HPE and VMware Team Up on Composable Infrastructure, Hybrid Cloud

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is joining forces with VMware to offer composable infrastructure based on HPE Synergy and VMware Cloud Foundation. The integration is called, simply enough, VMware Cloud Foundation on HPE Synergy, and HPE is touting it as the industry’s first composable platform using VMware’s software-defined data center (SDDC) platform. The companies made the announcement at VMworld in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

This is all about the hybrid cloud of course, which providers have come to see as the brass ring for attracting enterprise clients. The solution promises to simplify transformations to a hybrid infrastructure by enabling single-click deployment of traditional and private cloud workloads and allows infrastructure to be dynamically reallocated in minutes.

“In today’s competitive digital world, enterprises need technology that enables them to quickly introduce and scale new services,” Ric Lewis, senior VP and general manager of HPE’s Software-Defined and Cloud Group, said in a statement. “HPE Synergy with VMware Cloud Foundation will deliver a private cloud experience that empowers IT to be an internal service provider and enables rapid response to business needs with single-click DevOps delivery.”

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Although the announcement is short on details about how the integration will work in practice, on the surface at least, this would seem to be a natural pairing.

HPE Synergy is an all-in-one hardware solution introduced in 2015 that combines storage, compute, and network equipment in a single chassis and includes management software to automatically configure the hardware to provide only the resources needed to run an application. “HPE Synergy’s unique built-in software intelligence, auto discovery capabilities, and fluid resource pools enable customers to instantly boot up infrastructure ready to run physical, virtual, and containerized applications,” HPE explained at the time of the product’s unveiling.

VMware Cloud Foundation is VMware’s SDDC platform for the hybrid cloud and is based on VMware’s compute, storage, and network virtualization. It delivers a natively integrated software stack that can be used on premises for private cloud deployments or run as a service from the public cloud.

“HPE Synergy powered by Cloud Foundation will provide a powerful solution to consolidate traditional, private, and cloud native workloads onto a single integrated infrastructure platform that is simple to deploy and operate,” said John Gilmartin, VP and GM of VMware’s Integrated Systems Business Unit. “Customers will benefit from a highly dynamic, programmable infrastructure foundation that eliminates the operational overhead of traditional deployments thanks to new built-in lifecycle automation capabilities. We are excited about the value that HPE Synergy powered by Cloud Foundation will unlock to our mutual customers.”

HPE said that VMware Cloud Foundation on HPE Synergy is expected to be made available later this year. Customers will be able to take advantage of HPE Flexible Capacity, which offers on-demand capacity and a pay-as-you-go consumption model.

This wasn’t the only HPE/VMware collaboration brought to the table this week. HPE also announced Private Cloud Express with VMware vRealize, a new pre-integrated solution that includes VMware vRealize on HPE SimpliVity 380, a hyperconverged platform. “Private Cloud Express is ideal for remote and branch offices, offering best in class data services to simplify management and reduce costs, in addition to providing application assessment services to determine the best process for migrating applications,” the company said.

If nothing else, this week’s announcements proves that business makes strange bedfellows. Since last year, VMware has been owned by Dell Technologies, HPE’s main rival in the server market.