HPE offers on-demand high-performance computing managed service via GreenLake

HPE has begun offering pay-as-you-go high-performance computing (HPC) as part of its GreenLake cloud service.

It said the HPE GreenLake cloud service for HPC provides an agile, elastic, pay-per-use cloud experience, which enterprises can use to tackle their most demanding compute and data-intensive workloads. Application areas for the service include artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) workloads that can run on-premise or in a colocation facility.  

GreenLake for HPC is delivered as a fully managed, pre-bundled service based on purpose-built HPC systems, software, storage and networking. It is available in small, medium or large options, which customers can order through a self-service portal that helps them choose the right configuration for their workload needs. They then receive the service in less than 14 days.

“The massive growth in data, along with artificial intelligence and high-performance analytics, is driving an increased need for HPC in enterprises of all sizes, from the Fortune 500 to startups,” said Peter Ungaro, senior vice-president and general manager for HPC and mission-critical solutions (MCS) at HPE. 

“These HPC cloud services enable any enterprise to access the most powerful HPC and AI capabilities and unlock greater insights that will power their ability to advance critical research and achieve bold customer outcomes.”

According to Intersect360 Research, the HPC market will grow by more than 40%, reaching almost $55bn in revenue, by 2024. It is needed to support ongoing data growth, including data from emerging applications and endpoints such as AI training models and edge devices, to efficiently process and analyse data. 

HPE claimed that its approach to offering preconfigured HPC as a service would speed up the deployment of HPC projects by up to 75% and reduce capital expenditure by up to 40%. It said enterprises could deploy these services in any datacentre environment, whether on-premise in their own enterprise or in a colocation facility, and gain fully managed services that allow them to pay for only what they use, empowering them to focus on running their projects to increase time-to-insight and accelerate innovation. 

The company’s latest quarterly earnings show growth in HPE’s HPC business. The business unit responsible for HPC and MCS at HPE reported revenue of $975m, which represents 25% year-over-year growth compared with 2019.

In a transcript of the 3 December Credit Suisse 24th annual technology virtual conference, posted on the Seeking Alpha financial blogging site, HPE’s chief financial officer, Tarek Robbiati, described how its tools for measuring processing and memory usage at a very granular level gave the company a competitive advantage. These are used to provide instrumentation on its cloud and on-premise as-a-service products through GreenLake.

“We feel that we are extremely well-positioned to capitalise on the on-prem as-a-service world because we have the capabilities that are needed to be able to compete there. What that means is we have the ability to measure the consumption of core CPU power, RAM, storage space, and all of that is effectively metered in such a way that customers only pay for what they consume. We can flex up on demand electronically the amount of IT resources and the infrastructure solution that powers those workloads for our customers,” he said.