HPE to acquire Cloud Cruiser

Founded in 2010 and based in San Jose, CA and Roseville, CA, Cloud Cruiser offers an IT infrastructure consumption analytics application that provides clear insight into IT usage and spend and helps customers more effectively plan and manage their IT systems. Cloud Cruiser is already a key component of HPE’s Flexible Capacity business; we currently license Cloud Cruiser’s solutions in our Flexible Capacity offering and, in fact, we are their largest customer. This acquisition marks additional investment in HPE Flexible Capacity, to further differentiate and strengthen this high growth service.

A hybrid approach to IT

In today’s ever-changing technology landscape, IT organizations are under extreme pressure to not only ensure that the day-to-day operations run smoothly, but also to deliver new apps, processes and services that allow businesses to innovate. IT leaders are expected to be agile – provisioning IT in minutes, not months – all with significantly reduced budgets.

Many enterprises have turned to the public cloud to fulfill these new demands, resulting in a new IT-as-a-service model that allows customers to pay as they go only for the technology resources that they use. This reduces the need for organizations to commit large capital investments in IT, eliminates unused capacity, and frees up valuable IT resources for new value-adding projects.

But while some workloads may be right for the public cloud, others – which may require higher security, compliance and service levels – are best kept on-premise. Because of these different needs, HPE helps organizations take a hybrid approach to IT. But how can business leaders enjoy the same IT-as-a-service model when employing a mix of public cloud and on-premise IT?

The potential of Flexible Capacity

Enter HPE Flexible Capacity. Flexible Capacity, a strategic and high-growth component of HPE’s Technology Services portfolio, offers customers on-premise IT infrastructure with cloud economics. It enables our customers to manage IT infrastructure in their own data center but pay for it as-a-service. This reduces the risk of organizations investing too much – or too little – in IT, eliminates unused capacity, and frees up valuable IT resources for new value-adding projects.

In other words, Flexible Capacity is a unique consumption model for IT that gives organizations the freedom to try new projects, fail fast without penalty, and support growth if they succeed.

Where Cloud Cruiser comes in

A critical piece of HPE Flexible Capacity is measurement – the ability to accurately meter and bill for customers’ consumption of IT– that differentiates Flexible Capacity from other offers. Cloud Cruiser’s consumption analytics offerings enable enterprises such as Accenture, KPN, and TD Bank to measure, analyze, optimize and control their usage and spend in private, public and hybrid cloud environments. As a Cloud Cruiser customer, we have seen first-hand the value that Cloud Cruiser’s technology creates by enabling HPE Flexible Capacity to meter and bill for usage of on-premise IT infrastructure in a pay-as-you-go model. By continuing to enhance the Cloud Cruiser platform and SaaS app Cloud Cruiser 16™, more tightly integrating it into HPE Flexible Capacity and leveraging the deep domain expertise of the Cloud Cruiser team, we are excited about the opportunity to accelerate the adoption of innovative consumption-based IT offerings and simplify hybrid IT for our customers.

When the transaction closes, Cloud Cruiser will become a key part of the Data Center Care portfolio within our Technology Services Support organization. Cloud Cruiser co-founder and CEO David Zabrowski (who served as VP and General Manager of HP’s Enterprise Computer Organization from 1997-2002), will report to me.

Together, HPE and Cloud Cruiser will transform IT organizations, providing the Flexible Capacity solutions to help IT organizations spend less time on day-to-day operations and more time on innovation.