ESXi is definitely the right product for that use case. However, the DL380p Gen8 was only supported up to ESXi 6.5, which is out of support by now. Anyway, I saw reports by users, who successfully installed ESXi 7.0 (the HPE customized version) on the DL380p.
Even though the current ESXi version is 8.0, you can still register for a free Hypervisor license key at https://customerconnect.vmware.com/en/evalcenter?p=free-esxi7.
André
