OREANDA-NEWS. HP announced updates to its HP Helion OpenStack® and HP Helion Development Platform solutions, in addition to enhancements to HP Helion Eucalyptus, the leading open source solution for building AWS-compatible private clouds. These updates reflect the ongoing commitment by HP to deliver a growing portfolio of open source hybrid cloud solutions through its investments in three of the fastest growing cloud innovation ecosystems – OpenStack® and Cloud Foundry® based technologies, as well as Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Eucalyptus joins the HP Helion product portfolio
HP Helion Eucalyptus 4.1 marks the first Eucalyptus product release under the Helion brand since acquiring the company in September 2014. Updates to HP Helion Eucalyptus 4.1 include:

  • AWS Cloud Formation compatible service – Application deployment templates that streamline service delivery and reduce errors of complex configurations. By reusing existing AWS Cloud Formation templates, both existing and potential customers can quickly benefit from the new service on their own HP Helion Eucalyptus private cloud.
  • HP Helion Eucalyptus Cloud Manager – Web-based tool now including a simple-to-use interface for managing S3 compatible object storage. Users no longer require separate tools to create, modify and delete buckets, or to upload and download. All features are available within the browser and can be used on both HP Helion Eucalyptus and AWS clouds.

The addition of Eucalyptus to the HP Helion portfolio gives customers the flexibility to deploy existing AWS workloads onto cloud environments they control (private or managed), addressing demand for cost-effective alternatives to public cloud vendor lock-in. HP Helion Eucalyptus is available as a private, managed or hybrid cloud solution to meet a broad range of customer needs.

“Open source and open standards are critical requirements for the New Style of IT,” said Orlando Bayter, CEO of Ormuco Inc. “The massive investment HP is making around OpenStack technology is a strong indication of their seriousness in supporting the project long-term. At Ormuco, we are encouraged by HP’s commitment to both upstream contributions and software quality in its distribution. We believe HP Helion can have a significant positive impact in our IT operations as we deliver on our highly scalable cloud platform to our diverse customers in the gaming, media & contact center industries.”

HP Helion OpenStack 1.1 – Reduce risk and enhance agility with an open, flexible, enterprise-grade hybrid cloud platform.   
HP Helion OpenStack provides an open, extensible, and highly resilient enterprise-grade cloud platform based on OpenStack technology, the leading open source cloud computing platform. HP Helion OpenStack is also the infrastructure foundation for the HP Helion Development Platform. Enhancements in the HP Helion OpenStack 1.1 release include:

  • Security automation and configuration enhancements
    • Better flexibility configuring external user authentication sources per domain
    • Increased visibility with expanded centralized logging & HP ArcSight integration
    • Built on the OpenStack Juno stable branch
  • Broader array of deployment capabilities
    • Targeted node provisioning for optimized hardware deployment
    • New certified hardware: HP ProLiant Gen8 and 9 servers and HP Moonshot m710 and 300
    • Guest OS certifications: Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Enhanced software defined large-scale storage capabilities
    • HP 3PAR StoreServ HA enhancements
    • Ceph integration at the Host Linux Level in addition to support for Swift object store
  • Enhanced lifecycle management capabilities – Metering service with Ceilometer for visibility into resource usage

"Uppsala University is one of the premier educational institutions in the world," says Henrik Hedlund, the technical coordinator at the department of information technology, Uppsala University. "We have a storied history over six centuries as a progressive center of learning and an incubator of ground-breaking research discoveries, including technology. We're excited by HP's decision to fortify its cloud strategy with an open source cloud solution approach. HP Helion OpenStack and the OpenStack community work together to create an ecosystem that offers more options and choices of technology. HP’s commitment to furthering open source technology, in particular the Helion OpenStack project, are well aligned with our own ambitions.”

HP Helion Development Platform 1.1 – Develop and deploy cloud-native applications with faster speed
Based on Cloud Foundry and fully integrated with HP Helion OpenStack, the HP Helion Development Platform provides an open-interoperable platform that enables application development and portability across traditional, private and public clouds. Upgrades to the HP Helion Development Platform 1.1 allow IT departments and developers to build and manage applications quicker and with greater ease. Enhancements include:

  • Easier administration for IT professionals
    • Enhanced user management
    • Major improvements to logging, including more reliable and efficient log streaming using Websocket and logging of container creation failures
    • Additional dashboards to inform quota usage by organizations and available system patches
  • Application rollback & versioning – Quickly revert apps to previous versions

“The continued expansion of HP Helion solutions reflects the significant momentum we’ve had since launching our Helion portfolio of cloud products and services last spring,” said Bill Hilf, senior vice president, Product and Service Management, HP Cloud. “The updates to the HP Helion OpenStack and HP Helion Development Platform, in addition to the first Eucalyptus product release under Helion, reflect HP’s commitment to today’s most important cloud ecosystems and work to create a hybrid cloud environment that can easily integrate into enterprises’ existing IT environments.”