Triple plays are a rare and exciting part of baseball, but in the world of virtualization and IT and IoT infrastructures, they become particularly meaningful in enabling HPE customers to better embrace the New Style of IT by transitioning to hybrid infrastructures, empowering data-driven organizations and better enabling workforce productivity.
This week at VMworld, HPE has stepped up to the plate and elevated our relationship with VMware via a “Virtualization Triple Play” with the VMware NSX and VMware ESX virtualization platforms.
We are proud to announce that after months of rigorous testing, our flagship data center networking and open source cloud solutions have received NSXv certification from VMware, along with our new converged IoT system receiving certification for VMware ESXi. These new certifications raise our game with VMware and ensure our customers receive reliable and predictable experiences when deploying HPE/VMware infrastructure.
At a high level, our HPE FlexFabric 5930 Switch Series is certified for VMware NSXv 6.2.3 and 6.2.4, our open source cloud platform HPE Helion OpenStack 3.0 is certified with VMware’s NSXv 6.2.2 and our new Edgeline Edgeline EL1000 and EL4000 Converged IoT Systems compute blades (m510 and m710x) are now certified for VMware ESXi.
These certifications underpin a 16-year relationship and represent significant achievements as we celebrate the one-year anniversary of the HPE VMware (NSX) OEM agreement which allows HPE to design, sell and support the full gambit of VMware data center virtualization solutions (ESX, NSX) that enable our customers to deploy applications faster, simplify and automate their data center network fabric, and improve security. As a result, HPE is now the industry’s largest global reseller of VMware solutions.
Below is the exciting play-by-play analysis of our VMware NSX and ESX certifications.
From Third to Second to First: NSXv/ESXi Certified Solutions Analysis
The HPE FlexFabric 5930 Switch Series provides advanced features and high performance in a top-of-rack, data center switch architecture. Consisting of a 1U 32-port 40GbE Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable (QSFP+) switch, a two-slot modular version with two 40GbE ports and a four-slot modular version, the 5930 brings high density to a small footprint. The switch supports VXLAN, an encapsulation protocol for running an overlay network on existing Layer 3 infrastructure.

With the FlexFabric 5930 certification, HPE networking is delivering an entire hybrid cloud infrastructure that customers can deploy with complete confidence, built on VMware NSX. The solution includes the HPE FlexFabric 5930 as a top-of-rack switch providing industry-leading Ethernet fabric connectivity for HPE servers, storage and management portfolio.
VMware certification tests are designed to simulate real-world environments so that customers can deploy solutions with confidence. FlexFabric 5930 testing included reliability and high availability, stress, performance, upgrade and downgrade and security. The FlexFabric was shown to support 250 tunnels, 160 virtual network instances (VNIs), and 250 virtual LANs (VLANs) with 250 media access control (MAC) addresses per VLAN.
HPE Helion OpenStack is Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s enterprise-grade distribution of OpenStack® software, the leading open source cloud computing platform. HPE Helion OpenStack is a hardened, extensible product designed to deliver open-source cloud computing while adhering tightly to OpenStack software API standards and services. Our HPE Helion OpenStack solution enables IT teams to configure this open cloud platform to work with existing data center resources and drive business outcomes with the assurance that they are backed by the industry-leading support and experience of a trusted IT partner.
HPE Helion OpenStack 3.0 was tested with VMware’s NSX for vSphere version 6.2.2 and the corresponding Neutron based plugin on the OpenStack Liberty release. The solution allows deployment of Helion OpenStack with NSX network virtualization platform to manage ESXi hosts using the VMware vSphere and NSX platforms. This testing was conducted as part of our Helion Ready program, which is designed to provide validated and documented procedures to configure the two products for basic interoperability. In addition, customers who purchase VMware NSX for vSphere through HPE will be able to take advantage of a single point of contact for technical support across the entire solution.
HPE Edgeline EL1000 and Edgeline EL4000 servers represent the industry’s first converged systems for the Internet of Things (IoT). These systems integrate compute, storage, data capture and control. With built-in enterprise-class systems and device management, these systems are designed to thrive in hardened environments with the ability to easily handle shock, vibration and extreme temperatures. In addition, they are optimized to deliver heavy-duty data analytics and insights, graphically intense data visualization and real-time response at the edge.
EL1000
Edgeline systems also provide dynamic security to IoT devices via HPE Aruba ClearPass, which allows IoT devices to be automatically added and profiled, with strict adherence to security policies. Edgeline EL4000 systems also run the HPE Vertica Analytics Platform to deliver historical and predictive analytic insights from in-database machine learning algorithms across a broad range of IoT analytic use cases.
HPE ProLiant m510 and HPE ProLiant M710x computer cartridges, which serve as the compute nodes for the Edgeline EL1000 and ES4000 systems, each passed all ESXi certification tests as well as HPE deep, robust internal testing with flying colors. This enables our customers to use their hypervisor of choice as they implement edge-based IoT solutions to collect, analyze and control data from all types of IoT devices.
VMware NSX and ESX 101
VMware’s NSX software-defined networking is part of VMware’s software-defined data center concept, which offers cloud computing on VMware virtualization technologies. VMware’s goal with NSX is to provision virtual networking environments without command line interfaces or other direct administrator intervention.
Like server virtualization enabled the creation of virtual machines that represent the x86 server environment to applications, the NSX network virtualization platform enables the creation of software components that represent complete network environments to application workloads.
NSX abstracts and distributes complex network functions into the data center virtualization layer (the Hypervisor and vSwitch) allowing enterprise data center operators to transform data center network operations and economics, without modifying their applications.
VMware ESXi is the industry-leading, purpose-built bare-metal hypervisor. ESXi installs directly onto your physical server enabling it to be partitioned into multiple logical servers referred to as virtual machines.
Why the HPE/VMware partnership is significant
In the same way that HPE and VMware led the industry in fostering mainstream adoption of x86 server virtualization, the two companies are now focused on unlocking the untapped potential and innovation in today’s data center by accelerating the adoption of network virtualization – helping customers break free from an arcane, decades-old legacy networking operating model that is standing in the way of SDDC.

Click on the below links to access HPE’s NSXv and ESXi certifications, as well as other useful information.
HPE FlexFabric entry on VMware certification page
Helion Ready Certification of VMware NSX for vSphere 6.22
HPE Proliant m510 entry on VMware ESX certification page
HPE Proliant m710x entry on VMware ESX certification page
Solution Brief – Hewlett Packard Enterprise solutions and services for VMware NSX
Quick Specs – VMware Virtualization Software for HPE ProLiant Servers (NSX cert. on pages 11-12)
HPE-VMware Alliance Page
HPE Data Center Networking
HPE Internet of Things
VMworld game summary
Well, that about wraps it up for the HPE Virtualization Triple Play and the first year of our OEM partnership.
If you are at VMworld 2016 in Las Vegas – stop by HPE Booth # 1523 and visit the “Enabling cloud-based business agility with network virtualization” demo to see the industry’s broadest portfolio of Network Virtualization solutions supporting VMware NSX/ESX and NFV use cases, helping customers transition to open, standards-based, software-defined infrastructure. Live demonstrations include VMware VXLAN/NSX federation & integration.
Going forward, HPE is committed to hitting it out of the ballpark with continued innovation for HPE/VMware solutions as we enter into Year Two of our OEM relationship. We are very excited for what the future holds for our mutual customers and how we can further their journey to the New Style of IT.