As many tech users know, when a device suddenly slows to a crawl, the best solution is to simply clear the cache and reboot. That is essentially what Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. did with its software business in 2016.

Nearly five years ago, HPE sold its software portfolio to Micro Focus International PLC for $8.8 billion. However, the deal did not mean that HPE was getting out of the software business entirely, as seen by the launch of Ezmeral in 2020. HPE was, in fact, rebooting its software portfolio to better align with its strategic direction.

Ezmeral represents HPE’s return to software with a portfolio designed to fit with the company’s edge-to-cloud, platform-as-a-service strategy. It encompasses artificial intelligence and machine learning, container orchestration and management, data analytics, IT automation, and security.

In other words, it is HPE’s answer for the modern hybrid IT world.

“It’s HPE’s set of solutions that will allow containerized apps and workloads to run anywhere — on-premises, in the public cloud, across clouds — really anywhere, including the emergent edge,” said Dave Vellante, co-founder and chief research officer at Wikibon and host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming video studio. “You can think of Ezmeral as a data fabric and a platform to allow you to manage work across all of these domains.”

How Ezmeral is evolving as a newer product offering within the HPE umbrella will be the focus of discussion during the “HPE Ezmeral\\Analytics Unleashed” event, hosted by theCUBE on March 17. The event, which will kick off at 8 a.m. PDT, will include interviews with Kirk Borne, principal data scientist and executive advisor at Booz Allen Hamilton; Ola Persson, head of mobile financial service at Ericsson; Robert Christiansen, vice president of strategy, office of the CTO, at HPE; and Kumar Sreekanti, chief technology officer and head of software at HPE, with a focus on customer use cases, recent product news, and how Ezmeral is tailored to meet the needs of the modern IT infrastructure. (* Disclosure below.)

Building a hybrid data mesh

In unifying its software portfolio under the Ezmeral brand, HPE has created an enterprise platform on top of Kubernetes and the container space. Customers can deploy and manage containerized apps across any infrastructure.

A key acquisition that ushered in the Ezmeral era was HPE’s purchase of BlueData Inc. in 2018. Founded by Sreekanti, BlueData built a platform for AI, machine learning and analytics on containers. BlueData’s goal was to streamline the process to run data-stacked analytics workloads in both stateful and stateless instances, and this is what the Ezmeral platform can now provide. True to its hybrid promise, HPE also architected Ezmeral to run on bare metal without needing to be tied to a virtual machine. Many customers deploy bare metal deployments for performance, security and privacy reasons.

Being able to perform management of data intensive workloads across platforms means that enterprises have an opportunity to employ Ezmeral as a data fabric, a unified way to view information and make decisions in real time for whatever the use case may be.

HPE’s Ezmeral solution has been put into practice by Mercedes Benz AG to speed delivery of data to the automaker’s developers and data scientists. Ezmeral helped the firm accelerate development of its automated and autonomous driving technology while providing an additional benefit of running Kubernetes applications for analysis while processing data natively on the same cluster.

The Ezmeral brand name is derived from “esmeralda,” the Spanish word for emerald. The stone is believed to confer power, intelligence and an ability to predict the future, all traits that HPE executives hope will define the company’s newly reintroduced software platform.

Livestream of HPE Ezmeral\\Analytics Unleashed

HPE Ezmeral\\Analytics Unleashed is a livestream event, with additional interviews to be broadcasted on theCUBE. You can register for free here to access the live event. Plus, you can watch theCUBE interviews here on demand after the event.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch the live coverage of HPE Ezmeral\\Analytics Unleashed, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

Guests

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE during the HPE Ezmeral\\Analytics Unleashed event include Kirk Borne, principal data scientist and executive advisor at Booz Allen Hamilton; Ola Persson, head of mobile financial service at Ericsson; Robert Christiansen, vice president of strategy, office of the CTO, at HPE; and Kumar Sreekanti, chief technology officer and head of software at HPE.

For a complete lineup of event presenters and speakers, click here. 

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for HPE Ezmeral\\Analytics Unleashed. Neither HPE Ezmeral, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: HPE