HPE’s Impressive 80% Q3 GreenLake Growth Highlights Implications Of SAP HANA As-A-Service Deal

By Patrick Moorhead - September 15, 2020

Over the past several years, HPE has been engaged in a transition from selling infrastructure to offering solutions (hardware + software) on a consumption basis. The growing popularity of consumption-based computing is evident in the success of HPE GreenLake, a hybrid IT-as-a-Service offering, delivered via a flexible consumption model. Last week, HPE announced that it had 80% growth in HPE’s GreenLake Cloud Services orders, 82% in constant currency. I believe the recent announcement with SAP bodes well for the continued growth and success of HPE GreenLake.

SAP announced SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, customer edition. This is a new offering that will allow customers to run SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud in their own data centers. HPE GreenLake with the new customer edition of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud will provide a consistent, automated cloud experience along with a flexible subscription-based as-a-service model. HPE GreenLake's robust cloud services and compliance analytics tools will enable SAP to offer on-premise white-glove operations and application management services at the customer's location of choice.

HPE’s 80% (82% CC) YoY gain in GreenLake
HPE

The joint solution will be comprised of the new SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, customer edition landed on HPE compute, storage and networking, certified, and pre-configured for SAP software.

HPE will supply, install, and manage the infrastructure. SAP will add their expertise in operating complex private cloud landscapes from the operating system through the SAP HANA database, including the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud catalog of applications such as SAP S/4HANA and SAP BW/4HANA. The SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, customer edition will be delivered as a turnkey, OPEX, cloud subscription offering, that will be available through SAP.

SAP will begin selling the HPE GreenLake cloud service in the fourth quarter with delivery expected in the first quarter next year.

One reason SAP teamed with HPE is to offer a broad-based midmarket T-shirt-size offering that goes well beyond the large, multimillion-dollar SAP engagements. There is no steep minimum contractual commitment for the SAP HPE GreenLake service. Additionally, HPE has created a “component-based pricing model” for the SAP HPE GreenLake cloud service so customers can pay as they grow in the SAP environment.

Wrapping up

My first takeaway from this announcement is the fact that SAP is responding to customers who want to run SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud in their own data centers. SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, is SAP’s private managed cloud, launched in 2013 emulating a customer’s on-premise environment in a cloud model and provides an SLA that covers the application stack and all the familiar security and control functions.

Still, there remains a significant set of customers who for reasons such as the need for data sovereignty, specific industry compliance, a low-risk tolerance, and specific company policies must keep their SAP software landscape and data on-premises.

Additionally, customers want the cloud experience with cloud economics, and cloud management which makes HPE GreenLake's robust cloud services and compliance analytics tools a perfect match.

HPE continues to evolve the GreenLake model, from the early days of flex capacity and pay per use to now expanding as a service to the entire portfolio. With the recent addition of HPE GreenLake Central, a software platform to rapidly deploy services, gain cost and compliance insights and simplify management frees up business users and developers from the traditional wait times with a self-service software platform.

SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, customer edition adds to a growing list of preconfigured workloads designed for quick shipping and easy implementation.

HPE GreenLake would appear to be in the sweet spot of what customers are looking for right now. They want the cloud experience. They want it on-prem. They want to be able to control it. This is particularly applicable to the applications and data that cannot move to the public cloud.

This just continues to validate the GreenLake strategy to deliver public cloud services and infrastructure-as-a-service for all workloads – on-premises, fully managed in a pay-per-use model at the edge, in colocations, and the data center.

Note: Moor Insights & Strategy writers and editors may have contributed to this article.

Patrick Moorhead

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Patrick founded the firm based on his real-world world technology experiences with the understanding of what he wasn’t getting from analysts and consultants. Ten years later, Patrick is ranked #1 among technology industry analysts in terms of “power” (ARInsights) in “press citations” (Apollo Research). Moorhead is a contributor at Forbes and frequently appears on CNBC. He is a broad-based analyst covering a wide variety of topics including the cloud, enterprise SaaS, collaboration, client computing, and semiconductors. He has 30 years of experience including 15 years of executive experience at high tech companies (NCR, AT&T, Compaq, now HP, and AMD) leading strategy, product management, product marketing, and corporate marketing, including three industry board appointments.