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Packard Enterprise.
Dana
Gardner: Hello, and welcome to the next edition of the BriefingsDirect
Voice of the Customer podcast series. I’m Dana Gardner,
Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your
host and moderator for this ongoing discussion on digital transformation success
stories.
The use of containers has
moved from developer infatuation to mainstream cloud adoption accelerant. Docker Inc. has
emerged as a leader in the containerization technology field and has greased
the skids for multicloud ease of use.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has
long embraced containers as a way to move beyond legacy virtualization and to
provide both developers and IT operators more choice and efficiency as they
seek to embrace hybrid cloud deployment scenarios.
Fish and chips
Like
the proverbial chocolate and peanut butter coming together -- or as I like to
say, with Docker and HPE, fish and chips -- the two make a nifty alliance and
cloud ecosystem tag team.
Here to describe exactly how
the Docker and HPE alliance accelerates modern and agile hybrid architectures, we
are joined by two executives, Betty Junod, Senior
Director of Product and Partner Marketing at Docker. Welcome, Betty.
 |
| Junod |
Betty Junod:
Hello. Thanks for having me, Dana.
Gardner: We’re
also here with Jeff Carlat,
Senior Director of Global Alliances at HPE. Welcome back, Jeff.
Jeff Carlat: Thanks,
Dana. Great to be here.
Gardner: Jeff,
how do containers -- and how does Docker specifically -- help data center
architects achieve their goals?
Carlat: When
you look at the advent of where technology has gone, through virtualization of applications,
we are moving into a whole new era where we need much more agility in in applications
-- and IT operations.
We believe that our modern
infrastructure and our partnership with Docker -- specifically around containers
and container orchestration -- provides businesses of all sizes much lower
acquisition cost of deploying infrastructure, and ongoing operation costs. And,
of course, the game from a business standpoint is all about driving
profitability and shareholder stock value.
Second, there is huge value
when it comes to Docker and containers around extending the life of legacy
applications. Modernizing traditional apps and being able to extend their life and
bring them forward to a new modern architecture -- that drives greater
efficiencies and lower risk.
Gardner:
Betty, how do you see the alignment between what HPE’s long-term vision for
hybrid computing and edge-to-core computing and what Docker and
containerization can do? How do these align?
Align your apps
Junod: It’s actually
a wonderful alignment because what we look at from a Docker perspective is
specifically at the application layer and bringing choice, agility, and
security at the application layer in a way that can be married with what HPE is
doing on the infrastructure layer across the hybrid cloud.
Our customers are saying, “We
want to go to cloud, but we know the world is hybrid. We are going to be hybrid.
So how do we do that in a way that doesn’t blow up all of our compliance if we
make a change? Is this all for new apps? Or what do I do with all the stuff that
I have accrued over the decades that’s eating into all of my budget?”
Learn how to extend Docker containers
Across your entire enterprise
When it comes to transformation,
it is not just an infrastructure story. It's not just an applications story. It's
how do I use those two together in a way that's highly efficient and also very
agile for managing the stuff I already have today. Can I make that cheaper,
better, stronger -- and how do I enable the developers to build all the new
services for the future that are going to provide more services, or better
engage with my customers?
Gardner: How
does DevOps, in particular, align? There is a lot of the developer allegiance to
a Docker value proposition. But IT operators are also very much interested in
what HPE is bringing to market, such as better management, better efficiency, and
automation.
How are your two companies an accelerant
to DevOps?
The future is Agile
Junod: DevOps
is interesting in that it's a word that's been used a lot, along with Agile
development. It all stems from the desire for companies to be
faster, right? They want to be faster in everything -- faster in delivering new
services, faster in time-to-market, as well as faster in responses so they can
deliver the best service-level agreements (SLAs) to the customer. It’s very
much about how application teams and infrastructure teams work together.
What's great is that Docker
brings the ability for developers and operations teams to have a common
language, to be able to do their own thing on their timelines without messing
up the other side of the house. No more of that Waterfall.
