March 9, 2025 • 15 mins
Join Steve Mancini on Thriving in Ambiguity as he breaks down how HPE Private Cloud Business Edition (PCBE) and HPE VM Essentials can simplify your VMware environment—or even replace it. Discover how HPE’s disaggregated hardware design lowers licensing costs, and see why the GreenLake Cloud Console is a game-changer for unified management across networking, servers, storage, and more. If you’re curious about alternatives after Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, or just want a streamlined private cloud option, this episode is for you.
Topics Covered:
• Disaggregated hardware benefits
• HPE Alletra MP and 100% data availability
• Side-by-side VMware and VM Essentials deployments
• GreenLake Cloud Console’s unified management
• PCBE as a fully managed service (Private Cloud Enterprise)
Action Items:
• Check out HPE GreenLake for demos
• Request a cost assessment
• Reach out to an HPE rep or partner for deeper insights
Like and subscribe for more IT strategy, virtualization, and public-sector tech content!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to Thriving In Ambiguity,the podcast where we tackle the twist
and turns of enterprise and public sectorit ideally without losing our minds.
I'm your host, Steve Mancini, and todaywe're talking about squeezing the most
out of your virtualized environment,especially if you're a VMware customer.
(00:26):
We'll look at how H HP's private cloudbusiness edition with its innovative
disaggregated hardware design.
Can potentially lower your VMwarecost and simplify virtualization.
If you're thinking about life afterBroadcom, or if you're just curious
about new hypervisor options, then you'vegotta hear about HP's VM Essentials.
(00:48):
And by the way, if you want hybridapproach using both VMware and VM
Essentials on the same hardware.
Yep, that's possible too.
So let's jump in.
Virtualization has been a cornerstoneof it for years, but as organizations
scale complexity often tags right along.
(01:11):
The Broadcom acquisition ofVMware has everybody reevaluating
strategies and exploringalternatives If you're on the fence.
We're, if you just want toconfirm you're making the right
moves, this episode's for you.
The good news here is that HPEhas a robust line of private cloud
(01:32):
solutions that help you managecost, keep workloads secure, and
maintain that performance you need.
Plus, you could run it yourself, or youcan hand over all of the heavy lifting
to HPE as a fully managed service.
It's your call.
But today we're gonna zero inon HPE Private Cloud Business
(01:56):
Edition and VM Essentials.
Let's start by reaffirming therole of private cloud in the
hybrid world, control and security.
Keeping data on premise makesgovernance and compliance more
straightforward, performance and cost.
(02:19):
Private cloud is tuned to yourworkloads and applications often ending
up being cheaper in the long run.
Comparing that to publiccloud scalability.
Modern private cloudsaren't rigid monoliths.
They're flexible and theygrow with your business needs.
(02:39):
Analyst note.
That more than half of productionworkloads are still on-prem.
As AI and data-driven apps ramp upprivate cloud is increasingly critical
for performance and data sovereignty.
The question is, how do you keep private?
Cloud is simple and costeffective as public cloud.
(03:01):
So let's dig into that HPEPrivate Cloud Business edition.
Think of it as an on-prem solution.
With the same ease of managementyou'd get from public cloud.
Things like self-serviceprovisioning, ease of scalability,
and built-in cost controls.
(03:21):
So what's the secret sauce here?
Well, the secret sauce is disaggregatedhardware that separates the servers, the
networking, and the storage, yet managesthem through a single modern interface.
See when hyper-converged HCIsolutions like Nutanix and
(03:44):
Dell's VxRail first emerged.
They solved many issues by bundling,building blocks and simplifying updates.
But what we learned wasscalability was tough.
If you needed more compute or morestorage, typically you ended up
with a problem because rarely.
(04:07):
Did those two things scale the same?
Realistically, what would happenis you may have your workloads grow
in, in a compute fashion where youneeded more processor, more cores,
and more memory, or your datagrew and you needed more storage.
(04:27):
But because of the buildingblocks, the only way to scale
would be to add another node.
Not only that, the node had tobe either like or very similar.
Otherwise it, it was incompatible.
So what that meant is youended up over provisioning
something in almost all cases.
(04:49):
So that was the big number one.
Number two.
Let's say you were a smaller shop,and let's say when you were first sold
this, it made a lot of sense becausemaybe you needed somewhere between
four and 10 servers for that workload.
So when you spread all of that storageout, it all matched up pretty well.
(05:11):
However, over the last five years, serverhardware has gotten way more powerful.
Okay?
So we're seeing.
