HPE Launches Breakthrough GreenLake Hybrid Cloud Pay-Per-Use Offering For AWS, Azure And Azure Stack

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Tuesday launched GreenLake Hybrid Cloud -- a "breakthrough" pay per use offering that combines on premises private cloud with AWS, Microsoft Azure and Azure Stack.

HPE, which launched the hybrid cloud breakthrough at its Discover conference in Las Vegas, is billing the new turnkey managed service as the "industry's only comprehensive cloud management service" with performance optimization, cost controls, security and compliance.

The GreenLake hybrid cloud offering builds off the intellectual property HPE acquired from its acquisition in April of Red Pixie, a top Microsoft Azure cloud provider, and its acquisition last year of Cloud Technology Partners, a top AWS cloud provider.

[RELATED: 2018 HPE Discover Coverage]

The new service leverages a toolset from HPE's OneSphere multicloud management software as a service platform.

Ana Pinczuk, senior vice president and general manager of HPE Pointnext, said GreenLake Hybrid Cloud is providing critical cloud cost control as customers grapple with where workloads should reside in public or private cloud.

Some customers, in fact, are eyeing GreenLake Hybrid Cloud to have HPE help them get a handle on shadow IT usage, said Pinczuk.

John Treadway, senior vice president of strategy and portfolio for Cloud Technology Partners, an HPE company, said continous cost management is key to the new service.

"Cost management is really critical," he said. "We had a client running our cost management solution and we saved them 30 percent of their public cloud spend in the last year."

Treadway said both AWS and Microsoft have both been "incredibly supportive" of the new GreenLake Hybrid Cloud service. "Both of them see this as a significant expansion of our relationship with them," he said. "I don't think they expected us to get to this level of investment this quickly."

HPE partners said the GreenLake Hybrid Cloud is another sign of HPE's significant lead in pay per use combining on premises private and public cloud.

Rich Baldwin, chief strategy officer at Nth Generation Computing, one of HPE's top enterprise partners headquartered in San Diego, Calif., said GreenLake Hybrid Cloud is a breakthrough that combines the two top public clouds in AWS and Azure with the best private cloud.

"GreenLake Hybrid Cloud is more cost effective for most customers than trying to go to public cloud," said Baldwin. "Now you can move applications and workloads seamlessly between private cloud and public cloud. HPE is making it easier for customers to combine cloud with their own infrastructure. No one is close to what HPE is doing with hybrid cloud."

Baldwin said HPE acquisitions like Red Pixie and Cloud Technology Partners are paying off for customers and partners. "HPE is making some smart acquisitions," he said.

Jeremy Erlick, vice president of sales central and east for Compugen, Richmond Hills, Ontario, the fast growing HPE and Aruba Canada partner of the year, said GreenLake Hybrid Cloud is another example of HPE's hybrid cloud leadership. In fact, he said, GreenLake Hybrid Cloud is proof that HPE can provide the same economic model that public cloud providers have brought to market.

"This is disruptive," said Erlick. "HPE called this hybrid cloud transition a couple of years ago. The reality is the right solution for most organizations today is a hybrid cloud infrastructure. At the end of the day certain workloads belong in the public cloud and certain workloads don't belong in the cloud. Understanding the right mix is the key. HPE has got it right. The exciting thing about HPE is they are focused, nimble and able to execute. We absolutely see the value of GreenLake."

The HPE GreenLake Hybrid Cloud launch comes just one day after HPE released what partners are calling the first full fledged pay per use model for the channel with GreenLake Flex Capacity. Partners said the new model for the first time gives partners significant financial incentives to sell multiyear, on premises pay per use deals for top HPE infrastructure solutions.

Erlick, for his part, said he sees GreenLake Flex Capacity becoming mainstream in the channel within a year. "This is huge," he said. "There has always been an issue for organizations in the traditional on premise world to be able to experience the same on demand or flex capacity capability offered by a public cloud. HPE has figured it out and it's going to change the game. Compugen is going to take advantage of this new innovation which is effectively leveling the playing field with public cloud. This makes hybrid cloud a compelling reality."

Pinczuk said that HPE GreenLake Hybrid Cloud will initially be available from Pointnext directly. "The goal over time will be to enable GreenLake Hybrid Cloud though partners but we are at the beginning of the journey," she said.