From HPE, Unified DataOps and Alletra 9000 and 6000 Appliances Powered by Data Services Cloud Console

By Tom Black, SVP and GM, storage, HPE

Summary:

• Transforming from leader in enterprise storage to leader in data management

• Data and infrastructure management has been siloed and complex – impeding innovation and creating business risk

• Bringing a cloud operational experience to our customers’ on-premises environments to change forever the way they manage data

• Fueling customers’ data-driven transformation from edge to cloud

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP has been a leader in enterprise storage.

It has helped organizations – among them Fortune 100 enterprises in all major verticals – power their mission-critical applications. Along the way, it has continuously raised the bar and has set the standard for reliability and a market-leading dHCI solution. It has led the way with storage as-a-service. And we has set the pace in customer experience with the industry-leading AIO/s.

In recognition of customers’ changing needs, the company must do more than raise the bar – it must reset the game. Today, it is making a transformative pivot from being a leader in enterprise storage to becoming the leader in data management. And that is redefining its mission and value for its customers and for HPE.

Challenge
Every organization recognizes the need for digital transformation. And it’s at the intersection of data, cloud, and AI that meaningful change is possible. But as there is more data now than ever before, more threats to that data, more demands to utilize data, and more data infrastructure everywhere, IT organizations have reached the point where the complexity to manage it all creates risk and comes at a cost to innovation and time-to-market.

The need for transformation now requires organizations to change how they manage their data and infrastructure – with autonomous operations, self-service, policy-based automation, and mobilization from edge-to-cloud across the lifecycle of data. And this changes everything for storage, yet storage complexity continues.

Outside of the expected gains from Moore’s Law, flash, and NVMe, storage architectures are still plagued with an admin-driven experience to manage the complexity of LUNs, RAID groups, HBAs, load balancing, resource planning, and more.

The new imperative for customers is to shift from managing storage to unleashing their data. This requires streamlining access to the data innovators, protecting data vs. any threat, and mobilizing data to accelerate apps and insights – and doing it wherever data lives from edge-to-cloud. An impossible ask on IT today with the piecemealed technology used to manage data and infrastructure today. Organizations need to break down all the complexity and silos for their data and infrastructure across the hybrid cloud.

Storage complexity is the roadblock to innovation. You must reimagine the experience – and that is what the firm doing by bringing the cloud operational experience to customers’ on-premises environments.

Transforming from storage appliances to data and cloud data services
Today, HPE is beginning to transform data and infrastructure management for hybrid cloud – a visionary approach called Unified DataOps.

It is the north star for HPE and customers because it represents a new data experience that affects everyone across their organizations – from data managers to data innovators – and it accelerates data-driven transformation.

Imagine an organization where IT managers deploy services instead of maintaining infrastructure. Where data innovators have instant, secure access to data for faster time to market and time to insights. Where data managers automatically protect their data for any SLA and wherever their data lives, and where IT executives have complete visibility into their data from edge-to-cloud – all through a streamlined, unified experience. This is Unified DataOps.

But this isn’t a theory. Unified DataOps is real, and it’s grounded on an architectural blueprint that brings together data-centric policies and automation, cloud-native control and operations, and AI-driven insights and intelligence.

Delivering on firm’s vision
The company is delivering Unified DataOps through its data services platform architecture. This platform connects applications to infrastructure, innovators to data, and automation to policies in an unified cloud experience wherever data lives.

The data services platform includes a suite of innovations just unveiled that fundamentally changes the landscape for storage and data management – and shifts the company from a storage business to a software-defined, cloud-native services business.

Data services cloud console
After thousands of engineering hours and 18 months of dedication across our teams, the company brings Data Services Cloud Console to its customers. This SaaS-based console is for data and infrastructure management. Rather than managing data and infrastructure manually and in a fragmented approach, it delivers unified data operations as a service.

The console is built on a cloud-native architecture – shared with the Aruba Edge Services Platform – and is designed to abstract and control infrastructure and data workflows across the data lifecycle and infrastructure lifecycle from edge-to-cloud. Today, this operational control plane delivers the cloud experience wherever data lives and is setting the foundation to streamline data management.

HPE has introduced a suite of cloud infrastructure services that changes the way IT manages storage – with a cloud operational experience. Data Services Cloud Console strips away all the traditional management work across the lifecycle of storage – from deployment and provisioning to global management – all from the ease of a single cloud console. Deployment takes minutes – not days or weeks – with auto-discovery and config. Provisioning across worldwide fleets shifts from guesswork and spreadsheets to intent-based with intelligence. Managing hundreds of systems becomes as simple as managing one – and can be controlled from anywhere on any device.

Organizations can now get the cloud experience for their enterprise storage.

HPE Alletra
The company also announced Alletra – a portfolio of all NVMe cloud-native data infrastructure. Organizations want the cloud experience but need it everywhere their data lives. Alletra – inspired by the word for sparking light is a category game-changer that powers data from edge-to-cloud with a cloud experience.

Powered by Data Services Cloud Console, Alletra 9000 and 6000 enable organizations to run mission-critical applications with 99.9999%+ guaranteed availability and simplified deployment, intent-based provisioning, and invisible upgrades at global scale – all managed from anywhere and delivered as-a-service through HPE GreenLake.

Bold moves for a bold vision
In 2019, the company’s CEO Antonio Neri made the bold move to deliver everything as a service by 2022, furthering the company strategy to be the edge-to-cloud platform as-a-service company. Today it’s transforming the storage business to deliver on the company vision, shifting to as-a-service, and fortifying our new north star – moving the focus away from hardware and laying the foundation to become the leader in data management through cloud services.

Alletra 9000 front and rear

Alletra 6000 front and rear

Resources:
Unified Data Ops   
Data Services Cloud Console    
HPE Alletra