‘Big Breakthrough’: HPE Unleashes ProLiant Gen11 With GreenLake Compute Ops Management
‘It’s a really big breakthrough because it is addressing some of the biggest challenges people have when it comes to hybrid (computing),’ says HPE Senior Vice President Krista Satterthwaite. ‘Because hybrid computing is complex simplifying management becomes really, really important.’
Krista Satterthwaite, senior vice president and general manager of the HPE Mainstream Compute business
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Tuesday announced its next generation server platform, HPE ProLiant Gen11, that for the first time comes with a breakthrough subscription-based cloud native management console, HPE GreenLake for Cloud Ops Management platform.
The new server platform, the first major update to the best selling ProLiant line in five years, opens the door for partners for the first time to provide a comprehensive hybrid cloud compute managed services offering from the edge to the data center to the cloud through the HPE GreenLake Compute Ops Management platform.
“It’s a really big breakthrough because it is addressing some of the biggest challenges people have when it comes to hybrid (computing),” said Krista Satterthwaite, senior vice president and general manager of the HPE Mainstream Compute business, of the ProLiant’s cloud native compute management capabilities. “Because hybrid computing is complex, simplifying management becomes really, really important.”
The Compute Ops Management edge-to-cloud capabilities, in one case, has reduced the time it takes to do firmware updates for a customer, Kimley-Horn, a planning and design consulting firm, from four hours to 45 minutes. “It’s cloud based updates which means there is no waiting these updates,” said Satterthwaite. “It’s seamless…Everything is faster when it comes to Compute Ops Management.”
The Compute Ops Management subscription model comes with two subscription tiers: a standard tier for lifecycle operations on a single device at a time at $100 per year per device and an enhanced tier with all policy-driven features and functionality with automated group action and REST APIs for $240 per year per device.
HPE said partners can resell Compute Ops Management, which supports Gen11 and Gen10 servers, can either standalone or attached to hardware. That said, HPE is urging partners to include it with every server sale because of the big benefits it provides MSPs and customers. The subscription offering provides MSPs the ability to add their own services on top of the platform through open APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).
Michael Maher, director of professional services for CPP Associates, one of HPE’s top enterprise partners, said the Compute Ops Management platform is a major breakthrough in server management. “This makes everything easier from onboarding to centralized management with intelligence and telemetry baked in,” he said. “This makes our job as an MSP immeasurably easier.”
HPE does not get enough credit for its software innovation around as a service software management with the GreenLake platform, said Maher. “Nobody is doing what HPE does with as a service management,” said Maher. “HPE is actively working to anticipate where the market is going and moving to meet customers there so that as customers look ahead they know that HPE already has the experience and pedigree to get it done.”
Maher also singled out the major advances in security that comes with the Gen11 servers. “It all starts and ends with security with all the threats out there from ransomware to nation state attacks or an angry kid in a basement,” he said. “Security is top of mind for everybody.The significant security enhancements alone makes these Gen11 servers a very compelling proposition for customers. I think security is going to drive Gen11 server refresh. I think with this announcement you are going to see a lot of excitement and restructuring of budgets to meet pent up demand for improved server security.”
Among the security advances: a new version of HPE Integrated Lights Out (iLO) – iLO 6.0 which features new open standards authentication and security capabilities with Security Protocol and Data Model (SPDM); a new Secure Device Identity by default capability to prevent alterations to unique server identity access and an additional layer of authentication with monitoring of secure boot and system state through the Trusted Platform Module (TPM).
The new HPE ProLiant Gen11 servers – which come as HPE is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the ProLiant server brand – provide 33 percent higher performance GPU density per server to support AI and graphic intensive workloads. The Gen11 servers also support more demanding applications with twice as much bandwidth and 50 percent more cores per CPU for workload consolidation.
The HPE ProLiant Gen11 server lineup ranges from the AMD 4th Gen EPYC processor ProLiant DL325 in a 1U, 1P model optimized for the edge (available starting November 10) to HPE’s first ARM powered cloud optimized ProLiant, the ProLiant RL300 with an Ampere processor (available immediately).
The new Gen11 servers hit the market with the HPE compute backlog as of the company’s fiscal third quarter ended July 31 at five times normal levels in the wake of supply chain constraints.
Satterthwaite, for her part, said supply chain is improving. “Things are getting better and better as we go from a supply standpoint,” she said. “We have been working very hard to make sure we have supply available for this new generation. We are very excited about what it can bring. We have many,many customers that are waiting very patiently for this new generation to come.”
Partners and customers are looking forward to all of the advances that come with Gen11 said Satterthwaite. “We see a lot of interest, we know this is exactly what customers are looking for when it comes to their hybrid world,” said Satterthwaite. “They are looking for more security, a faster and simpler management experience and they are looking for more performance. We feel like we are hitting on all those areas with this new generation (of ProLiant servers).”