Today, HPE introduced Ezmeral, a new software portfolio and brand name at its Discovery Virtual Event (DVE), with product offerings ranging from container orchestration and management, AI/ML and data analytics, cost control, IT automation and AI-driven operations, and security. The new product line continues the company’s trend of creating software closely bundled to its hardware offerings.
Three years ago, HPE divested itself of its software division. Much of the ‘spin-merge’, as it was called, was a portfolio of software components that didn’t have a cohesive strategy. The software that was left to remain in the company was closely tied to hardware and infrastructure – its core businesses. And like the software that powers its infrastructure, OneView and InfoSight, the new Ezmeral line is built around infrastructure automation, namely Kubernetes.
Core Competency
Infrastructure orchestration is the core competency of the Ezmeral suite of software – with the HPE Ezmeral Container Platform servicing the the foundational building block for the rest of the portfolio. Introduced in November, HPE Container Platform is a pure Kubernetes distribution, certified by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and supported by HPE. HPE touts it as an enterprise-ready distribution. HPE is not doing a lot of value add at the container space, but they are working to help enterprise adopt and lifecycle Kubernetes.
Kubernetes has emerged as the de-facto infrastructure orchestration software. Originally developed by Google, it allows container workloads to be defined and orchestrated in an automated way, including remediation and leveling. It provides an abstracted way to handle networking and storage – through the use of plug-ins developed by different providers.
Portfolio
A single software does not make a portfolio, however, so there is more. In addition to the Kubernetes underpinnings, the acquisition of BlueData by HPE provides the company with an app store and controller which assists with the lifecycle and upgrades of both the products running on the Container Platform and the platform itself. There is a lot of value to companies in these components.
In addition, the HPE Data Fabric is also a component of the portfolio allowing customers to pick and choose their stateful storage services and plugins within the Kubernetes platform.
The focus of the App Store is on analytics and big data – with artificial intelligence and machine learning as a focus as well. The traditional big data software titles – Spark, Kafka, Hadoop, etc. – will continue to be big portions of the workloads intended to run on the HPE Ezmeral Container Platform.
New Workloads
The new announcement for HPE Discover Virtual Event centers around Machine Learning and ML Ops.
According to the press release, HPE Ezmeral ML Ops software leverages containerization to streamline the entire machine learning model lifecycle across on-premises, public cloud, hybrid cloud, and edge environments. The solution introduces a DevOps-like process to standardize machine learning workflows and accelerate AI deployments from months to days. Customers benefit by operationalizing AI / ML data science projects faster, eliminating data silos, seamlessly scaling from pilot to production, and avoiding the costs and risks of moving data. HPE Ezmeral ML Ops will also now be available through HPE GreenLake.
“The HPE Ezmeral software portfolio fuels data-driven digital transformation in the enterprise by modernizing applications, unlocking insights, and automating operations,” said Kumar Sreekanti, CTO and Head of Software for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “Our software uniquely enables customers to eliminate lock-in and costly legacy licensing models, helping them to accelerate innovation and reduce costs, while ensuring enterprise-grade security. With over 8,300 software engineers in HPE continually innovating across our edge to cloud portfolio and signature customer wins in every vertical, HPE Ezmeral software and HPE GreenLake cloud services will disrupt the industry by delivering an open, flexible, cloud experience everywhere.”
Committedly Open
HPE also reiterated its engagement with open-source projects and specifically to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), the sponsor of Kubernetes, with an upgraded membership from silver to gold status. The recent acquisition of Scytale, a founding member of the SPIFFE and SPIRE projects, underscores the commitment, representatives say.
“We are thrilled to increase our involvement in CNCF and double down on our contributions to this important open source community,” said Sreekanti. “With our CNCF-certified Kubernetes distribution and CNCF-certification for Kubernetes services, we are focused on helping enterprises deploy containerized environments at scale for both cloud native and non-cloud native applications. Our participation in the CNCF community is integral to building and providing leading-edge solutions like this for our clients.”
Disclaimer: HPE invited me to attend the HPE Discover Virtual Experience as a social influencer. Views and opinions are my own.