Developers can keep developing, shipping, and not break something that the
infrastructure teams have set up, and vice versa.
No more of that Waterfall. Developers can keep developing and shipping, and not break something that the infrastructure teams have set up.
Gardner: When
you have the fungibility of moving workloads around the operators benefit, because
they get to finally gain more choice about what keeps the trains running on
time regardless of who is inside those trains, so to speak.
Let's look at some of the
hurdles. What prevents organizations from adopting these hybrid cloud and
containerization benefits? What else needs to happen?
Make hybrid happen
Junod: One
of the biggest things we hear from our customers is, “Where should I go when it
comes to cloud, and how?” They want to make sure that what they do is future-proof.
The want to spend their time being beholden to what their application and
customer needs are -- and not specifically a cloud A or cloud B.
Learn more about the Docker
Enterprise Container Platform
Because with the new
regulations regarding data privacy and data sovereignty, if you are a multinational
company, your data sets are going to have to live in a bunch of different
places. People want the ability to have things hybrid. But that presents an
application and an infrastructure operational challenge.
What's great in our
partnership is that we are saying we are going to provide you the safest way to
do hybrid; the fastest way to get there. With the Docker layer on top of that,
no matter what cloud you pick to marry with your HPE on-premises infrastructure,
it’s seamless portability -- and you can have the same operational governance.
 |
| Carlat |
Carlat: We
also see enterprises, as they move to gain efficiencies, are on a journey. And
the journey around containerization and containers in our modern infrastructure
can be daunting at times.
One of the barriers, or prohibitions, to active adoption movement is complexity, of not knowing where to
start. This is where we are partnering deeply; essentially around the services
capabilities, to be able to bring in our consultative capabilities with Pointnext
and do assessments and help customers establish that journey and get them
through the maturity of testing and development, and progressing into full
production-level environments.
Gardner: Is Cloud Technology
Partners, a recent HPE acquisition, also a big plus given that they have
been of, by, and for cloud -- and very heavily into containers?
Carlat: Yes. That
snaps in naturally with the choice in our hybrid strategy. It's a great bridge,
if you will, between what applications you may want on-premises and also using Cloud
Technology Partners for leveraging an agnostic set of public cloud providers.
Gardner:
Betty, when we think about adoption, sometimes too much of a good thing too
soon can provide challenges. Is there anything about people adopting containers
too rapidly without doing the groundwork -- the blocking and tackling, around
management and orchestration, and even automation -- that becomes a negative? And
how does HPE factor into that?
Too much transformation, too soon
Junod: We
have learned over these last few years, across 500 different customers, what
does and doesn't work. It has a consistent pattern. The companies that say they
want to do DevOps, and cloud, and microservices -- and they put all the
buzzwords in – and they want to do it all right now for transformation -- those
organizations tend to fail. That’s because it's too much change at once, like
you mentioned.
What we have worked out by
collaborating tightly with our partners as well as our customers is that we say,
“Pick one, and maybe not the most complicated application you have. Because you
might be deploying on a new infrastructure. You are using a new container model.
You are going to need to evolve some of your processes internally.”
And if you are going to do
hybrid, when is it hybrid? Is it during the development and test in the cloud,
and then to on-premises for production? Or is it cloud bursting for scale up? Or
is it for failover replication? If you don't have some of that sorted out
before you go, well, then you are just stuck with too much stuff, too much of a
good thing.
The companies that say they want to do DevOps, cloud, microservices, and do it all right now -- those organizations tend to fail.
And then once we get some of
those kinks worked out and try some of the operational processes that evolve,
then after that it’s almost like a factory. They can just start funneling more
in.
Gardner: Jeff,
lot of what HPE has been doing is around management and monitoring, governance,
being mindful of security and compliance issues. So things like HPE Synergy,
things like HPE OneView
that have been in the market for a long time, and newer products like HPE OneSphere,
how are they factoring into allowing containers to be what they should be without
getting out of control?
