HPE launches new solution for Azure stack deployments

​Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has strengthened its iron-clad partnership with Microsoft.

The company recently announced the HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack (Gen 10), leveraging Intel's latest Purley-based Xeon processors.

The next-gen solution is said to deliver higher storage capacity, increased cache capacity, better performance and increased security. The system is based on the HPE DL380 Gen 10 server with HPE aiming to provide customers with the benefits of a Microsoft Azure public cloud in an on-premises deployment.

According to HPE, more than 95 percent of Fortune 500 companies have now adopted Microsoft cloud-based services and are now after a simple, powerful and scalable on-premises Azure solution environment.

"IT departments are under huge pressure from lines of business to utilise new technologies that drive innovation and growth—while simultaneously reducing costs," says HPE software-defined and hyperconverged solutions vice president and general manager McLeod Glass.

"Leveraging our long-standing partnership with Microsoft and joint R-D efforts, we are able to deliver a solution that fits the needs of our customers, enabling them to simplify IT implementation and reap the benefits associated with cloud operating models, delivered on-premises."

Glass affirms HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack helps to maintain data sovereignty, run high performance analytics, big data and low-latency applications, and support edge and disconnected applications.

Microsoft general manager of Azure Storage Tad Brockway says HPE is a trusted partner delivering high quality products.

"Microsoft is focused on solving the needs of our customers as they move to hybrid cloud with a consistent architectural approach. Microsoft Azure Stack is a key offering to support execution of that focus," says Brockway.

"We're building on our strong partnership with HPE to bring Azure Stack to market and are excited with the multiple advancements included in the new Gen10 version of HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack."

According to HPE, some of the key features of the latest HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack solution include:

• Maximised performance: Support for up to 120 TB of raw capacity per node, delivering a 50 percent overall increase in capacity and enabling workloads to run at a faster rate. The higher workload performance allows for a 66 percent boost in memory bandwidth and double the memory capacity.
• Cybersecurity: Major firmware is anchored directly into the silicon to ensure servers do not execute compromise firmware code.
• Increased admin efficiency: HPE OneView is part of the package which enables customers to automate tasks and gain insights with dashboards providing real-time status info and alerts.
• Pay-as-you-consume pricing: With HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity, customers can take advantage of cloud-style economics to pay for on-premises infrastructure that is used today, along with a buffer to grow into and to be paid for when it is used.

There are a number of organisations around the world already deploying the HPE solution, including PeeringOne, Revera Limited, TeleComputing, and Umbrellar.

"We chose the HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack, in part because of HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity," says PeeringOne managing director Wong Chee Voon.

"Without committing valuable capital we're able to have an Azure Stack platform that flexes with our business needs, aligning our IT costs to the business. Other vendors that we considered were not able to provide a consumption-based model for the Azure Stack infrastructure."