Competing in the modern business world means using data, and getting value out of data means using compute power. The ways and wheres of compute are also multiplying, and companies must manage both the processing and the data involved. It gets complex, quickly, according to Alain Andreoli (pictured), senior vice president, Data Center Infrastructure Group, at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.

“The need for compute is clearly growing, and it will continue to grow forever,” Andreoli said.

Andreoli spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile live-streaming studio, during the HPE Discover conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, about computing, customer needs and the cloud market. (* Disclosure below.)

The new families of compute

The number of compute points, those places that do the data processing, are rising in number, according to Andreoli. Compute used to be on-premises, but now compute runs off-premises in the cloud, or in devices at the edge.

Further, on-premises computing is also splitting into two families. Companies build specialized, high-performance systems for mission-critical applications, and then there’s the computing for other workloads. Those general workloads need flexibility like a public cloud, Andreoli pointed out. Businesses also want to keep them inside the walls to have control over the system.

“There are some workloads that can go on the public cloud, but we see that on-premises remains basically what people are doing,” Andreoli said.

Customers believe the management of cloud systems is complex and rely on providers to take that complexity away. To counter this, HPE is working on systems that can manage data across the datacenter, the cloud and on the edge. The goal is to allow customers to seamlessly manage everything, Andreoli explained.

As for the cloud, it’s more than just enterprise businesses. HPE has focused on serving the non-enterprise segment of the market along with traditional customers. The plan involves expanding its cloud line strategy, offering open systems and being aggressive with compute, storage and networking, Andreoli concluded.

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