Hand in glove
Carlat: We
have seen containerization evolve. And the modern architectures such as HPE Synergy
and OneView
are designed and built for bare metal deployment or containers or
virtualization. It's all designed -- you say, it's like fish and chips, or it's
like a hand in glove in my analogy – to allow customers choice, agility, and flexibility.
Our modern infrastructure is
not purely designed for containers. We see a lot of virtualization, and Docker
runs great in a virtualized environment as well. So it’s not one or the other.
So again, it's like a hand in glove.
Gardner: By
the way, I know that the Docker whale isn’t technically a fish, but I like to
use it anyway.
Let's talk about the rapid
adoption now around hyperconverged
infrastructure (HCI). How is HCI helping move forward hybrid cloud
and particularly for you on the Docker side? Are you seeing it as an
accelerant?
Junod: What
you are seeing with some of the hyperconverged -- and especially if you relate
that over to what's going on with the adoption of containers -- it's all about
agility. They want speed and they want to be able to spin things out fast,
whether it's compute resources or whether it's application resources. I think
it's a nice marriage of where the entire industry wants to go, and what
companies are looking for to deliver services faster to our customers.
Carlat: Specifically,
hyperconverged represents one of the fastest growing segments in the market for
us. And the folks that are adopting hyperconverged clearly want the choice,
agility, and rapid simplicity -- and rapid deployment -- of their applications.
Where we are partnering with
Docker is taking HPE SimpliVity,
our hyperconverged infrastructure, in building out solutions for either test or
development and using scripting to be able to deploy this all in a complete environment
in 30 minutes or less.
Yes, we are perfectly aligned,
and we see hyperconverged as a great area for dropping in infrastructure and
testing and development, as well as for midsize IT environments.
Gardner:
Recently DockerCon
wrapped up. Betty, what was some of the big news there, and how has that had an
impact on going to market with a partner like HPE?
Choice, Agility, Security
Junod: At
DockerCon we reemphasized our core pillars: choice, agility, and security,
because it's choice in what you want to build. You should as an organization be
able to build the best applications with the best components that you feel are
right for your application -- and then be able to run that anywhere, in
whatever scenario.
Agility is really around speed
for delivering new applications, as well as speed for operations teams. Back to
DevOps, those two sides have to exist together and in partnership. One can't be
fast and the other slow. We want to enable both to be fast together.
And lastly, security. It's
really about driving security throughout the lifecycle, from development to
production. We want to make sure that we have security built into the entire
stack that's supporting the application.
Organizations should be able to build the best applications with the best components and run them anywhere, in any scenario.
So back to choice; it's a
Linux and Windows world. You should be able to use any orchestration you like
as part of that.
No more kicking the tires
Carlat: One
thing I really noticed at DockerCon was not necessarily just about what Docker
did, but the significance of major enterprises -- Fortune 500, Fortune 100 enterprises
– that are truly pivoting to the use of containers and Docker specifically on HPE.
No longer are they kicking the
tires and evaluating. We are seeing full-scale production roll outs in major,
major, major enterprises. The time is right for customers to modernize, embrace,
and adopt containers and container orchestration and drop that onto a modern
infrastructure or architecture. They can then gain the benefits of the
efficiencies, agility, and the security that we have talked about. That is paramount.
Learn more about the Docker
Enterprise Container Platform
Gardner: Along
those lines, do you have examples that show how the combination of what HPE
brings to the table and what Docker brings to the table combine in a way that
satisfies significant requirements and needs in the market?
Junod: I can
highlight two customers. One is Bosch, a major manufacturer in Europe,
as well as DaVita
healthcare.
What’s interesting is that Bosch
began with a lot of organic use of Docker by their developers, spread all over
the place. But they said, “Hang on a second, because developers are working
with corporate intellectual property (IP), we need to find a way to centralize
that, so it better scales for them -- and it’s also secure for us.”
