We’ve gotten really good at deploying virtual machines (VM). That’s a good thing because the cloud depends on VMs. But no matter how many VMs you can place on a server, at the end of the day you still need hardware.
That’s where Hewlett-Packard (HP) wants to be your friend. True, HP has its own cloud software suite, Helion. This set of programs is based on OpenStack. HP hasn’t put all its chips on OpenStack. Last fall, HP bought the open-source, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) private cloud program Eucalyptus. Then, in a shocking move, HP put Eucalyptus founder and CEO Marten Mickos in charge of its cloud operations.
I still don’t know quite what to make of HP’s software moves. But, here’s what I do know: HP, at heart, is still a hardware company. So, regardless of where HP goes with cloud software and services, I take HP’s new inexpensive cloud server line Cloudline seriously.