By: Mouis Yafeh, Sr. Solution Architect at Nth Generation
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) introduced a hybrid cloud service called GreenLake in June 2018. The GreenLake Hybrid Cloud has evolved and many HPE product names now start with the word “GreenLake.” This has been confusing to many of my customers. This article is an effort to describe the current state of GreenLake, its benefits, and how it can help customers.
GreenLake is HPE’s portfolio of cloud and as-service solutions. It is made up of two portfolios: one is HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions, and the other is GreenLake Private and Hybrid Cloud Services. Both solutions are accessed and managed by the HPE GreenLake Edge-to-Cloud platform.
The HPE GreenLake Edge-to-Cloud platform, also known as the HPE GreenLake platform,
provides a unified pane of glass for management of the environment. The platform supports financial, technical, operational, and sustainability-type common functionality for various HPE and partner services. The GreenLake platform allows rapid development in improving the management and functionality of solutions that are under its umbrella. For example, HPE GreenLake for Compute Operations Manager (COM) is a management tool for servers and compute. It can be hot-fixed in matter of minutes as needed and regularly updated as it is a cloud-based service. The user benefits by reduced maintenance responsibility of the platform.
HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions
If any of the following bullets resonate with your organization, then HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions may be a fit for you.
Capital expenditure containment
Predictable monthly cost
Ease of upgrade (life cycle management)
Decommissioning old equipment
Installation and “white glove” top level support and services
Simplicity of management (fewer UI interfaces, SSO and Secure, SaaS option)
HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions takes an infrastructure solution based on HPE and third-party technologies and packages it as a pay for consumption. The solution is metered, and a customer will pay for the minimum commitment and for additional usage. Unlike other cloud services where the network ingress costs can increase the monthly cost, HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions provide a predictable monthly cost which organizations can deal with. In addition, the cost can be considered as OPEX or CAPEX depending on the organization’s accounting methodology. Many of my customers who use the GreenLake Flex Solutions have avoided going in front of the board or CEO/CFO to ask for capital budget. This way, they have been able to select and deploy a solution rapidly as they avoid the yearly planning and budgeting cycle.
In addition, HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions can include white glove services which augment the resources of the IT department. In many cases, it is a way to transfer knowledge, deal with system’s life cycle management, upgrades, patching, cleansing, and disposing of older hardware. These services can be provided by HPE or authorized channel partners like Nth Generation Computing.
The following figure is a sample of current offerings within each technology:
Figure 1: GreenLake Flex benefits
HPE GreenLake Private and Hybrid Cloud Services
HPE GreenLake Private and Hybrid Cloud Services are a set of technologies which are managed by the HPE GreenLake platform. The HPE GreenLake platform is a cloud-based software platform that delivers functionality and user experience across HPE GreenLake Solutions. It provides a common set of capabilities including user authentication, role-based access control, quoting and ordering of services, managed service provider workflows, metering and billing, tagging, inventory management, notifications, API and CLI standards, and more. The GreenLake platform provides a workspace to users where they can add applications, resources, devices and subscriptions for use.
Figure 2: GreenLake Platform user Interface
Practically every HPE technology solution is moving to the GreenLake platform. Core Compute, Containers, Hybrid Cloud, Hyperconverged Virtual Desktops, Data Protection, AI/ML/Data Analysis, Databases, Data Storage Migration, and Connectivity are a few of HPE’s GreenLake solutions. HPE is also broadening its relationship with public cloud providers to deliver a consistent, reliable hybrid cloud experience for customers. These new capabilities are built on the full lifecycle of consulting, migration, and modernization services for hybrid cloud that HPE delivers today. A few examples include AWS, Google, Microsoft, and HPE NVIDIA cloud.
The following figure shows current offerings within each technology:
Figure 3: HPE GreenLake Private and Hybrid cloud offerings
Let us review an example solution to better understand GreenLake.
HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Business Edition (PCBE) is one of the offerings under hybrid and private cloud in Figure 3. PCBE provides self-managed and orchestrated VMs across private and public cloud. PCBE provides attractive total cost of ownership via reduced VMware cost, integrated data protection, and reduced management via one-click upgrade.
PCBE is the evolution of the HPE Hyperconverged portfolio, Alletra dHCI, and SimpliVity. PCBE provides a simple cloud operational experience via the HPE GreenLake platform, choice of underpinning technology (Alletra dHCI or SimpliVity), and ability to provision instances in AWS and Azure (future) all from a common interface.
PCBE based on Alletra dHCI is a good solution for mission-critical, business-critical, and mixed workloads as it provides independent scaling of compute and storage. PCBE based on Alletra Storage MP provides a unique all-active architecture that supports mission-critical apps with 100% data availability guarantee.
PCBE based on SimpliVity is a good solution for edge and general-purpose workloads as it offers an all-in-one hyperconverged solution in a most energy and space-efficient footprint, including built-in data protection.
HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Business Edition can be acquired via traditional purchase where customers own the infrastructure. PCBE can also be acquired as part of HPE GreenLake Flex solutions where customers pay as the resources are used. In both cases, the management of the environment is via the HPE GreenLake platform.
Open up opportunities across your edges, colos, and data centers with Nth Generation & HPE GreenLake, the open and secure edge-to-cloud platform you've always wanted.
Learn more here: https://www.nth.com/hpegreenlake
Request more info: click here
References
HPE deck: HPE GreenLake: The cloud that comes to you
HPE deck: Explore the updated Mapbook for HPE GreenLake: Partner Ecosystemke: Partner Ecosystem
HPE deck: HPE GreenLake: Executive Overview
Comments