HP Helion Portfolio of Cloud

Recently we had a chance to witness HP Helion, a portfolio of cloud products and services launch in Delhi. The company has tried to give a new shape to its cloud services and products in a growing cloud market in India. It is emphasizing on a hybrid cloud environment that enables organizations to build, manage and consume workloads.

 

While it might not impress many peers since the company has just clubbed all cloud products together under one brand name. So HP Helion incorporates existing HP cloud offerings, new OpenStack technology-based products, and professional and support services under a unified portfolio to help meet customers' specific business requirements.

The feature of the launch was perhaps HP's OpenStack technology and hybrid IT delivery-spanning traditional IT, public, private and managed clouds. In addition, HP plans to invest more than $1 billion over the next two years on cloud-related product and engineering initiatives, professional services and expanding HP Helion's global reach. But the company did not divulge any details on how much will be invested in India. But it is clear that India is a key part of HP's strategy.

Perhaps the company has taken interoperability seriously and the demand from customers to use Open Source applications even in the cloud environment. This is the result the company has focused on solutions that are open, secure and agile. As a founding platinum member of the OpenStack Foundation and a leader in the OpenStack and Cloud Foundry communities, HP has taken a central role in developing technologies that are built to meet enterprise requirements and to deliver OpenStack technologies and Cloud Foundry-based solutions to the global marketplace. It sounds like a good move.

"Cloud is no longer at a stage where enterprises have to make a decision whether it is good or not for their organization. It is a necessity. Our effort is to give them solutions that are best for their line of business. Company has a strong partner ecosystem in APAC and India to deliver these services," said Aman Dokania, vice president and general manager, Cloud Division, HP Asia Pasific & Japan.

According to him, HP Helion provides the solutions and expertise customers need to select the right deployment model for their needs and obtain the greatest return for their investment.

As part of the HP Helion portfolio, HP is introducing several new cloud products and services, including:

·    HP Helion OpenStack Community edition-A commercial product line of OpenStack that is delivered, tested and supported by HP. Available today, the community edition is a free version ideal for proofs of concept, pilots and basic production workloads. An enhanced commercial edition that addresses the needs of global enterprises and service providers will be released in the coming months.

·    HP Helion Development Platform-A Platform as a Service (PaaS) based on Cloud Foundry, offering IT departments and developers an open platform to build, deploy and manage applications quickly and easily. HP plans to release a preview version later this year. 

·    HP's OpenStack Technology Indemnification Program-Protects qualified customers using HP Helion OpenStack code from third-party patent, copyright and trade-secret infringement claims directed to OpenStack code alone or in combination with Linux code.

·    HP Helion OpenStack Professional Services-A new practice made up of HP's experienced team of consultants, engineers and cloud technologists to assist customers with cloud planning, implementation and operational needs.