HP Launches Helion OpenStack Build/Services, to Take on AWS

HP has steadily been making a lot of noise about its commitment to cloud computing overall, and the OpenStack platform in particular. And, back in May, HP chief Meg Whitman announced the cloud-focused Helion brand, and pledged to commit $1 billion over the next two years on products and services surrounding OpenStack.

Now, Hewlett-Packard has hit the ground running with a Helion hybrid cloud initiative focused on the launch of its first fully supported commercial release of HP Helion OpenStack with Cloud Foundry. There is also an enterprise-grade OpenStack-based private cloud storage component. Amazon should be watching all of this very closely.

HP has announced the arrival of the official Helion OpenStack cloud platform and HP Helion Development Platform based on Cloud Foundry, and the storage offering based on OpenStack is dubbed HP Helion Content Depot.

The complete package is forecasted to allow HP to compete very directly with Amazon Web Services, which, in Amazon's earnings announcement this week, emerged as a clear money maker. Furthermore, HP acquired Eucalyptus Systems only weeks ago, and Eucalyptus' technology will allow HP to offer what is essentially a clone of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) interface and tools.

You can find the overview of what HP has released here.  According to the company:

"With HP Helion OpenStack, you’re not locked in to any proprietary solution, allowing you to take advantage of innovations from a rich ecosystem of cloud solutions. Additionally, you have access to a flexible platform for development and valuable tools and resources in the HP Helion Developer Network."

While the company has not clarified its official plans, it has to be very focused on offering tight integration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) through Eucalyptus' technology. From the get-go, Eucalyptus has focused on duplicating the AWS interface and command-line tools exactly.

That duplication of functionality can make a difference for many enterprises that want the flexibility of an open source cloud platform, but have experience using Amazon's cloud tools.

HP's commercial Helion offering has also been updated to include Juno, the newest version of the OpenStack framework, which arrived last week.