Category Archives: Xavier Poisson

Bill Hilf, Cloud Foundry, Docker, Helion, HP, Linux containers, News & Analysis, OpenStack, Stackato, Xavier Poisson

HP to buy Stackato to boost hybrid cloud strategy

HP is buying Stackato to boost support for Linux containers

HP is buying Stackato to boost support for Linux containers

HP is to acquire ActiveState’s Stackato business for an undisclosed sum, which the company said would give a boost to its hybrid cloud strategy.

Like HP Helion Development Platform, Stackato’s platform as a service is built on Cloud Foundry and offers robust support for Docker, which is gaining the lion’s share of attention in the Linux container world. It offers deployments on a range of cloud infrastructure including AWS, VMware, OpenStack, HP Cloud and KVM.

HP said the move would strengthen its hybrid cloud strategy, which largely puts application catalogues, workload automation, Cloud Foundry and OpenStack front and centre.

“The Stackato PaaS solution strengthens the HP Helion portfolio and reinforces HP’s commitment to delivering customers open source solutions that help accelerate their transition to hybrid clouds,” said Bill Hilf, Senior Vice President, product and service management, HP Cloud. “The acquisition reinforces HP’s focus on driving Cloud Foundry as the open standard cloud native application platform.”

After the acquisition closes, which is expected to occur sometime in Q4 this year, HP will integrate Stackato into the Helion Development Platform.

The strong support for Linux containers will help HP build on its hybrid cloud strategy. Containers are useful in part because they are extremely portable and can run on pretty much any infrastructure, a useful feature when it comes to lifting and shifting workloads and application components in heterogeneous infrastructure environments. In an interview with BCN earlier this month Xavier Poisson, vice president of HP Helion in EMEA said Linux containers are increasingly at the core of cloud-native app development – so anything that can boost the company’s support of containers could make it more competitive.

Europe, HP, News & Analysis, OpenStack, Public Sector, Xavier Poisson

HP, EC launch public sector cloud pilots in several European cities

The EC is working with HP to bring cloud to municipal governments in Europe

The EC is working with HP to bring cloud to municipal governments in Europe

HP announced it is working with the European Commission on several pilot cloud implementations in a bid to test how internal and citizen-facing public sector services cloud be moved off legacy platforms into more elastic cloud environments. The move is part of the Commission’s broader efforts to catalyse the use of cloud services in the public sector.

HP is working with the EC on the organisation’s ironically-named STORM (Surfing Towards the Opportunity of Real Migration) cloud project, which envisions the establishment of a public services cloud that allows services and data to be securely shared between the public and private sector partners.

The project currently includes three HP-led trials in Valladolid, Spain; Águeda, Portugal; and Thessaloniki, Greece. As part of the initiative HP is defining, designing and implementing an OpenStack-based infrastructure-as-a-service platform.

The initial stage of the project will see Valladolid pilot Urbanismo en Red, an application that gives citizens access to municipal development plans online. Thessaloniki will trial Virtual City Marketplace, a portal to buy and sell local services, while Agueda aims to increase public participation by allowing citizens and communities to express their opinion online and submit ideas for urban improvements.

The goal, the company said, is to accelerate the “cloudification” of public services in Europe, and to fine-tune and seed out a cloud platform model that can be replicated in other cities in Europe.

“Europe must ensure that new IT devices, applications, data repositories and services interact seamlessly anywhere – just like the Internet,” says Xavier Poisson Gouyou Beauchamps, vice president, cloud computing EMEA, HP.

“This project aims to make collaboration between public authorities easier and more cost effective through the sharing and re-use of common platforms, components and infrastructures. As a result, municipalities across the EU will take a step closer to becoming truly ‘smart cities’.”

“HP is working closely with the EU across a number of projects tied to accountability, security and compliance in order to accelerate digital growth in Europe,” he added.