HP Enterprise Leads As Cloud Supplier, Report Finds

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Everybody's talking about hybrid cloud but, who's actually doing something about it? If you're trying to build out a cloud-like infrastructure inside the enterprise data center, the preferred vendor of choice appears to be HP Enterprise.

That's one of the conclusions available from Synergy Research's look at fourth quarter data on trends in the cloud infrastructure market. HPE's efforts to become a public cloud vendor itself were terminated at the end of January, as it finished phasing out its Helion Cloud.

However, its early commitment to OpenStack and the Open Compute Project may have left it in the right position to serve enterprise's own private cloud ambitions.

Synergy Research Group, based in Reno, Nev., found that HP Enterprise leads in supplying servers and storage for enterprise cloud infrastructure.

HPE launched its Helion CloudSystem Enterprise 90 as its flagship private cloud server product and offers it various iterations to fit different infrastructure needs. It comes with HPE Cloud Service Automation, HPE Operations Orchestration, and HPE Matrix Operating Environment software. HPE also offers a Helion Converged System 700, which, in addition to HP blade servers, includes VMware virtualization and 3Par storage.

[Want another view of Microsoft's revenues in the cloud? See Microsoft Q2 Buoyed By Azure, Office 365 Gains.]

The number two infrastructure supplier to private clouds, according to Synergy, is Cisco Systems with both its line servers and its dominance in network equipment. HPE leads in private cloud infrastructure. Cisco's strength lies more in public cloud infrastructure, according to the report's author, Jeremy Duke, Synergy's chief analyst.

"Across the board there is a massive swing away from enterprises running workloads over more traditional and inflexible IT infrastructure," Duke wrote in a March 21 article. "But enterprises too are buying ever larger volumes of infrastructure to support their private or hybrid cloud deployments."

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Synergy estimates that the market for cloud infrastructure products, unlike the end-user PC and other more traditional markets, is growing at the rate of 20% annually. The market amounted to $60 billion in 2015, Duke estimated. HPE has gained a lead in the total market, but in the fourth quarter Cisco closed the gap somewhat, he wrote.

Tied for third are Microsoft, with its Windows Server and Hyper-V virtualization products, including System Center for Windows systems management, and Dell, with its multiple lines of servers, storage, and switches.

Dell is currently in protracted negotiations to complete an acquisition of EMC and VMware, which would put it on more of an equal footing with HPE and Cisco, if that deal is completed. The New York Post claimed on Feb. 11 that Dell had hit snags in raising a needed $45 billion. But company officials claim the deal is still on track.

IBM is another significant supplier across the board to the cloud infrastructure market, the report said. In the fourth quarter, 95% of the revenues produced by cloud infrastructure products came from servers, storage, networking, operating systems, and virtualization software, according to the report.