Data centers shrink in compute size,whereas one server could be as powerful
as 11 previous generation servers.
(05:33):
So think about the shrinking there.
Okay, well now when we look at HCI, ifyou had a cluster anywhere less than
10 nodes, you may actually be ableto do that in one or two nodes today.
Well, as we know.
When it comes to resiliency and spreadingdata, one or two nodes just doesn't work.
(05:55):
Okay?
You typically need three or fournodes to spread that data across.
Think of a raid five set.
Well, it worked.
HCI worked the exact same way.
So now small shops, are now leftin a weird place where they either
have to overbuy in a refresh or theyhave to think of different options.
So that's number two.
(06:15):
Number three, we're talking aboutlarge enterprise infrastructure,
talking 50 or more nodes in a solution,
?In those situations, there's a major issue when it comes to performance
bottlenecks, because the more nodesyou add to the cluster, think of it,
(06:36):
the more nodes and that data spreadacross all of those nodes as the
environment's talking to each other.
Because that data has to communicateagainst all these different nodes.
You get IO latency, and thenthat becomes your bottleneck.
So there's three majorconcerns when it comes to HCI.
So while HCI was a great solutionand it solved a lot of problems.
(07:00):
Today.
There's just some major flaws there thatcan really cause problems for customers.
So need to think about how we'regonna overcome those challenges.
And private Cloud Business Edition solves
Under the covers.
Private Cloud Business Editionleverages HP's Electra MP storage,
(07:22):
a software defined all flash systemwith active active controller
design leveraging eraser coating.
That means a hundredpercent data availability.
It's easy to scale up and down.
There's no forcedadditions or extra nodes.
If you wanna learn more about Electramp, just check out my previous
(07:43):
episode where we deep dive into it.
Because your data resiliencyisn't tied to the servers,
you could start with just two.
That's all you need.
Or if you're prepping for AI and youneed to add GPUs, well, the great part
is you can add different server flavors.
(08:04):
You're not tied to a specificnode match like you were with HCI.
That's the beauty of it.
So depending on what your requirementsare for your workload, you can customize
your compute resources to match.
That's completely unique.
If you're using Aruba networking,you get fully integrated patch
(08:26):
and update compatibility rightwithin the same interface.
And if you need microsegmentation,Aruba's CX 10 K switches.
Have you covered?
We're gonna cover that more inan additional episode, 'cause
I really want to dig into that.
Finally, by right sizing yourVMware environment, you avoid
(08:48):
buying more license than necessary.
And in some cases, the savings alonecan justify the whole solution.
So some of the key benefits, for one,it's an engineered full stack solution.
HPE integrates the hardwareand the software so you don't
have to build it all yourself.
(09:09):
Second, it's fast time to value.
All of it is pre-validated and tested.
You're up and running in days, not months.
And I have to be honest here,when I worked with Dell.
We did some major VxRail installationsand some of those installations were
so complex it took six months orlonger to actually get it implemented.
(09:35):
And I'm not talking about the time it tookto migrate, I'm just talking about the
straight implementation of the solution.
It was crazy.
This is is way simpler.
As a matter of fact, in many cases,most of it is pre-configured before
it's actually even delivered.
So once the system registers the cloudconsole, boom, you're off and running.
(09:57):
Really, really cool.
Third, lower ongoing management.
Okay, automated updates.
And capacity planning.
Free your team to tacklewhat really matters.
They can focus on their workloads.
So before diving into HP's VMEssentials Hypervisor, I have to
(10:22):
stress how crucial GreenLake is tomaking all of this work together.
The GreenLake Cloud Console is a unifiedcloud-based management platform that gives
you full visibility across networking,servers, storage, data protection, and
all of the HP integrated private cloudsolutions, including AI from one place.
(10:44):
No other OEM is doing this, andit's a real differentiator for HPE.
So now circling back to VM Essentials.
Private Cloud Business Edition itselfruns on GreenLake, cloud-based software,
built on technology called Morpheus.
Yes, matrix fans.
(11:05):
The reference is real.
I even got product updatesfrom Mr. Anderson, so they
take it to the next level.
Morpheus though is so powerful.
It can manage your VMware.
It can manage Nutanix and more.
Hm.
But today we're focusing on VMware andVM Essentials, so I'm going to dive
(11:28):
deep into Morpheus in a future episode.
Because of Morpheus, though, HPEdidn't have to reinvent the wheel.
When it came to creating thisVMware alternative, they opted
for an open source KVM hypervisor,integrated in with the same tools.
