If traditional storage was a bicycle, Hybrid cloud storage is a fighter jet – and Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s new generation of enterprise storage allows an IT department to focus on innovation while storage manages itself, predicts and prevents disruptions, and delivers ultra-low latency for every application.
So says Adam Day, HPE CEEMA Storage Lead, who adds that every business, regardless of size or industry, has mission-critical operations essential to their success.
“At HPE, we believe the world will be hybrid. Multi-cloud is the future and the opportunities this brings for the channel is being able to meet the needs of clients serving every size of type of business.”
According to Day, as technology and engineering firms in South Africa battle the shortage of skilled employees, any solutions must include simplified technology.
“The HPE Primera was launched in June 2019 at Discover in Las Vegas,” he says, “and offers the HPE Intelligent Data Platform of solutions to enable the end-user’s transition from storage to value.”
Intelligent data combined with extreme simplicity in a service-based operating system culminates in a simple consumer grade user experience.
Karabo Masilela, Storage Business Development Manager and HPE Partner at Axiz, says: “HPE Primera can be set up in minutes by the client, or Axiz can do the setup on their behalf. The system tunes itself, and upgrades transparently and effortlessly.”
An app-driven world
Noting that the world is increasingly application driven, Day says HPE has committed to “everything-as-a-service” by 2022.
“Primera was built for an app-centric environment. Apps are the new normal, which makes them mission critical. While some still use traditional storage mechanisms, we believe the HPE solution creates value by helping customers to bring their apps to market.”
It is light years away from storage of the past, where systems were cumbersome, and loading was a massive task.
“Today’s customers expect on-demand products and services with immediate accessibility,” says Day. “Primera is simple enough for the customer to deploy themselves, but Axiz has all the know-how needed for set-up, training and ongoing support.”
HPE Primera comes standard with HPE Proactive Care and a 100% data availability guarantee without requiring special contracts or onerous terms.
AI/ML making storage smart
In early 2017, HPE acquired flash storage provider Nimble Storage, which already had a 10-year journey into storage and AI. “The richness of this data makes us a leading force in the AI and automation spaces,” says Day.
“Primera uses AI and ML to analyse application patterns, as well as predict and prevent disruptions across the infrastructure stack. No disruptions or delays means app-aware resilience, backed by HPE’s 100% Availability Guarantee.”
The guarantee is standard for HPE Primera customers with an HPE Proactive Care or higher support contract and is a no-cost guarantee for a qualified outage.
Masilela notes that InfoSight, HPE’s cloud-based AI platform that collects and analyses application data continuously, provides a predictive analytics framework that enables users to resolve performance problems and identify the root cause of issues between the storage and host virtual machines.
“In the past, the amount of time lost to searching for where an error occurred amounted to several software engineers’ salaries. We are now able to alert customers about potential issues and roll out a specific patch when necessary.”
This agility also means customers can upgrade seamlessly online and the systems auto-tunes, says Day. “With AI in the storage device across the data centre and in the cloud, there’s no need for a storage expert to monitor or maintain the system.”
The predictive analytics will also warn when resources are getting low and customers can choose whether to physically install capacity or opt for cloud-based alternatives.
“Additionally Nimble Cloud volumes solutions can be leveraged at any time to ensure availability matches needs,” Day says. “HPE Greenlake provides a cloud experience with on-premise speed as-a-service through pay-as-you-go consumption-based IT solutions.”
Cloud storage opportunities for channel partners
By creating an advanced tech ecosystem that includes software, business units and participants from the channel, HPE and Axiz enable resellers to offer clients the same speed and agility of a large corporate.
“We believe it’s about enabling SMBs to leverage the artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) incorporated in the HPE system for new revenue opportunities and up-skilling by Axiz,” Masilela says.
“Besides the training, we offer full backup and technical services, meaning smaller channel entities can offer these a part of their client options.”
Channel partners wishing to explore new cloud opportunities are catered for by the Axiz partnership with HPE. “We take channel partner from onboarding and training to final set-up to make sure they are all well positioned to deal with clients,” says Masilela.
“Axiz recruits reseller partners as part of the value chain from HPE through to vendor and channel. Once partners are trained, Axiz undertakes to be an extension of the partners’ provision of technical services.”
Both companies are seeing positive uptake by SMBs. Day says that the drive by Government to spread the opportunities and revenues to all smaller entities is encouraging new vendors too.
The AI-driven hybrid cloud predicative analytics offering HPE InfoSight is a SaaS-based system that makes data accessible to everyone in a simple format, and gives channel partners the opportunity to offer deliverables such as storage, troubleshooting and the leveraging of cloud-based analytics to customers.
In order to give potential channel partners a chance to “kick the tyres” on HPE Solutions, Axiz has an Executive Briefing Centre at its Midrand head office and customers are invited to meet with Masilela and view the system at work.
Contact Karabo Masilela for your hybrid cloud storage needs.
Email: Karabo.masilela@axiz.com; Tel: 011 237 7000