This is one of the first
accounts that Docker and HPE worked on together to bring them an integrated
solution. They implemented a new development pipeline. Central IT at Bosch is
doing the governance, management, and the security around the images and
content. But each application development team, no matter where they are around
the world, is able to spin up their own separate clusters and then be able to do
the development and continuous integration on their own, and then publish the
software to a centralized pipeline.
Containers at the intelligent edge
Carlat: There
are use cases across the board and in all industry verticals; healthcare, manufacturing.
We are seeing strong interest in adoption outside of the data center and we call
that the intelligent edge.
We see that containers, and containers-as-a-service,
are joining more compute, data, and analytics at the edge. As we move forward,
the same level of choice, agility, and security there is paramount. We see
containers as a perfect complement, if you will, at the edge.
Gardner:
Right; bringing down the necessary runtime for those edge apps -- but not any more
than the necessary runtime. Let’s unpack that a little bit. What is it about
container and edge devices, like an HPE Edgeline
server, for example, that makes so much sense?
Junod: There
is a broad spectrum on the edge. You will have like things like remote offices
and retail locations. You will also see things like Industrial Internet ofThings (IIoT). There you have very small devices for data ingest that feed into
a distributed server that then ultimately feeds into the core, or the cloud, to
do large-scale data analytics. Together this provides real-time insights, and
this is an area we have been partnering and working with some of our customers
on right now.
Security is actually paramount
because -- if you start thinking about the data ingest devices -- we are not
talking about, “Oh, hey, I have 100 small offices.” We are talking about
millions and millions of very small devices out there that need to run a
workload. They have minimal compute resources and they are going to run one or
two workloads to collect data. If not sufficiently secured, they can be risk
areas for attack.
So, what's really important
from a Docker perspective is the security; integrated security that goes from
the core -- all the way to the edge. Our ability, from a software layer, to
provide trusted transport and digital signatures and the locking down of the
runtime along the way means that these tiny sensor devices have one container
on them. And it's been encrypted and locked with keys that can’t be attacked.
Learn how to extend Docker containers
Across your entire enterprise
That’s very important, because
now if someone did attack, they could also start getting access into the
network. So security is even more paramount as you get closer to the edge.
Gardner: Any
other forward-looking implications for your alliance? What should we be thinking
about in terms of analyzing that data and bringing machine learning (ML) to the
edge? Is there something that between your two companies will help facilitate
that?
Carlat: The
world of containers and agile cloud-native applications is not going away. When
I think about the future, enterprises need to pivot. Yet change is hard for all
enterprises, and they need help.
They are likely going to turn
to trusted partners. HPE and Docker are perfectly aligned, we have been bellwethers
in the industry, and we will be there to help on that journey.
Gardner: Yes,
this seems like a very long-term relationship.
I’m afraid we’ll have to leave
it there. We have been exploring how Docker and HPE formed an alliance that’s accelerating
adoption of modern and agile hybrid architectures. And we have learned how the
use of containers has moved from developer infatuation to mainstream hybrid and
multi-cloud adoption acceleration.
The world of containers and agile, cloud-native applications is not going away. Enterprises need to pivot. This change is hard, and they need help.
Junod: Thank
you, Dana.
Gardner: And
we have been here with Jeff Carlat, Senior Director of Global Alliances at HPE.
Thank you, Jeff.
Carlat:
Great to be here, Dana.
Gardner: And
thanks as well to our audience for joining this special BriefingsDirect Voice
of the Customer digital transformation success story.
I’m Dana Gardner, Principal
Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host for this ongoing series of Hewlett
Packard Enterprise-sponsored interviews. Thanks again for listening. Please
pass this along to your IT community, and do come back next time.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Get the mobile
app. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Hewlett
Packard Enterprise.
Transcript
of a discussion on how
the combination of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Docker provides a cloud
ecosystem tag team to help grease the skids for rapid cloud adoption. Copyright Interarbor
Solutions, LLC, 2005-2018. All rights reserved.
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