It seems that the enterprise has a defined strategy to use multiple clouds. According to the “RightScale 2017 State of the Cloud Report,” hybrid cloud environments fell to 67 percent from 71 percent last year as public cloud adoption increases and private cloud use decreases. And the reality for information technology professionals is that they are left to manage hybrid cloud (50 percent vs. 39 percent in 2016) to support the new multi-cloud strategy.

“Hybrid IT is pervasive. On-prem, off-prem, traditional IT, public cloud and customers are increasingly moving to that model given the value that they see of optimizing their IT environments,” said Steven Dietch (pictured), vice president, worldwide service provider business, at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.

Dietch spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, during HPE Discover in Las Vegas, Nevada. They discussed the shifting of IT environments to a services model, as well as how HPE is embracing partnerships with service providers to offer up hybrid cloud. (* Disclosure below.)

Creating the right mix with three key differentiators

HPE sees the multi-cloud future and has changed the way it is working with customers. The company is utilizing what it calls the “right mix” to partner with service providers to offer enterprise options when it comes to hybrid solutions. Workloads are going to run wherever it makes the most sense, meaning the combination of data center, private cloud and public cloud, according to Dietch.

While hyperscale providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google dominate the public cloud landscape, Dietch believes that customers will put those workloads with Tier 2 and 3 service providers to derive the most value.

“Hyperscale providers cannot [provide] everything. It is not going to all go to Amazon. It’s not a winner take all. The world is way too diverse. We embrace the service providers below the gorillas. We want to collectively go after opportunities that the hyperscale providers cannot deliver,” Dietch said.

Three key differentiators collectively separate HPE from the rest of the market, he explained. The first is to embrace customer complexity and to deliver intimacy and customization the customer cannot get from the larger providers.

Secondly, he sees geography as a factor. The big players are not in every country. As a matter of fact, Dietch said that today there’s still 200 countries where the large cloud providers don’t have a physical presence, and factors such as data residency and data privacy within some areas demand a physical presence. Even if the large cloud providers are in a country, they still do not have local capabilities that HPE and partners can provide, according to Dietch.

The final point was the most important, Dietch added: managing hybrid environments. “That’s a big challenge to be able to manage that hybrid environment. The service providers that we’re working with, we want them to be that hybrid management. We want them to be that broker in order to mitigate the risk, determine the best execution venue and really deal with the challenges that [customers have], including cost, time and skillsets,” he said.

For HPE, service providers are hybrid partners for the company. These established businesses have solutions in place, making them poised to meet the challenges head on when it comes to facilitating hybrid cloud, Dietch explained.

“Those are the ones that are actually capable of pulling off the differentiation. They can get intimate with the customer. They have specialism, they have professional services, they have industry insight and they understand their customers much better,” Dietch said. 

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of HPE Discover US 2017. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for HPE Discover US 2017. Neither Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. nor other sponsors have editorial control on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE