CFD24: HPE Bets on a “Cool-Again” Private Cloud Strategy
Yesterday at Tech Field Day, the topic was repatriation, the “it’s cool again” private cloud, and the need for hybrid management of data. Sensing a theme? Enter HPE, and more specifically Brad Parks and the Morpheus software organization responsible for the HPE CloudOps software suite providing provisioning (OpsRamp), observability (Morpheus), and protection (for private cloud environments). HPE has added this software to its broader portfolio, including HPE private cloud solutions and HPE GreenLake Flex solutions, providing enterprises the foundational tools to drive private cloud efficiency and agility seamlessly.
The question behind this weighty portfolio, of course, is how does it elegantly fit together, and should we see this blend of GreenLake and Morpheus as intentionally distinct or yet another moment where a large organization delivers overlapping solutions to market as they integrate a broader strategy long term? Brad pointed to Morpheus’ fantastic traction with the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) community for cross-platform utilization for private cloud management. It’s an interesting data point and one that makes me wonder how long that reality will be true now that Morpheus wears HPE green.
While we wait for market clarity, one thing that is undeniable is that Morpheus is fantastic software for enterprise buyers. It delivers extensibility across VMs, containers, and a bevy of app services within a self-service model. I have talked to many IT organizations that have not been able to crest this hill, and Morpheus lowers complexity to make enterprise-sized teams able to oversee these environments. As the Morpheus team walked us through the lifecycle of a workload within their private cloud, they described another type of extensibility: software environments. Let’s just say that if you can think of a logo that plays in hybrid cloud, it was on the HPE slide, all built around the HVM—a KVM-based hypervisor.
Management of servers provides flexibility across Windows and Linux environments as well as an optional agent model that simplifies and speeds integration of infra monitoring within the cloud. All of the bells and whistles like role-based access control and integration of open tools like OpenTelemetry are present. As we move to the Morpheus view, all of the OpsRamp provisioning appears in a single-pane-of-glass view of instances within the cloud. The team walked us through the simplicity of bringing up an instance, based on some point-and-click policy setting to ensure best practices for things like storage resource allocation or backup solutions.
The TechArena Take
In the AI era, on prem is becoming more critical when considering data store control and location as an efficiency and monetization vector. The truth is that cloud architects and ops leads are hard to come by as IT staffing remains one of enterprise IT’s key pain points. Lowering the complexity of cloud brings efficiency and agility while lowering this risk for organizations, and this unto itself cannot be discounted as a fundamental value backed by the trusted by enterprise HPE brand. I have questions about further integration of HPE’s cloud software offerings, and while the value of the solutions discussed today is not too concerning, I see some internal alignment challenges playing out within the walls of HPE and hope for a clearer portfolio view in the near future easing customer decision trees. I see Morpheus maintaining their “we work with everyone” mindset in a broader corporate environment and hope this is sustained without any broader organizational intention to stovepipe this elegant solution into
Yesterday at Tech Field Day, the topic was repatriation, the “it’s cool again” private cloud, and the need for hybrid management of data. Sensing a theme? Enter HPE, and more specifically Brad Parks and the Morpheus software organization responsible for the HPE CloudOps software suite providing provisioning (OpsRamp), observability (Morpheus), and protection (for private cloud environments). HPE has added this software to its broader portfolio, including HPE private cloud solutions and HPE GreenLake Flex solutions, providing enterprises the foundational tools to drive private cloud efficiency and agility seamlessly.
The question behind this weighty portfolio, of course, is how does it elegantly fit together, and should we see this blend of GreenLake and Morpheus as intentionally distinct or yet another moment where a large organization delivers overlapping solutions to market as they integrate a broader strategy long term? Brad pointed to Morpheus’ fantastic traction with the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) community for cross-platform utilization for private cloud management. It’s an interesting data point and one that makes me wonder how long that reality will be true now that Morpheus wears HPE green.
While we wait for market clarity, one thing that is undeniable is that Morpheus is fantastic software for enterprise buyers. It delivers extensibility across VMs, containers, and a bevy of app services within a self-service model. I have talked to many IT organizations that have not been able to crest this hill, and Morpheus lowers complexity to make enterprise-sized teams able to oversee these environments. As the Morpheus team walked us through the lifecycle of a workload within their private cloud, they described another type of extensibility: software environments. Let’s just say that if you can think of a logo that plays in hybrid cloud, it was on the HPE slide, all built around the HVM—a KVM-based hypervisor.
Management of servers provides flexibility across Windows and Linux environments as well as an optional agent model that simplifies and speeds integration of infra monitoring within the cloud. All of the bells and whistles like role-based access control and integration of open tools like OpenTelemetry are present. As we move to the Morpheus view, all of the OpsRamp provisioning appears in a single-pane-of-glass view of instances within the cloud. The team walked us through the simplicity of bringing up an instance, based on some point-and-click policy setting to ensure best practices for things like storage resource allocation or backup solutions.
The TechArena Take
In the AI era, on prem is becoming more critical when considering data store control and location as an efficiency and monetization vector. The truth is that cloud architects and ops leads are hard to come by as IT staffing remains one of enterprise IT’s key pain points. Lowering the complexity of cloud brings efficiency and agility while lowering this risk for organizations, and this unto itself cannot be discounted as a fundamental value backed by the trusted by enterprise HPE brand. I have questions about further integration of HPE’s cloud software offerings, and while the value of the solutions discussed today is not too concerning, I see some internal alignment challenges playing out within the walls of HPE and hope for a clearer portfolio view in the near future easing customer decision trees. I see Morpheus maintaining their “we work with everyone” mindset in a broader corporate environment and hope this is sustained without any broader organizational intention to stovepipe this elegant solution into
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