Against VMware: HPE aims to reduce VM costs by up to 90 percent

On the topic of virtualization, HPE presented itself unusually aggressively at the Discover in Barcelona. “One of the biggest current challenges is virtualization costs – licenses and fees are exploding. Users are faced with rigid architectures and approaching deadlines, and runtime environments are becoming increasingly difficult to adapt and finance,” said HPE CEO Antonio Neri right at the start of the event. However, a simple move to the public cloud would not be enough; a cloud model that can be embedded into all environments is needed. “And that's exactly what we're offering with the next generation of HPE Private Cloud and with the enhanced HPE Morpheus software,” Neri continued. While it wasn't stated what this is supposed to be an alternative to, it was clear that VMware was meant.

This was then specified in further sessions. For example, HPE claims that Morpheus VM Essentials can reduce VM license costs by up to 90 percent thanks to multi-hypervisor support and self-service cloud usage. The statement is primarily based on the many innovations: new zero-trust security with software-defined networking, stretched cluster technology with synchronous replication for VMs on the HVM hypervisor, full support for Kubernetes and containerized workloads on the HVM hypervisor, integration with Zerto, and hypervisor backup with Veeam.

Many updates for virtualization

The innovations in detail: Based on Juniper networking technology, HPE is introducing software-defined networking for VMs hosted by the HVM hypervisor in Morpheus VM Essentials and Morpheus Enterprise Software. Zero-trust security with integrated microsegmentation offers improved network performance and multi-layered security for virtual machines. Furthermore, the Apstra Data Center Director has been integrated into Morpheus, now enabling automated switch configuration and a seamless, secure connection between virtual machines and hosts. “The consistent enforcement of VLANs and security policies is intended to eliminate human errors when moving or migrating virtual machines,” HPE states.

Morpheus now also offers stretched cluster technology with synchronous replication for VMs on the HVM hypervisor. This allows critical applications to remain available even if a data center or storage system fails. With HPE Alletra Peer Persistence, this feature enables automatic failover between geographically distributed locations for companies that can tolerate almost no downtime.

The Morpheus Enterprise Software now offers full support for Kubernetes and containerized workloads on the HVM hypervisor. This extension allows cloud-native applications to run alongside traditional virtual machines with consistent operation, security, and lifecycle management.

To better protect critical workloads and enable immediate recovery, Zerto software has been integrated into Morpheus. This ensures continuous data protection for all VMs in Morpheus VM Essentials and Morpheus Enterprise. Morpheus VM Essentials now also works seamlessly with the Veeam Data Platform v13, including hypervisor-based image-level backup and rapid recovery of VMs in private cloud environments, including HPE Private Cloud Business Edition.

New backup systems

Further innovations concern storage and data security. The StoreOnce 5720 and 7700 backup appliances were presented. The 7700 all-flash system offers data ingestion of up to 300 TB/hour, making it one of the fastest scalable backup systems. Both models can be directly integrated into Alletra Storage MP and SimpliVity, allowing copies to be directly mounted and data to be reused for forensic investigations, analysis, or testing.

Further updates were made to the GreenLake portfolio, which now includes CloudPhysics Plus, Cloud Commit, and an optimized GreenLake Marketplace. Additionally, at Discover, there were several innovations in the networking area to see, with which HPE, together with Juniper, aims to rise to number one ahead of Cisco.

(olb)