data. Which speaks to the heart of our latest offerings.
SQL Server and Azure Hybrid Cloud analytics for AI with the new HPE Alletra Storage MP X10000
AI is on the top of everyone’s list, and this first item meets that need head on: this new solution combines AI-powered Azure cloud analytics with the security and performance benefits of fast all-flash object storage on-prem. And it ties into our product news, being announced simultaneously at the HPE Discover show in Barcelona, about the new HPE Alletra Storage MP X10000. Here’s a link to an article on the new product.
This solution defines optimized hybrid cloud infrastructure to enable the mixing of on-prem data with cloud-based analytic capabilities, to provide customers with the cost-efficiency, control and access to Azure analytics. It also lets customers work with data wherever it originates - in the cloud, on prem or somewhere in between. We shared a preview of this solution, SQL Server Hybrid Cloud Analytics for AI with the HPE Alletra Storage MP X10000, prior to the show. Here’s a link to that solution preview announcement blog.
As to what customers will do with it, we are hearing requests for more ways to leverage on-prem data to perform analytics and related tasks, including AI training, AI workload management or AI deployment.
In this solution, SQL Server on-prem is the master instance providing one view and one layer for Developers, BI analysts, and data scientists to use for simplified, primary access to data. From there they link to external sources – an on-prem data lake, other business databases, or cloud-based data sources.
Specific components of this solution include - Microsoft Fabric, SQL Server 2022 on HPE Storage, the new HPE Alletra Storage MP X10000, and HPE GreenLake consumption-based services.
VMware transformation to Windows Server 2025 and Hyper-V on Alletra MP
Customers have been disrupted over this past year, and are scrambling to reduce the cost of legacy virtualization by moving to newer platforms such as Windows Server Hyper-V. You’ve probably heard about the abrupt changes impacting VMware. And vendors like HPE are being asked by their customers for help to move to better alternatives. Research from Civo and Gartner validates this market disruption, documenting that more than half of VMware customers are considering moving off of vSphere, and that the top reason is due to licensing changes since the Broadcom acquisition. There are two main migration paths in the Microsoft world – to Azure Stack HCI and to Windows Server – and HPE can help with both. Our team is publishing guides and resources to help with the move to Windows Server on our latest Storage products such as the HPE Alletra Storage MP. The new Moving to Windows Server 2025 business brief is available now online.
This new version of Windows Server 2025 has advanced features that improve security, performance, and enable integration with hybrid cloud environments. HPE has published news on this latest version as well as on new related products and bundles. Here’s a link to that Server team blog on the new Windows Server 2025. And along with the compelling new features, here are a few key items to keep in mind about Windows Server as it relates to hybrid cloud computing:
- It’s perfect for Azure hybrid cloud. It’s easy to ‘Arc enable’ Windows server, allowing you to connect your on-prem server to Azure.
- It’s easy to then manage across clouds. HPE has developed Windows Admin Center “Extensions” to connect on-prem servers and storage into the WAC console for granular info about the array, shown within the same single view as Azure-managed resources – and we just released a new one for the latest Storage products.
- And Windows Server is here to stay – if you’re here at Ignite you’ve heard the news about the new Windows Server 2025. It’s got non-disruptive Hot-patching when connected via Azure Arc, Next-gen Active Directory and SMB, and Enhanced Hyper-V & AI capabilities.
We’re all in – HPE Storage products has ‘Day 0’ support of Windows Server 2025 on all our important and newest HPE Storage models. This includes our newest enterprise storage platform, HPE GreenLake for Block Storage MP. Get the whole list of all our Microsoft integrations and certifications for HPE Hybrid Cloud products.
HPE GreenLake Flex solution for Azure Stack HCI
Get the unique benefits of cloud pay-per-use for your entire Microsoft Azure Stack HCI on-prem infrastructure stack with HPE GreenLake Flex. The last top news item is about HPE GreenLake Flex solution for Azure Stack HCI, or as it’s now called, “Azure Local”. HPE has a leading assortment of official Azure Stack HCI/Azure Local solutions across a broad range of HPE infrastructure. Both validated and integrated, optimized for performance or capacity, on devices for core enterprise datacenter use, or at the edge. Read more about what HPE has to offer in this new solution brief. And read the latest news on the new Azure Local in today’s Microsoft announcement.
HPE GreenLake Flex solution for Azure Stack HCI/Azure Local starts with our most popular integrated solution and adds the ability to get the entire offering as an OpEx purchase. It’s not just hardware financing, but a pay-for-what-you-use agreement. You get cloud pay-per-use for your entire on-prem infrastructure stack. So don’t just ask for any Azure Stack HCI solution from HPE, but specifically for HPE GreenLake Flex solution for Azure Stack HCI.
More Microsoft workloads solution news from HPE
HPE GreenLake for Databases featuring HPE Alletra MP and SQL Server – Get cloud management experience with control of on-prem data and applications for SQL Server, the #1 deployed workload on HPE Alletra storage systems. There’s an up-to-date solution brief available with more details on the solution.
Zerto for Azure – HPE Zerto helps companies unlock ransomware resilience, disaster recovery, and continuous data protection to radically reduce data loss and downtime. The product set delivers continuous availability from edge to cloud which is a key enabler for customers running Azure hybrid cloud environments. Read about one company’s experience using Zerto with Azure – Grey County success story.
HPE Combined PowerShell toolkit – Enterprise customers are always looking for ways to improve how they automate and simplify their infrastructure management, and we are helping in that search with a significant enhancement to our PowerShell toolkits. We just published the new HPE Combined PowerShell toolkit which unifies and streamlines scripting across all HPE Storage systems including HPE GreenLake for Block Storage MP. There’s a series of demo videos now on youtube as well as the kit itself available for free download.
Some other key resources from valuable work we’ve done since the last Ignite, have been published and are available online:
- Azure Arc-enabled SQL Server 2022 on HPE PCBE technical whitepaper
- Azure Stack HCI on Alletra 4110 solution explainer video
- Windows Admin Center extension for Azure Stack HCI demo video
- Exchange on Alletra Storage Server 4000 solution brief
- Microsoft Exchange on Alletra 4000s deployment guide
- SQL Server 2022 on HPE MSA storage solution brief
See hybrid cloud analytics for AI and so much more from HPE at Ignite
Stop by the booth or visit the HPE Partner page on the Ignite website to learn what else is new this week for HPE Hybrid Cloud solutions for Microsoft. Here are helpful links to do just that:
HPE Advances Hybrid Cloud Leadership With Unified Virtualization Management, Fast Object Storage
HPE unveiling Azure hybrid cloud infrastructure solution for AI analytics at Ignite 2024
Unveiling Windows Server 2025: Powering Secure Business Workloads
Link to HPE's Ignite sponsor page for even more Solution resources
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Launching and growing new enterprise technology offerings