HPE makes available virtualization solution VM Essentials. With the launch, HPE is moving further into VMware territory and offering disaffected customers a way out.
HPE announced VM Essentials last year at Discover in Barcelona, and as of now the virtualization solution is generally available. The purpose of the virtualization solution is to give businesses more flexibility and simplify the management of hybrid cloud environments. Although HPE does not want to say it explicitly, VM Essentials presents itself as a way out for companies looking to escape from VMware.
Virtualization is a new field for HPE. The company has been working step by step but at a rapid pace toward the launch to VM Essentials. At its Discover event in June, HPE took its first steps into the virtualization world. The acquisition of Morpheus in November rolled out the red carpet for the announcement of VM Essentials in November.
Cost and vendor lock-in
HPE knows which sensitive strings to hit with VM Essentials. Many organizations are struggling with rising costs for virtualization and want more choice to avoid vendor lock-in. HPE VM Essentials addresses this by providing an open virtualization platform with extensibility to the Morpheus cloud management solution.
This should help companies make the transition to a hybrid cloud model easier and, most importantly, more affordable. HPE uses a predictable and easy-to-understand pricing model based on the number of sockets. According to HPE, VM Essentials is easy to scale up to tens of thousands of virtual machines.
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In addition, HPE is betting on flexibility, supporting VMware hypervisors as well as its own KVM-based hypervisor. In terms of hardware, you still need to own one (or more) ProLiant Gen 11 or Gen 12 servers for now, but in the future, HPE plans to open up the virtualization system to third-party systems.
Escape route from VMware
The timing to make the leap into virtualization couldn’t be better for HPE. Broadcom’s reforms to the VMware portfolio since the acquisition leave many customers displeased with steep price increases and bundles they don’t want. Broadcom is only interested in the biggest customers and for the rest it’s take it or leave it. Because migration out of VMware is not that easy and especially an expensive affair, many companies are forced to sign on to it.
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It is precisely for those disgruntled VMware customers that HPE’s solution can provide an escape route. Although you will never hear HPE say it wants to compete with VMware. However, the line between integration and migration can be thin. The launch of HPE VM Essentials may also mean bad news for parties such as Nutanix, which were poised to handle a migration flood of angry VMware customers.