HPE, Nutanix Get Closer, Add Database Bundle to Partnership

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) added Nutanix’s database management software, Era, to its growing GreenLake cloud services portfolio. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) added Nutanix’s database management software, Era, to its growing GreenLake cloud services portfolio. The latest chapter in the two companies’ partnership bundles Era with HPE ProLiant servers. It’s a fully managed cloud service, and customers can deploy applications and database on demand in a pay-per-use model. HPE CEO Antonio Neri has pledged to offer the company’s entire portfolio as a service under its GreenLake portfolio by 2022. And during HPE’s most recent earnings call, HPE CFO Tarek Robbiati said that GreenLake’s annual recurring revenue hit $678 million during the second quarter of 2021, a 30% increase from last year, and total as-a-service orders grew 41% year over year. The existing HPE Greenlake with Nutanix service already provides customers with Nutanix’s core hybrid-cloud software running on HPE servers, and the companies say they have seen about 80% year-over-year growth in annual contract bookings during the first calendar quarter of 2021. This includes wins for HPE ProLiant DX servers and HPE GreenLake with Nutanix. Nutanix Era is one of the company’s newer products, and it allows customers to automate tasks across their databases including Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PostgresSQL, and MariaDB. On that company’s quarterly earnings call, Nutanix CEO Rajiv Ramaswami said Era and other “emerging products” annual contract value increased 80% year over year. He also called out HPE as Nutanix’s fastest-growing OEM partnership. In a later interview with SDxCentral, Ramaswami said that Nutanix customers increasingly ask for HPE hardware running Nutanix software, and specifically via its pay-as-you-go GreenLake portfolio. “I’m looking forward to doing more with HPE over time,” he said. According to a Forrester analysis, commissioned by Nutanix, customers using Era reported increasing speed of database provisioning by 97%, reducing unplanned downtime to avoid average losses of $35,000 per hour, decreasing storage requirements for copies and backups by 60%, and reducing database administrators’ overtime work by 50%. HPE and Nutanix have an interesting relationship in that they are partners: HPE sells its branded systems running Nutanix’s software. However, they also compete with each other when it comes to hyperconverged infrastructure because in addition to running integrated HCI systems with HPE hardware and Nutanix software (and other vendors, including VMware), HPE also sells systems running its own SimpliVity HCI software. Both companies point to this customer choice as a competitive differentiator. HPE lets customers choose their own software, while Nutanix lets customers run Nutanix software on their infrastructure of choice and supports its competitors’ hypervisors.