Last week, Hewlett-Packard announced it will shut down its Helion Public Cloud, a cloud-computing service in direct competition with Amazon Web Services, as well as some of Microsoft and Google's offerings. However, closing the doors on Helion Public Cloud does not mean that HP is out of the cloud-computing game.
In a blog post, HP announced the release of Helion OpenStack 2.0, a refined version of the commercial-grade HP Helion OpenStack that allows customers to deploy private, managed, hybrid and public cloud services based on OpenStack. However, private and hybrid cloud will be the main focus of the upgraded Helion.
Moreover, the real question that needs to be asked if whether the once commercial-grade OpenStack 2.0 is enterprise-ready. Bill Hilf, HP senior vice president and general manager of HP Cloud, thinks so.
"When customers ask whether HP Helion OpenStack is ready for the enterprise," he explains, "[they] are asking a broader question — is the full force of HP behind HP Helion OpenStack, ready to deliver the enterprise grade value that customers expect from us?"
His answer is: "Absolutely."
The SVP says that his confident answer is due to Openstack's continued maturation, the company's advancements that come with the release of the Helion OpenStack 2.0 and its known quality of service, along with the tools it has in its possession. Moreover, Hilf cites how PayPal has migrated fully into an Openstack-based cloud. Amazon and Bloomberg were also highlighted for having using Openstack codes and internal private clouds.
"This is a watershed release for Helion OpenStack," says Hilf in the same blog post.
According to Jay Jamison, HP Helion's product marketing vice president, one of the main features, and possibly a game-changer, that comes with the HP Helion OpenStack 2.0 is that it eliminates the need for downtimes when updating the open source cloud platform.
"Now that we have that capability, it opens up the door to new deployments," Jamison ltells CRN. We have the ability now to say when you add capacity or change the cloud, it is flexible enough that you can keep the application up and running."
Jamison also notes that compared to the first version that was released last year, 2.0 is much easier to deploy and manage, more configurable and upgradable. The product marketing VP also detailed that HP Helion OpenStack 2.0 will be introduced for a $1,299 annual fee. The software is bundled with a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. business hour support.