That they have already usedwhen it came to managing VMware.
(11:52):
Now, this KVM hypervisor is verysimilar to what Nutanix was doing
with their, um, a HV hypervisor.
Okay?
So we didn't wanna recreate the wheel.
We wanted something that was reliable,that was built in rock solid, and
ultimately something that HPE wascomfortable in supporting, because
(12:14):
we're gonna support this entire stack.
So you can run VMware and VM Essentialsside by side on the same hardware.
In this case, it allows you to keepmission critical apps on VMware,
shift less mission critical workloadsto VM Essentials, and you instantly
(12:37):
reduce your VMware licensing.
Plus you've got a ready made path.
To fully pivot away from VMwareif and when you're ready.
So, top reasons here for VM Essentials.
For one choice of hypervisor, youhave a legitimate alternative.
If you're, if you're wary of the wholething that's going on with Broadcom and
(12:59):
the VMware pricing, it's high performance.
It's optimized for the HP hardwarestack, and it's a rock solid solution.
Seamless integration.
Morpheus takes care of that, allowing itto all be under the GreenLake umbrella for
a single management interface, allowingyou to manage both those on-prem resources
(13:22):
and oh yeah, public cloud as well.
Completely unique.
Now, if you caught myrecent chat with Mac Aina.
He mentioned how many organizations aremoving away from owning hardware outright,
everything we've been discussing,private Cloud, business Edition, VM
Essentials can also be fully managedby HPE as private cloud enterprise.
(13:49):
You pay for capacity as you useit and just like AWS and Azure,
but it stays on-prem, so youkeep full control of your data.
Why GreenLake matters.
So unified governance, you see thecost, the usage, compliance across
all your hybrid workloads in oneplace, you have simplified operations.
(14:14):
You can deploy, manage, and protect VMsor containers, whether they're on-prem or
in the cloud, and it's consumption based.
Pay, as you go scale up and downand get that public cloud experience
in your own data center or you'reco-locate, you have the choice.
So if you're rethinking yourvirtualization strategy, wondering
(14:37):
about your next move post Broadcom.
We're just looking to optimizeyour VMware environment.
Take a closer look at Private CloudBusiness Edition and VM Essentials.
We have demos, assessments, and toolsready to show you where you can save
and how you can scale effectively.
(14:59):
So that's it for today, folks.
I hope we've clarified how HPE PrivateCloud Business Edition and VM Essentials
can boost or even replace your VMwareenvironment, giving you real options
in this fast changing tech landscape.
Thank you for tuning inthe Thriving and Ambiguity.
If you have questions or want meto dive deeper into something, drop
(15:22):
a comment or reach out directly.
And while you're here, hit thatsubscribe button and stay curious.
Stay innovative, and I'llsee you on the next episode.
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to Thriving In Ambiguity,the podcast where we tackle the twist
and turns of enterprise and public sectorit ideally without losing our minds.
I'm your host, Steve Mancini, and todaywe're talking about squeezing the most
out of your virtualized environment,especially if you're a VMware customer.
(00:26):
We'll look at how H HP's private cloudbusiness edition with its innovative
disaggregated hardware design.
Can potentially lower your VMwarecost and simplify virtualization.
If you're thinking about life afterBroadcom, or if you're just curious
about new hypervisor options, then you'vegotta hear about HP's VM Essentials.
(00:48):
And by the way, if you want hybridapproach using both VMware and VM
Essentials on the same hardware.
Yep, that's possible too.
So let's jump in.
Virtualization has been a cornerstoneof it for years, but as organizations
scale complexity often tags right along.
(01:11):
The Broadcom acquisition ofVMware has everybody reevaluating
strategies and exploringalternatives If you're on the fence.
We're, if you just want toconfirm you're making the right
moves, this episode's for you.
The good news here is that HPEhas a robust line of private cloud
(01:32):
solutions that help you managecost, keep workloads secure, and
maintain that performance you need.
Plus, you could run it yourself, or youcan hand over all of the heavy lifting
to HPE as a fully managed service.
It's your call.
But today we're gonna zero inon HPE Private Cloud Business
(01:56):
Edition and VM Essentials.
Let's start by reaffirming therole of private cloud in the
hybrid world, control and security.
Keeping data on premise makesgovernance and compliance more
straightforward, performance and cost.
(02:19):
Private cloud is tuned to yourworkloads and applications often ending
up being cheaper in the long run.
Comparing that to publiccloud scalability.
Modern private cloudsaren't rigid monoliths.
They're flexible and theygrow with your business needs.
