Elevating Cloud Efficiency with as-a-Service IT

Key facts

Customer

blueAPACHE. HPE classifies it as a service provider in the Pacific Rim region. In HPE's February 2021 account, we ran a private cloud called emPOWER that serves customers across the globe from an Australian base, is accountable for every aspect of the application delivery supply chain from hosting to end-user experience, and charges monthly on consumption. Founder and managing director Chris Marshall describes the target market as mid-to-large enterprises that need a provider responsible for application delivery across the globe and that have complex requirements without the internal scale to move into challenging geographies.

Sector

Service provider infrastructure. HPE's February 2021 case describes investment in emPOWER private cloud. emPOWER Cloud, Storage as a Service and Disaster Recovery as a Service are related offerings; this historical account does not establish the platform used for every current service or the exact infrastructure used for the separate pathology-provider engagement.

Challenge

Before HPE GreenLake, we had to maintain reserve compute and storage for new customer workloads, forecast hardware needs typically 12 months out, and make large capital investments to buy capacity for current and projected demand. Excess capacity sat idle for many months of the year, and we waited for customer revenue to catch up with our outlay before seeing a return. General manager of technology Michael Zuppa framed it as needing the same pay-as-you-grow model for procuring cloud infrastructure that we offer our own customers for consuming it.

Solution

In the February 2021 account, after evaluating multiple vendors, we selected HPE to upgrade the emPOWER Cloud infrastructure, delivered as a service through HPE GreenLake. The foundation is HPE Synergy composable infrastructure for compute, HPE Primera mission-critical storage, HPE GreenLake Management Services to manage the new infrastructure, and a dedicated HPE GreenLake account support manager providing consultation and on-site operational service, with VMware for virtualisation and orchestration. Under this model reserve capacity is always available but we pay for it only when used, and when a customer's workload contracts the freed compute or storage is reingested into the wider cloud for other customers.

The emPOWER Cloud brochure also describes HPE architecture, including Synergy compute, Primera storage and BladeSystem servers. Confirm the platform for a proposed deployment separately. The supplied ISO/IEC 27001 certificate concerns blueAPACHE's ISMS, not certification of individual infrastructure products or cloud services.

A caveat on the hypervisor

VMware appears in this case study as the virtualisation and orchestration layer. That is what the 2021 HPE document states, and it is reported here on that basis. If your workload placement, licensing position or migration path depends on the hypervisor, confirm it directly rather than inferring it from this page.

Why a supplier's own capital model is worth a buyer's attention

This case study is unusual in being about our balance sheet rather than a customer's environment, and it is tempting to read it as vendor marketing. There is a substantive reason for a prospective customer to care.

The historical account explains how buying infrastructure on consumption helped align our costs with customer revenue and made released capacity available to other workloads. That can inform a discussion of capacity planning, but it does not establish unlimited capacity, instant expansion or a contractual right for customers to reduce commitments. Confirm provisioning lead times, minimum commitments and scale-down terms in the proposal.

Services used

The 2021 case describes our use of HPE GreenLake, HPE Synergy, HPE Primera and HPE GreenLake Management Services. The following are related services, not evidence that each currently runs on that exact historical platform:

• emPOWER Cloud and the Cloud pillar: private and hybrid IaaS with consumption billing and a self-service portal.
• Storage as a Service: related storage offering; confirm its architecture and interfaces for the proposed service.
• Disaster Recovery as a Service and Offsite Backup as a Service: related recovery and backup offerings; confirm their hosting and service scope separately.
• Advanced Infrastructure Managed Services: related infrastructure-management service; its inclusion is not established by this case.
• Core Network and Data Centre Interconnect: the emPOWER Network's direct connection into emPOWER Cloud, described as protected against a single point of failure.

Outcomes

These outcomes describe our environment as at February 2021.

What this case does and does not establish

What it supports. HPE's February 2021 account describes the infrastructure and consumption model then in use, including Synergy compute and Primera storage. It provides historical design rationale and reported outcomes. It does not confirm the current product set, commercial terms or deployment architecture.

Comparing a consumption-based proposal

This case concerns our own platform economics and operation. A customer should separately identify chargeable units, fixed commitments, growth approvals and how consumption is reconciled. Supplier financing and customer pricing are different arrangements. Historical platform investment does not establish current unit rates or a right to scale down without commitment. Use the case for design rationale, then obtain the customer’s charging basis and cloud and recovery schedules.

Who is the customer in this case study?

Our own business. The document is HPE marketing collateral from February 2021 describing how blueAPACHE, as an HPE customer, rebuilt the infrastructure behind our emPOWER private cloud on HPE GreenLake.

What hardware runs emPOWER Cloud?

The February 2021 case describes HPE Synergy compute and HPE Primera storage, delivered through HPE GreenLake and managed with HPE GreenLake Management Services. Confirm the hardware for a current deployment in its proposal.

Which hypervisor does emPOWER Cloud use?

In 2021, we used VMware for virtualisation and orchestration in this environment. Talk to us about current platform options for your licensing or migration requirements.

Why did you move to a consumption model for your own infrastructure?

Under our previous model we had to forecast hardware 12 months ahead and buy capacity with capital that sat idle until customer revenue caught up. HPE GreenLake keeps reserve capacity available but bills it only when used, so our infrastructure costs track customer revenue.

Why should a customer care how we buy our own hardware?

The case illustrates how supplier infrastructure costs can be aligned with demand and released capacity reused. Customer scaling rights, provisioning times and minimum charges remain separate commercial terms to agree.

Is the 30 per cent growth rate current?

No. The figure describes our growth as at February 2021; it does not describe our current growth rate. It is recorded here as a historical outcome attributed by HPE to new customers and expanding existing customers.

What does this mean for a customer buying emPOWER Cloud?

The historical case explains the supplier's capacity model. For a current emPOWER Cloud purchase, confirm chargeable units, minimum commitments, scale-up and scale-down rules, portal access and applicable availability commitments in the agreed service scope.

Where is the platform located?

HPE's historical account describes emPOWER as serving global customers from an Australian base. That does not establish that every workload, backup, support activity or subprocessor remains in Australia. Confirm the proposed service's storage, processing, backup and access locations in writing.

What is your relationship with HPE?

This case describes blueAPACHE as HPE's infrastructure customer. The separate pathology-provider account describes joint work with HPE; it does not establish that both engagements used an identical platform.

Which blueAPACHE executives are named in the case study?

Chris Marshall, founder and managing director, and Michael Zuppa, general manager of technology, in the roles they held when HPE published the document in 2021. Michael Zuppa is now chief executive officer.

How much of this page can I rely on?

The growth figure, the hypervisor and the exact product set are five years old and should be confirmed before use.

Related

• emPOWER Cloud — the platform this infrastructure runs
• Cloud services and solutions — the pillar it sits in
• Storage as a Service — related storage service
• Disaster Recovery as a Service — related recovery service
• Offsite Backup as a Service — related backup service
• Advanced Infrastructure Managed Services — management of the layer above
• Core network and data centre interconnect — how the network reaches it
• Our partners — the HPE relationship
• Vendor partners — the full partner record
• Data sovereignty and privacy — where the data sits
• blueAPACHE security case study (CyberArk) — the other blueAPACHE-as-customer study
• Pathology provider Storage-as-a-Service case study — delivered jointly with HPE
• ARN Channel News: we overhaul cloud platform with HPE — the coverage
• Why geographic redundancy is essential to cloud success — the resilience argument
• All case studies — the full evidence set