HPE Buys Billing & Metering Firm Cloud Cruiser

HPE is boosting its hybrid cloud services division with the acquisition of Cloud Cruiser, a developer of metering and billing software.

The company was founded in 2010 and gives customers an oversight of their infrastructure use so they can plan systems and spend funds more efficiently.

Its products are already built into HPE’s Flexible Capacity business, which offers on-premise systems located in private data centres, but allows customers to pay for it ‘as a service’.

HPE Cloud Cruiser

This, HPE says, gives the assurance and compliance some organisations need with all the benefits and flexibility that cloud affords.

“Many enterprises have turned to the public cloud to fulfil 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,” said Scott Weller, the head of HPE’s Technology Services Support division.

“This reduces the need for organisations 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 organisations take a hybrid approach to IT.”

The acquisition is the second major cloud purchase made by HPE within the space of a week, having also bought SimpliVity, the hyperconverged infrastructure startup, for £526 million.

SimpliVity itself, founded in 2009, said in 2015 it was valued at more than $1bn, putting it into the “unicorn” category along with start-ups such as Uber, Airbnb, Snapchat, Dropbox and Pinterest.