(02:39):
Analyst note.
That more than half of productionworkloads are still on-prem.
As AI and data-driven apps ramp upprivate cloud is increasingly critical
for performance and data sovereignty.
The question is, how do you keep private?
Cloud is simple and costeffective as public cloud.
(03:01):
So let's dig into that HPEPrivate Cloud Business edition.
Think of it as an on-prem solution.
With the same ease of managementyou'd get from public cloud.
Things like self-serviceprovisioning, ease of scalability,
and built-in cost controls.
(03:21):
So what's the secret sauce here?
Well, the secret sauce is disaggregatedhardware that separates the servers, the
networking, and the storage, yet managesthem through a single modern interface.
See when hyper-converged HCIsolutions like Nutanix and
(03:44):
Dell's VxRail first emerged.
They solved many issues by bundling,building blocks and simplifying updates.
But what we learned wasscalability was tough.
If you needed more compute or morestorage, typically you ended up
with a problem because rarely.
(04:07):
Did those two things scale the same?
Realistically, what would happenis you may have your workloads grow
in, in a compute fashion where youneeded more processor, more cores,
and more memory, or your datagrew and you needed more storage.
(04:27):
But because of the buildingblocks, the only way to scale
would be to add another node.
Not only that, the node had tobe either like or very similar.
Otherwise it, it was incompatible.
So what that meant is youended up over provisioning
something in almost all cases.
(04:49):
So that was the big number one.
Number two.
Let's say you were a smaller shop,and let's say when you were first sold
this, it made a lot of sense becausemaybe you needed somewhere between
four and 10 servers for that workload.
So when you spread all of that storageout, it all matched up pretty well.
(05:11):
However, over the last five years, serverhardware has gotten way more powerful.
Okay?
So we're seeing.
Data centers shrink in compute size,whereas one server could be as powerful
as 11 previous generation servers.
(05:33):
So think about the shrinking there.
Okay, well now when we look at HCI, ifyou had a cluster anywhere less than
10 nodes, you may actually be ableto do that in one or two nodes today.
Well, as we know.
When it comes to resiliency and spreadingdata, one or two nodes just doesn't work.
(05:55):
Okay?
You typically need three or fournodes to spread that data across.
Think of a raid five set.
Well, it worked.
HCI worked the exact same way.
So now small shops, are now leftin a weird place where they either
have to overbuy in a refresh or theyhave to think of different options.
So that's number two.
(06:15):
Number three, we're talking aboutlarge enterprise infrastructure,
talking 50 or more nodes in a solution,
?In those situations, there's a major issue when it comes to performance
bottlenecks, because the more nodesyou add to the cluster, think of it,
(06:36):
the more nodes and that data spreadacross all of those nodes as the
environment's talking to each other.
Because that data has to communicateagainst all these different nodes.
You get IO latency, and thenthat becomes your bottleneck.
So there's three majorconcerns when it comes to HCI.
So while HCI was a great solutionand it solved a lot of problems.
(07:00):
Today.
There's just some major flaws there thatcan really cause problems for customers.
So need to think about how we'regonna overcome those challenges.
And private Cloud Business Edition solves
Under the covers.
Private Cloud Business Editionleverages HP's Electra MP storage,
(07:22):
a software defined all flash systemwith active active controller
design leveraging eraser coating.
That means a hundredpercent data availability.
It's easy to scale up and down.
There's no forcedadditions or extra nodes.
If you wanna learn more about Electramp, just check out my previous
(07:43):
episode where we deep dive into it.
Because your data resiliencyisn't tied to the servers,
you could start with just two.
That's all you need.
Or if you're prepping for AI and youneed to add GPUs, well, the great part
is you can add different server flavors.
(08:04):
You're not tied to a specificnode match like you were with HCI.
That's the beauty of it.
So depending on what your requirementsare for your workload, you can customize
your compute resources to match.
That's completely unique.
If you're using Aruba networking,you get fully integrated patch
(08:26):
and update compatibility rightwithin the same interface.
And if you need microsegmentation,Aruba's CX 10 K switches.
Have you covered?
We're gonna cover that more inan additional episode, 'cause
I really want to dig into that.
Finally, by right sizing yourVMware environment, you avoid
(08:48):
buying more license than necessary.
And in some cases, the savings alonecan justify the whole solution.
So some of the key benefits, for one,it's an engineered full stack solution.
HPE integrates the hardwareand the software so you don't
have to build it all yourself.
(09:09):
Second, it's fast time to value.
All of it is pre-validated and tested.
