Hybrid Cloud Offers More Choices

Simplify IT and accelerate time-to-value with Lenovo's hyperconverged portfolio powered by the next-gen technology.

For CIOs and IT decision-makers, their biggest challenge today is deciding how best to harness their data from edge to cloud. Organizations are faced with more complex digital transformation journeys than ever before, which requires a trusted partner to collaborate with on big-picture strategies: to build roadmaps, right-size designs and deploy in a hybrid cloud world.

With that in mind we are introducing additional choices to our ThinkAgile family to support the 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors with systems that are designed to fully exploit PCIe Gen4 which doubles I/O bandwidth for network cards, NVMe devices and GPU/accelerators providing balanced system performance between the CPU and the I/O. What that means to customers is that their workload will run faster with up to 42% more cores¹, 2.7x memory capacity² and 60% greater GPU density³. 

Figure 1. The Lenovo ThinkAgile family of hyperconverged systems

ThinkAgile VX Series, powered by VMware vSAN, is a preconfigured, pretested, and optimized offering designed to provide the simplest way to bring a new VMware hyperconverged environment online. VX Series can integrate easily into an existing VMware environment, and can be an essential element in building a modern hybrid cloud infrastructure.

In addition to new processor options available for the VX family, there are a greater number of internal storage drives delivered based on the ThinkSystem SR630 V2 and SR650 V2 platforms. The VX systems now support enhancements to simplify deployment and Life Cycle Management, which provides easier management of VMware vSAN systems.

To understand the different benefits of VX, watch this lightboard video with Mike McDermott, Senior Worldwide Product Manager for Lenovo ThinkAgile VX offerings.

Specific improvements include:

• Ready to deploy VX systems with the factory installed preload to ease deployment
• Continue to deliver a 75% reduction in time to deploy cluster with a wizard-based experience reducing manual errors and built-in intelligence for configuration settings. Now available on Appliances only.⁴
• Zero touch automated update. Now with a single click upgrade for the entire cluster to maintain HW & SW best recipe and HCL & audit compliance
• 360-degree visibility with easy to follow alerts and detailed health monitoring & diagnostics removing down time risk
• Greater VMware vRealize Suite Integration capabilities

For more information, see these resources:

• VX product web page
• VX appliances datasheet
• VX certified nodes datasheet
• VX 1U systems product guide
• VX 2U systems product guide

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series is a best-in-class hyperconverged system based on Nutanix industry-leading software preloaded on Lenovo ThinkSystem platforms. HX Series dramatically simplifies data center management, frees up your IT staff, and accelerates your deployment, ultimately reducing your total ownership cost. The HX Series offers the freedom to work in a hybrid cloud environment by offering the agility that comes from a HCI solution.

Figure 2. ThinkAgile HX 2U system with 2.5-inch drives

The HX family offers 14 new models that support the 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors. NVIDIA GPUs are supported on all models, and all-NVMe drives configuration are now available for the first time in the HX family. The new models will be based on the ThinkSystem SR630 V2 and SR650 V2.

New Nutanix software features will include support for Foundation Central, improved synchronous replication, and cross cluster, live planned failover.

For more information, see these resources:

• HX product web page
• HX appliances datasheet
• HX certified nodes datasheet

ThinkAgile MX Series combines the Storage Spaces Direct technology included in Microsoft Azure Stack HCI OS with industry leading Lenovo ThinkSystem servers to deliver HCI building blocks that build your infrastructure solutions. This enables organizations to fully participate in the hybrid cloud Microsoft Azure ecosystem.

Figure 3. ThinkAgile MX 1U system with 3.5-inch drives

ThinkAgile MX systems also take advantage of the features offered by 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors.

With this announcement we will be introducing for the first time a new 1U 2S system based on the SR630 V2 platform targeted at SMB market with general compute and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) workloads in mind. We will also be introducing new 2U 2S systems based on the SR650 V2 platform that will be able to support additional workloads.

The new models will be able to provide GPU support to Azure Stack HCI, for higher performance in AI/ML inference and training applications.

Overall, the new Windows Admin Center (WAC) features further simplify infrastructure management with reduced manual steps, wizards and automation support. New Azure Stack HCI features offer higher performance and robust security.

For more information, see these resources:

• MX product web page
• MX datasheet

1. 28-core 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processors vs 40-core 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processors = 42% increase in cores
2. Base platform: SR650: 24 x 128GB DIMMs = 3TB memory capacity; SR650 V2: , SR650 V2 = 2.7x increase in memory capacity (256GB DIMM support on SR650 V2 planned for 4Q/2021)
3. Base platform: SR650 V2: 8 SW GPUs vs SR650: 5 SW GPUs = 60% greater GPU Density
4. 4 hours vs 16 hours to deploy a 4-node vSAN cluster = 75% reduction