A company with the size and longevity of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. doesn’t remain a major technology player for decades without periodically reinventing itself to keep pace with change. This accounts for why HPE jettisoned its software business and rebuilt a new one, tailored specifically for the cloud era.

Nearly five years ago, HPE sold its software portfolio to Micro Focus International PLC for $8.8 billion. However, HPE did not stay out of the software business for long, as demonstrated by the launch of Ezmeral in 2020. HPE was, in fact, rebuilding its software portfolio to better align with its strategic direction.

HPE’s return to software is defined by an Ezmeral portfolio that complements 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, providing a solutions stack 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.)

Capitalizing on containers

By consolidating 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.

Key to this strategy was HPE’s acquisition of BlueData Inc. in 2018. Founded by Sreekanti, BlueData built a platform for AI, machine learning and analytics on containers. BlueData’s expertise was in streamlining the ability to run data-stacked analytics workloads in both stateful and stateless instances, and this is what the Ezmeral platform can now provide. HPE also architected Ezmeral to run on bare metal without needing to be tied to a virtual machine, which fit neatly into the company’s hybrid vision. Many customers deploy bare metal deployments for performance, security and privacy reasons.

In allowing enterprises to perform management of data-intensive workloads across platforms, Ezmeral is essentially providing 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, with the added benefit of running Kubernetes applications for analysis while processing data natively on the same cluster.

In early March, HPE announced that the Ezmeral container platform would now have an entry point for users to the company’s GreenLake cloud services.

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, a fitting characterization of HPE’s expectations for its reinvented software platform vision.

Livestream of HPE Ezmeral\\Analytics Unleashed

HPE Ezmeral\\Analytics Unleashed event 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