HPE Wins $2 Billion NSA Cloud Contract

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has awarded Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) a $2 billion cloud contract over 10 years to provide high performance computing (HPC) through its GreenLake platform.

For years the U.S. National Security Agency has migrated most of its mission data into a classified cloud environment known as the Intelligence Community (IC) GovCloud. The IC GovCloud has bolstered big data analytics, machine-assisted data fusion by employing machine learning algorithms. This has enabled the agency to perform various high performance computing (HPC) workloads seamlessly. Recently, NSA was looking for an industry partner to enhance its HPC workloads, forecasting and analysis capabilities. 

On September 1, 2021, NSA awarded a $2 billion, 10-year contract to Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to meet its growing advanced computing and data analysis needs. Under the contract, HPE will provide NSA its HPC technology as a service through its GreenLake platform. 

As part of the HPE GreenLake platform, the company will deploy its Apollo data storage systems and ProLiant servers that are configured to support high-volume ingest and data processing for the agency’s deep learning and data analytics workloads. The entire infrastructure will be hosted on QTS data center and managed by HPE.

NSA is expected to utilize the service in 2022.         

Justin Hotard, senior vice president and general manager, HPC and mission-critical solutions (MCS) at HPE, saidOpens a new window , “By using the HPE GreenLake platform, which delivers secure on-premises solutions as a service, NSA is gaining industry-leading HPC solutions to tackle a range of complex data needs, but with a flexible, as a service experience.”

Matthew Kimball, the senior analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, tweeted the following:

.@HPE_GreenLakeOpens a new window secures another high profile win with the @NSAGovOpens a new window to deliver AI as a service on @HPE_ComputeOpens a new window HPC servers.
$2B over 10 years
Yeah – consumption based computing is just a trend. 🙂

— Matthew Kimball (@MattKimball_MIS) September 1, 2021Opens a new window

Why GreenLake is Important for HPE

Launched in November 2017, HPE GreenLake is an X-as-a-service platform that provides fully managed cloud services for critical workloads across various industries such as manufacturing, automotive, oil and gas exploration, healthcare, and financial services.

GreenLake is consumption-based service that can be deployed on-premises, in the edge or a colocation facility. With HPE, GreenLake enterprise customers can simplify their IT operations, gain financial independence and focus on gaining data insights and making faster decisions. A new study by Forrester Consulting commissioned by HPE identified that with the HPE GreenLake solution, the company could speed the deployment of HPC projects up by 75% and reduce cost by up to 40%.

Last year, HPE came up with a strategy to deliver HPC technology to SMB customers. With its GreenLake platform, HPE aimed to help SMBs process their data and unlock insights for intelligent decision-making. Some of its customers include SAP, Nokia, Accenture, Toyota. Now with NSA as its customer, HPE is clearly expanding its presence in the HPC market. The company recently acquiredOpens a new window Zerto, a cloud data management and protection company, for $374 million to expand its HPE GreenLake platform.

GreenLake HPC-a-a-Service
Source: HPEOpens a new window

The latest cloud agreement follows the news of the NSA awarding AWS a $10 billion cloud computing contract code named WildandStormy. In February 2020, John Sherman, then chief information officer of the IC, revealed NSA’s plan to opt for commercial cloud computing capabilities. However, the contract awarded to Amazon is currently in dispute. On July 21, 2021, Microsoft filedOpens a new window a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) against the NSA for not conducting a proper evaluation. GAO is expected to decide on the protest by October 29, 2021.

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