Lenovo introduces four new HCI solutions

Lenovo Data Center Group on Thursday introduced four new hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) products aimed at a variety of workloads, including virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), SAP HANA, Microsoft Azure, and Kubernetes.

HCI products have grown in popularity because they are easily deployed and can get a variety of workloads up and running quickly. HCI is available either in hardware/appliance form or as software. HCI hardware vendors are the usual suspects – HP Enterprise, Dell, Lenovo – while the software vendors include Nutanix and VMware.

Lenovo is focused on ready-to-deploy HCI solutions from both software firms. It boasts that its hardware is easy to deploy and manage with simple updates, automatic scalability and a consumption-based use model.

“This new normal is forcing many companies of different sizes and scale to think different. They are looking to figure out, ‘how do I drive more resiliency to be able to be more efficient? How do I drive more agility to pivot based on my end customer needs and the way they are going to consume my services or my resources?'” said Kamran Amini, vice president and general manager of server, storage and software defined infrastructure, Lenovo Data Center Group, on a conference call briefing with reporters.

Here are the four products Lenovo announced.

ThinkAgile HX

ThinkAgile HX is a new device powered by AMD EPYC processors and Nutanix software targeted at VDI and virtualization consolidation. With two CPUs and two GPUs in a 1U chassis, Lenovo customers can run their virtual desktop workloads with consistent performance with up to 50% fewer servers.

ThinkAgile HX is preloaded, factory-integrated and configured with Nutanix Enterprise Cloud software. Lenovo’s ThinkAgile Network Orchestrator software is integrated with Nutanix Prism to reduce human error and downtime by automating virtualization configuration changes.

Availability is planned in late November as an appliance or a certified node.

ThinkAgile MX And Microsoft Azure Stack

Lenovo and Microsoft have partnered to create the Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Azure Stack HCI Edge and Data Center line. Azure Stack is Microsoft’s on-premises cloud software that allows an enterprise to replicate an Azure environment in their own data center and move workloads back and forth between on-prem and Azure.

The new ThinkAgile MX series of appliances provides a one-stop-shop for the Azure Stack HCI to give businesses an easy way to deploy, manage and scale Azure services from edge to core to cloud. The ThinkAgile MX is designed to enable customers to rapidly deploy a hybrid cloud infrastructure.

ThinkAgile MX will offer consumption-based, pay-as-you-go pricing of Azue Stack HCI and Azure Stack Hub. Lenovo did not say when it would be available.

ThinkAgile VX and VMware

VMware and Lenovo have partnered to create a new series, the ThinkAgile VX HCI, which runs VMware’s vSAN and ESXi and is designed specifically for SAP HANA databases. Lenovo said its new ThinkAgile VX 4S solution offers double the SAP HANA database memory and has direct connect NVMe to accelerate response times, speed business insights and improve total cost of ownership.

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX HCI are S/4HANA certified nodes that enable customers to modernize their infrastructure and improve performance of vSAN environments via the integration of Lenovo XClarity Management software and the new vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) tools.

The ThinkAgile VX will be generally available later in September.

Diamanti SR360

Lenovo has also partnered with Diamanti, maker of Kubernetes management software, to create the Diamanti SR630 solution based on a ThinkSystem server. Diamanti specializes in enabling fast Kubernetes deployments and allowing organizations to run containerized applications across hybrid cloud environments.

The SR630 is a purpose-built application platform that combines Diamanti’s Spektra Kubernetes platform with acceleration cards and Lenovo servers. The Diamanti SR630 enables customers to rapidly deploy a complete container and Kubernetes solution through plug-and-play networking and persistent storage.

The Diamanti SR630 is available now.