HPE Discover 2018 Recap

Dalton Gormus

Last month, I attended HPE Discover 2018 in Las Vegas, NV. This was my first time in Sin City and I was transported to a whole other world. When I stepped into the Transformation Zone in the Sands Expo, I felt like I was Alice in Wonderland, completely lost but entirely intrigued. You could find everything from Lego displays to the Hack Shack. HPE Discover was a 3-day event that featured various speakers from all over the world discussing topics ranging from Blockchain to Intelligent System Tuning (IST).

The first large session I attended was, Achieving IT Agility in Mobile, IoT and Cloud with Aruba, presented by Janice Le, Aruba Networks Chief Marketer and Parth Narasimhan, Aruba, CTO. Le began the session with introducing the idea that many industries are heading into an experience economy, we are no longer buying just a good or a service, we are buying an experience. The Intelligent Edge is the experience economy we are seeing in IT, it is where smart meets digital. Aruba Networks has recently partnered with major companies like CBRE and HermanMiller Furniture to create smart and digital workplaces to make you workspace feel like home, and this is only the beginning for Aruba. CBRE is using Aruba to create smart buildings for design and IoT sensors. HermanMiller is taking their office furniture to the next level with connected desks that adjust to your height and chairs that know when you are getting up to use the restroom or if you are leaving for the evening. Narasimhan later stepped out on stage to discuss Aruba Introspect, a sensor that is used in the network to alert engineers if there is any suspicious activity going on whether it is inside or outside the company. Introspect was noted by one of our own engineers as an IT trend to keep an eye on within the next year, it is something that many companies are going to want in their tool box.

GenZ Lego Display

The General Session was the most awaited session of the week presented by Antonio Neri, HPE President and CEO. Neri addressed the digital transformation we are experiencing and the three biggest factors that HPE will be tackling during the transformation. Much like what Le was discussing with an experience economy, HPE will be focusing on transformative technology, people and economics. And to enhance this transformation the products that HPE wants to focus on are, HPE OneView, a software-defined infrastructure that eliminates the complex manual processes and increases the speed and flexibility of storage. And, Infosight, which was discussed by Aruba Networks in the previous session is another product HPE will be focusing on; currently only available for 3PAR and Nimble, but soon it will be available for all HPE products. This transformation will be vital for HPE and how companies operate, Neri said, “our purpose is to advance how we live and work”. The way we can advance and transform all of this, is to live in the intelligent edge, the “future-edge” where we interact with customers. Neri announced that HPE will be investing $4 billion into the Intelligent Edge over the next four years, only to further enhance opportunities for businesses. Following that announcement, Neri brought out Ford Motors CIO, Jeff Lemmer. The two sat on stage and discussed the strong partnership between the companies and how they will continue due to the speed and innovation HPE has shown Ford. The General Session also touched on HPE Greenlake FlexCapacity. Greenlake was featured throughout the week with displays in the Social Media forum and various sessions and booths. It is a pay-for only what you use infrastructure capacity that essentially will never run out. Pat O’Conner from Business Alliances ONX came on stage to discuss the steps to take in order to make Greenlake a part of client’s infrastructure. It is flexible, because you should never run out of the IT resources when using, it is easier for customers to engage with and it will cut down contracts exchanged by a few pages.

HPE Greenlake display

HPE made it a point to mix education and entertainment equally, which made you feel like you were not working all day. The week ended with relaxed networking and a performance by pop-rock band OneRepublic. Discover was incredibly informative, and I am grateful I was able to attend this large HPE event after only being a member of the CTG team for a few months. The biggest piece of information I took from this event was that HPE is moving in a direction that will make things simple and unified to create a better experience for partners and customers. With products like Greenlake, picking and choosing what you want rather than having it all are becoming more popular and are designed to help you save and have stronger structures.

If you are and IT professional and interested in learning more about some of these products and our services, please reach out or register for one of our events to speak with HPE and CTG experts!