In a significant leap forward, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has announced an important evolution of its private cloud portfolio that promises to transform how organizations approach hybrid IT modernization. The announcement, made today, introduces the integration of HPE Morpheus Software across HPE’s private cloud offerings, combining flexible virtualization and management capabilities with the company industry-leading disaggregated infrastructure.

Breaking Free From Traditional Constraints

Organizations today face mounting challenges from all sides: Cloud sprawl, technical debt and soaring virtualization costs are hindering their ability to invest in innovation and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). According to Cheri Williams, SVP and GM of Private Cloud & Flex Solutions at HPE, virtualization costs “soared double, even triple digits” in 2024, and enterprises are actively seeking alternatives that provide both choice and cost efficiency.

“Enterprises are at a pivotal moment in IT modernization where they must address escalating management complexity and increasing virtualization costs to free investments for core growth areas,” said Fidelma Russo, executive vice president of Hybrid Cloud and CTO at HPE. “We are the leader in disaggregated infrastructure, and our private cloud combines that leadership with new software for unified virtualization and cloud management.”

A Unified Approach to Private Cloud

The centerpiece of HPE’s announcement is the general availability of the HPE Morpheus Software family, which includes:

• HPE Morpheus VM Essentials: Designed for virtualized workloads, its offers a 90% reduction in licensing costs compared to traditional solutions

• HPE Morpheus Enterprise Software: Designed for unified cloud management across any infrastructure, it provides policy-based governance and cost controls

These software offerings are now integrated into HPE Private Cloud Business Edition, which combines the company’s established leadership in disaggregated hyperconverged infrastructure (dHCI) with a new level of flexibility. The result is a 2.5x lower total cost of ownership for data center deployments and 45% lower costs for edge deployments.

“HPE Private Cloud Business Edition has paid for itself with what we are saving on legacy support contracts, as-a-service consumption, datacenter space and energy efficiency,” said Roberto Valenta, Corporate Technology & Operations IT manager at Aeropuertos Argentina. “The performance, scalability, and reliability are the backbone of our mission-critical workloads from flight tracking to airport arrivals and departures.”

“HPE’s strategic integration of Morpheus Software in private cloud offerings directly addresses the escalating virtualization cost pressures enterprises face,” notes Mitch Ashley, VP and practice lead of DevOps and Application Development at The Futurum Group. “By combining flexible software management with their established disaggregated infrastructure, HPE delivers a compelling solution for hybrid IT modernization. This unified approach promises significant TCO reductions and empowers organizations to reinvest in strategic innovation and AI initiatives.”

Full-Stack Advantages of Next-Generation Private Cloud

The new offerings deliver several key benefits for enterprises:

1. Full-stack disaggregated architecture with integrated hardware and software provides an out-of-the-box experience that combines compute, networking and storage at both hardware and software levels

2. Simplified Day 0 setup and Day 2 lifecycle management that reduces time spent on infrastructure maintenance, allowing IT teams to focus on delivering business outcomes

3. Flexibility and choice across multiple dimensions:

   • Hypervisor options (VMware or HPE’s HVM hypervisor)

   • Hardware infrastructure (HPE or third-party)

   • Workload types (VMs, containers, bare metal)

   • Deployment locations (data center, edge, public cloud)

4. Consistent management experience from data center to edge, with a self-service cloud-like interface

For edge environments specifically, HPE is introducing innovations to its SimpliVity platform that make it an extension of the data center, with the same consistent cloud experience.

Enhanced Cyber Resilience and Data Protection

Complementing the private cloud announcements, HPE has also introduced new guarantees for HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 customers, and expanded its StoreOnce backup portfolio.

The new guarantees include:

• Zero Data Loss and Downtime Guarantee

• Cyber Resiliency Guarantee with access to recovery experts within 30 minutes of a ransomware incident

• Energy Consumption Guarantee to ensure optimal power levels and sustainability

For small and medium-sized businesses, the new HPE StoreOnce 3720 and 3760 backup appliances deliver:

• 20:1 typical data reduction

• Backup speeds of up to 25TB per hour

• 67% denser form factor, and 29% lower power consumption

• Enhanced security with multi-factor authentication, encryption and immutability

Enterprise-Grade Services to Accelerate Modernization

Recognizing that modernization doesn’t happen in isolation, HPE provides comprehensive services to help customers through their virtualization transformation journey. The new HPE Cloud Platform Services – Virtualization Modernization offers assessment, migration and management services.

HPE was recently named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Hybrid IT Infrastructure Consulting and Integration Services 2025.

“HPE’s approach to private cloud modernization combines our deep expertise in disaggregated infrastructure with a software-defined approach that gives customers unprecedented flexibility,” said Rajeev Bhardwaj, VP and chief product officer for Private Cloud & Flex Solutions at HPE. “By offering lower costs and greater choice, we’re enabling customers to redirect their IT investments toward innovation rather than simply maintaining the status quo.”

Availability and Ecosystem

The HPE Morpheus Software family is now generally available, with VM Essentials customers able to upgrade to full HPE Morpheus Enterprise. The software supports an expanding ecosystem of technologies, including databases like Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and MongoDB, as well as all major Linux distributions and Microsoft operating systems.

With this comprehensive refresh of its private cloud portfolio, HPE is positioning itself at the forefront of the ongoing evolution of hybrid IT, providing enterprises with the tools they need to balance performance, cost and flexibility in an increasingly complex technology landscape.