HPE Banking on Ezmeral Software to Lure More Partners, Users to AI
“There's a value proposition across the partner continuum,” says HPE's Steve Shattuck.
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Channel Futures: Why did HPE tweak its AI/big data offerings into one portfolio?
HPE’s Steve Shattuck: [The goal] is to make AI and big data more accessible, to make it easier, to shorten the amount of time it takes to actually drive value. … Candidly, AI is difficult and big data is difficult. … There are so many options out there and what we want to do is simplify what we have been doing.
CF: What was the thinking around Ezmeral and the channel?
SS: Knowing that [partners] wanted to start to drive some differentiated relevancy in the marketplace, how do they get into that AI and big data space? There are so many options out there for them. You really need to build some in-house expertise. We think we can help them get there quicker, that our portfolio is going to take away some of that complexity of having to learn how to set up a data lake, and to set up ML workflows and AI workflows.
… Channel partners that don’t necessarily have an established bench of expertise in AI/big data are now going to be able to sell a really compelling solution that doesn’t require them to have all that expertise in terms of how do I set up data, I don’t have any Kubernetes experts on staff; I don’t have anybody who’s gotten expertise setting up Spark and Airflow and MLflow. Now with this tooling, they’ll be able to sell it, get it up and running more quickly.
CF: Which types of partners — MSPs, resellers, integrators — does the Ezmeral software target?
SS: There’s a value proposition across the partner continuum and and the value proposition might be a little bit different depending on which type of partner, in terms of traditional, infrastructure-focused VARs versus maybe more services-focused VARs versus service providers. And we’re having conversations with all of them. …
The group of partners that we’ve been having some really interesting conversations with are those services-led. They may not be traditional HPE partners or maybe they’re traditional HPE partners who have built centers of excellence or practices around AI and big data.
They really want to be engaged with solving customer problems at the analytics software level. They’ve got either pre-canned, verticalized solutions in this space, or they’ve got data scientists and folks on staff who can solve really interesting customer problems. And now they want to be focused on that. They don’t want to be focused on that infrastructure acquisition, and the networking and user authentication and connecting frameworks to data. They want to just go solve business problems.
CF: How did HPE condense the deployment time frame for this AI/big data portfolio from weeks or days to minutes?
SS: Through a massive, massive focus on automation and self-management. The software is becoming really self-managed. The installation is almost fully automated. We can do it either on-prem or in the hyperscalers … and then the software will take care of everything else.
CF: Talk more about how Ezmeral is implemented.
SS: We want to provide it in a hybrid, multicloud way, out of the box. So all products moving forward are going to be built with the ability to be deployed either hybrid and or across multiple clouds. And we want to be able to deploy those with a consumption-based pricing model — but able to do it on-prem or in the cloud. And what we really think we’re going to be able to provide there is this consistent experience for data management and analytics, whether you’re on-prem or regardless of who’s cloud you’re in.
CF: Ezmeral almost sounds like it could go up against IBM Watson? Is that accurate?
SS: I would say when we start looking at our competitors, it depends on where you draw the lines. I’d say at the data management level, you’ve got some of the traditional players, say file and object store solutions, from the hyperscalers to legacy Hadoop environments and providers like Cloudera to some of the new data fabric-type competitors.
At the data layer, I would say that we overlap with a lot of what Snowflake is doing, what Databricks is doing. And then you’d have to go into some of the cloud service providers and look at resources like SageMaker.
… There are so many different parts and pieces that I would say we’re getting really broad in terms of our capabilities, and so I see the window of competitors getting broader as well. … I don’t know that I could actually put my finger on anybody in the marketplace who’s doing, or even started doing, what we’re trying to accomplish here. I would say it would take three to five different products or services or hyperscalers to accomplish what we’re trying to do across this portfolio.
CF: What size of organization does Ezmeral target?
SS: Traditionally my existing install base is in the upper Fortune 50 to Fortune 200, or maybe Fortune 500. … Where we’ve kind of struggled in the past is that kind of mid- to smaller market. Our product was a heavy lift. In terms of trying to grab more market share, we really wanted to focus on what we can do to take this technology and make it more accessible. So while we’ll still have the enterprise scalability that we’ve always had, we’re also now going to have the accessibility to be able to go down market a little bit.
CF: Talk more about going down-market, especially from the channel partner perspective. What size of partner and what type of partner might Ezmeral be best suited for that?
SS: I think with the new portfolio we’ll be able to address most partners in this ecosystem because the experience is going to be different. We can go in and jointly sell the value proposition of the software. And this is how easy it’s going to be for a channel partner to transact. The client will download the software onto the environment, or we can help them help them do that, and then the automation of that software will go do the installation. The channel partner can oversee it, but we’re not going to need to hire professional services to get it up and running. That’s going to make Ezmeral make much more accessible to some of the smaller channel partners.
CF: What kind of training will HPE be providing for Ezmeral?
SS: We don’t have all of the training materials baked yet, but we’re going to be transitioning our beta environment into the trials environment. We’re going to be able to quickly give our channel partners direct access to the environment to be able to learn how the installation works, how the tooling works, and give them environment that they can play in. They’ll have that hands-on expertise before they have to go to a customer. We’ll have an environment online that they can access, but if they want, they can go through the on-prem installation process or the hyperscaler installation process. And then through our professional services organization, we can put together an enablement package based on where partners want to go, how deep do they want to go.
CF: What kind of training will HPE be providing for Ezmeral?
SS: We don’t have all of the training materials baked yet, but we’re going to be transitioning our beta environment into the trials environment. We’re going to be able to quickly give our channel partners direct access to the environment to be able to learn how the installation works, how the tooling works, and give them environment that they can play in. They’ll have that hands-on expertise before they have to go to a customer. We’ll have an environment online that they can access, but if they want, they can go through the on-prem installation process or the hyperscaler installation process. And then through our professional services organization, we can put together an enablement package based on where partners want to go, how deep do they want to go.
As tools like ChatGPT, Google Bard and Amazon Bedrock hog the AI spotlight, HPE on Tuesday debuted the latest iteration of its Ezmeral Software.
First launched in 2020 as a hybrid cloud platform for data science and analytics workloads, the new Ezmeral software brings siloed functions into one place, adds HPE GreenLake capabilities and, most of all, simplifies analytics and AI/ML/big data insights.
That latter point is a big deal for smaller organizations and their channel partners seeking to take advantage of AI without having to invest in data experts and other expensive resources. Typically, HPE has targeted Fortune 50-500 firms, which are served by the likes of behemoth consultancies and integrators such as Accenture and Deloitte. But Ezmeral opens the door for more midmarket users and partners.
That’s the word from Steve Shattuck, vice president of worldwide sales, service and support for HPE Ezmeral software.
Ezmeral Software Opens Multicloud Opportunity
HPE’s Steve Shattuck
“We want to be a part of that entire hybrid multicloud environment,” Shattuck told Channel Futures. “And this software is going to give our channel partners an opportunity to have relevance in that space.”
Other updates to HPE Ezmeral include a new interface, more data sources and open-source tools. The portfolio also works across on-premises setups and Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Speaking of open source, HPE opted for that route for Ezmeral so it can add functionality as customers need — or let them customize their own additions. Finally, Ezmeral Software takes minutes, maybe a half-hour, to install, as compared to days or weeks.
Channel Futures spoke with Shattuck about what Ezmeral Software means for partners. See the slideshow above to read that conversation, which has been lightly edited for clarity.
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