HP has announced a new brand identity for its cloud portfolio. Called HP Helion, the brand will include the entire existing cloud portfolio as well as HP’s new line of OpenStack products and services.
Helion will include cloud products and services that enable organizations to build and manage hybrid IT environments.
HP has made clear its focus on OpenStack, and has announced the OpenStack community release, which is available free of cost to existing customers.
This community version will come with a 24/7 community support.
HP has announced that it will invest $1 billion over the next two years to enhance its OpenStack offerings and build on the Helion brand.
With these new announcements, HP has made it clear that it is keen to establish itself as a new age cloud player, and break free from its image of a traditional IT vendor. With Helion, it is looking to redefine itself by keeping its cloud offerings at the forefront.
According to Ramachandran V, Director, Sales, Cloud Division, HP APJ, cloud is one of the fastest growing businesses for HP globally. It already has over 2000 cloud customers across the world, and about 740 of these customers are in the APAC region.
HP’s cloud business is growing by 60% year on year.
Ramachandran said that the cloud opportunity in India is substantial with the Indian cloud market growing at a CAGR of 28 per cent.
“Today, one in three enterprises is talking about moving to hybrid cloud and over half of SME’s want to use everything as-a-service. The cloud adoption is strong across verticals like telcos, government, manufacturing and BFSI. Enterprises like Essar, Sify, Aditya Birla group, Take solutionsBSE 0.00 % and Biocon are already using HP’s cloud offerings in India. Singtel, Samsung, Singapore Government and Nomura are some of the APAC customers,” said Ramachandran.
Aman Neil Dokania, VP and GM, Cloud Division, HP APJ, said that HP is enhancing its OpenStack offerings because no single player can create a holistic cloud ecosystem. “We are adopting a consulting based approach for OpenStack and we shall update and maintain it in every 6 weeks. We are strongly committed to OpenStack.”
HP also plans to bring in OpenStack in its global data centres.
“Helion will make our public cloud offerings in the APAC region more seamless and we shall continue to work with service providers across the region to enhance our offerings,” said Dokania.
The new Helion brand will include HP’s integrated cloud solutions, OpenStack software offerings, cloud software and infrastructure, managed services, public cloud and SaaS and professional services around cloud computing.
HP Helion OpenStack based cloud services will be made available globally via HP’s partner network of more than 110 service providers worldwide and in HP data centers. It operates more than 80 data centers in 27 countries. It plans to provide OpenStack based public cloud services in 20 data centers worldwide over the next 18 months.
HP will also enable HP PartnerOne for Cloud partners to deliver and resell OpenStack-based cloud services.
