HPE launches its VMware alternative

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At the Discover event, HPE expanded its Nvidia portfolio with the Blackwell graphics processors. They complement HPE's offerings around Nvidia Accelerated Computing, Nvidia's Spectrum-X Ethernet networks, BlueField 3 DPUs and Nvidia's AI enterprise software. A new AI factory for large companies, service providers and model developers was also presented. There is also a version for public administration and similarly regulated organizations with special data protection and security functions, such as air-gapped management.

New servers, new storage and AI in the network

HPE now offers Nvidia Blackwell Accelerated Computing with its ProLiant Compute Gen12 servers for building a private AI cloud. HPE points to the seamless scalability from one GPU generation to the next, including the Nvidia GPUs H200 NVL and now the RTX PRO 6000 Server Edition. A new architecture unifies resource pooling so that the new GPUs and resources are available for all AI workloads. The new Compute XD690 complements the Nvidia-HPE portfolio. It supports eight Blackwell Ultra GPUs.

The new Alletra Storage MP X10000 supports Model Context Protocol servers. The integration of MCP is designed to accelerate AI data pipelines and the processing of unstructured data. In addition, the X10000 supports the Nvidia AI Data Platform reference design and provides an SDK to optimize unstructured data pipelines for data ingestion, inference, training and continuous learning. A connection between GreenLake Intelligence and the X10000 via MCP servers is intended to simplify the orchestration of data management and operation for developers and administrators.

There were also AI-based enhancements to the network. Based on the GreenLake Intelligence Framework, HPE has integrated the new Agentic Mesh technology into Aruba Networking Central. This is intended to enable precise root cause analysis and automatic troubleshooting of complex network and security problems. This is based on network-specific reasoning agents.

On the way to becoming an ISV

The many software announcements took up a particularly large amount of space – HPE is increasingly transforming itself into an independent software provider. This is particularly evident in the Morpheus Business Suite, which was acquired last year. It now forms the basis for the new products Morpheus Enterprise, Morpheus VM Essentials and the associated VM Essentials Manager, with which HPE is specifically positioning itself against VMware. However, this only makes sense if the software is also available for non-HPE hardware. In addition to HPE Proliant Gen11 and Gen12, there are also validations for Dell PowerEdge and NetApp AFF. Although other manufacturers such as Lenovo, Inspur or Pure Storage are still missing, the path to the software house is clearly recognizable.

HPE OpsRamp is also explicitly designed for heterogeneous environments. The new Operations Copilot enables “agent-based automation of IT operations across the entire infrastructure” – not just the HPE infrastructure. Similarly, the new Performance Cluster Manager is designed to enable fully integrated system management and advanced infrastructure monitoring and alerts for large, complex AI environments with thousands of nodes.

There are also software announcements, such as the new CloudOps Software Suite, which now combines OpsRamp, Morpheus Enterprise and Zerto software. They offer automation, orchestration, governance, data mobility, data protection and cyber resilience in a “multivendor, multi-cloud and multi-workload infrastructure”. The packages are not only available as a complete suite, but also individually.

Greenlake also has new software: GreenLake Intelligence is an agent-based AI framework that automatically optimizes the use of all storage, network, computing and virtualized resources in real time. The framework is integrated into the hybrid cloud stack and is provided via Copilot. The software offerings also include new applications in the Unleash AI partner ecosystem. Over 75 solutions for AI, smart cities, industrial and manufacturing, data management, data protection, video analysis and security are available here.

Availability

• The ProLiant Compute DL380a Gen12 servers are now available to order with Nvidia RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs.
• The next generation of HPE Private Cloud AI with Nvidia RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPUs will be available in the second half of 2025.
• The new AI Factory solutions are available now.
• HPE Alletra Storage MP X10000 with MCP support is planned for the second half of 2025
• HPE Compute XD690 will be available in October 2025.
• HPE Aruba Networking Central with Agentic Mesh will be available in the third quarter of 2025.
• The beta version of GreenLake Copilot will be available in the third quarter of 2025.
• OpsRamp software enhancements will be available in the fourth quarter of 2025
• HPE's Cloud Ops software will be available in the fourth quarter of 2025

All information on the Discover announcements can be found at HPE.

(dahe)