The move to hybrid infrastructure is exciting to Hewlett-Packard Co., according to Bobby Patrick, CMO at HP Cloud, who talked with theCUBE during HP Discover 2015.

“It’s a hybrid world. It’s a distributed world,” he said. “It’s a world where in some cases multiple Clouds operate in a unique way, and they have proprietary or open standards, and they operate together. But they operate together to solve some business problem or some business outcome. With this area, though, calling it ‘hybrid infrastructure,’ it goes a little farther than hybrid Cloud. It goes into traditional IT too.”

Adding Cloud-native components

Enterprises aren’t adopting Cloud wholesale — many continue to use existing solutions, but they move some systems to Cloud as it becomes cost-effective or improves functionality. Once that happens, it’s easier to begin adding Cloud-native components, but all three are operating simultaneously.

HP is also leading the charge toward open infrastructure with OpenStack — but it is packaging it in a business-friendly way with some proprietary components.

“What we’re emphasizing is kind of both sides,” Patrick said. “We’ve got our hands all in OpenStack, we’re the top contributor there. We’re big behind open standards. But we’re on the traditional side too. We’re helping companies move.”

Many companies are moving to HP Helion OpenStack, which offers common architecture across private, public and hybrid Clouds, freeing up IT resources. “We’re putting both of these worlds together, but in a careful way” that is accessible to mainstream IT. “We’re saying, look, you could use this proven, private Cloud technology, some proprietary’s in there, that we’ve been using for years, OpenStack underneath, and when you’re ready, you can use the APIs in OpenStack … but it’s all kind of packaged together,” he added.

So far, it seems to be working well for a variety of verticals, including “paranoid” ones like media and healthcare that rely on private Clouds rather than public.

“We’ve got almost 3,000 customers right now,” Patrick said. “These are big, mission-critical ones. We’ve got … Cornell University … talking about how with Cloud systems, they’re saving patient lives. That’s the kind of outcome I want to get to.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of HP Discover Las Vegas 2015.