You're up and running in days, not months.
And I have to be honest here,when I worked with Dell.
We did some major VxRail installationsand some of those installations were
so complex it took six months orlonger to actually get it implemented.
(09:35):
And I'm not talking about the time it tookto migrate, I'm just talking about the
straight implementation of the solution.
It was crazy.
This is is way simpler.
As a matter of fact, in many cases,most of it is pre-configured before
it's actually even delivered.
So once the system registers the cloudconsole, boom, you're off and running.
(09:57):
Really, really cool.
Third, lower ongoing management.
Okay, automated updates.
And capacity planning.
Free your team to tacklewhat really matters.
They can focus on their workloads.
So before diving into HP's VMEssentials Hypervisor, I have to
(10:22):
stress how crucial GreenLake is tomaking all of this work together.
The GreenLake Cloud Console is a unifiedcloud-based management platform that gives
you full visibility across networking,servers, storage, data protection, and
all of the HP integrated private cloudsolutions, including AI from one place.
(10:44):
No other OEM is doing this, andit's a real differentiator for HPE.
So now circling back to VM Essentials.
Private Cloud Business Edition itselfruns on GreenLake, cloud-based software,
built on technology called Morpheus.
Yes, matrix fans.
(11:05):
The reference is real.
I even got product updatesfrom Mr. Anderson, so they
take it to the next level.
Morpheus though is so powerful.
It can manage your VMware.
It can manage Nutanix and more.
Hm.
But today we're focusing on VMware andVM Essentials, so I'm going to dive
(11:28):
deep into Morpheus in a future episode.
Because of Morpheus, though, HPEdidn't have to reinvent the wheel.
When it came to creating thisVMware alternative, they opted
for an open source KVM hypervisor,integrated in with the same tools.
That they have already usedwhen it came to managing VMware.
(11:52):
Now, this KVM hypervisor is verysimilar to what Nutanix was doing
with their, um, a HV hypervisor.
Okay?
So we didn't wanna recreate the wheel.
We wanted something that was reliable,that was built in rock solid, and
ultimately something that HPE wascomfortable in supporting, because
(12:14):
we're gonna support this entire stack.
So you can run VMware and VM Essentialsside by side on the same hardware.
In this case, it allows you to keepmission critical apps on VMware,
shift less mission critical workloadsto VM Essentials, and you instantly
(12:37):
reduce your VMware licensing.
Plus you've got a ready made path.
To fully pivot away from VMwareif and when you're ready.
So, top reasons here for VM Essentials.
For one choice of hypervisor, youhave a legitimate alternative.
If you're, if you're wary of the wholething that's going on with Broadcom and
(12:59):
the VMware pricing, it's high performance.
It's optimized for the HP hardwarestack, and it's a rock solid solution.
Seamless integration.
Morpheus takes care of that, allowing itto all be under the GreenLake umbrella for
a single management interface, allowingyou to manage both those on-prem resources
(13:22):
and oh yeah, public cloud as well.
Completely unique.
Now, if you caught myrecent chat with Mac Aina.
He mentioned how many organizations aremoving away from owning hardware outright,
everything we've been discussing,private Cloud, business Edition, VM
Essentials can also be fully managedby HPE as private cloud enterprise.
(13:49):
You pay for capacity as you useit and just like AWS and Azure,
but it stays on-prem, so youkeep full control of your data.
Why GreenLake matters.
So unified governance, you see thecost, the usage, compliance across
all your hybrid workloads in oneplace, you have simplified operations.
(14:14):
You can deploy, manage, and protect VMsor containers, whether they're on-prem or
in the cloud, and it's consumption based.
Pay, as you go scale up and downand get that public cloud experience
in your own data center or you'reco-locate, you have the choice.
So if you're rethinking yourvirtualization strategy, wondering
(14:37):
about your next move post Broadcom.
We're just looking to optimizeyour VMware environment.
Take a closer look at Private CloudBusiness Edition and VM Essentials.
We have demos, assessments, and toolsready to show you where you can save
and how you can scale effectively.
(14:59):
So that's it for today, folks.
I hope we've clarified how HPE PrivateCloud Business Edition and VM Essentials
can boost or even replace your VMwareenvironment, giving you real options
in this fast changing tech landscape.
Thank you for tuning inthe Thriving and Ambiguity.
If you have questions or want meto dive deeper into something, drop
(15:22):
a comment or reach out directly.
And while you're here, hit thatsubscribe button and stay curious.
Stay innovative, and I'llsee you on the next episode.
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