HP Exec Leaks Cloud Plans
More information on Hewlett-Packard's public cloud strategy came to light on Tuesday when The Register's Cade Metz stumbled upon a key HP executive's LinkedIn profile.
The exec, Scott McClellan, chief technologist and interim VP of engineering and cloud services at HP, has since removed the info from his profile. But The Register captured the information, which reveals that McClellan was responsible for helping build a distributed object storage business from scratch, a service that offers compute, networking and block storage, and what appears to be a Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering that is optimized for Java, Ruby and other open source languages.
According to The Register, HP plans to announce more about its cloud services at VMworld this August, suggesting it will be based on VMware's technology. Here's the LinkedIn profile information captured before McClellan removed the data:
HP "object storage" service: built from scratch, distributed system, designed to solve for cost, scale, and reliability without compromise.
HP "compute," "networking" and "block storage" service: an innovative and highly differentiated approach to "cloud computing" -- a declarative/model-based approach where users provide a specification and the system automates deployment and management.
Common/shared services: user management, key management, identity management & federation, authentication (incl. multi-factor), authorization, and auditing (AAA), billing/metering, alerting/logging, analytics.
Website and User/Developer/Experience. Future HP "cloud" website including the public content and authenticated user content. APIs and language bindings for Java, Ruby, and other open source languages. Full functional GUI and CLI (both Linux.Unix and Windows).
Quality assurance, code/design inspection processes, security and penetration testing.
HP CEO Leo Apotheker disclosed the company's plan to offer a cloud service during its analyst meeting back in mid-March. At the time, the company said it will first offer a storage service toward the end of this year or early next year. That would be followed by a compute service and, ultimately, a PaaS offering.
The LinkedIn entry appears consistent with that plan, though it suggests HP is favoring an open source approach to its PaaS. It remains to be seen whether HP will support Microsoft's .NET Framework or move forward with plans to deliver technology based on Microsoft's Windows Azure platform.
Last summer, HP, along with Dell and Fujitsu, announced plans to deliver technology based on Microsoft's Windows Azure Appliance. So far, none of the companies have delivered the appliances or services based on the platform.
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on May 05, 2011