Microsoft Azure Stack HCI Solutions on Lenovo ThinkEdge SE450 Edge Servers

Deploying hyperconverged infrastructure has become the de-facto standard for organizations looking to modernize their aging infrastructure. Large storage deployments are increasingly being replaced by HCI based solutions for most general-purpose workloads. HCI has proven to deliver better efficiency and price performance in the datacenter. Additionally, customers have been choosing a hybrid approach, migrating certain workloads to the cloud, while keeping other workloads on-premises.

Azure Stack HCI is Microsoft’s hybrid cloud solution for customers that wish to run workloads on-premises and extend easily to Azure for hybrid capabilities such as back-up, site recovery, storage, cloud-based monitoring and more. Microsoft Azure Stack HCI with Azure Arc on Lenovo servers is the perfect hybrid cloud solution at the edge to help our joint customers on their modernization journey.

Azure Stack HCI is a new HCI host operating system from Microsoft, delivered as an Azure service, providing the latest and up-to-date security, performance, and feature updates. Azure Stack HCI builds on the foundation of the Microsoft Windows Server Software Defined program and provides a certification path for Storage Spaces Direct solutions.

Lenovo has designed, tested, and validated ThinkEdge SE450 Azure Stack HCI validated nodes to provide quick and easy solutions you need, with the confidence required to exceed the stringent requirements of today’s edge IT space. The result is that you can quickly deploy a robust, high-performance hybrid cloud solution & rapidly solve your IT challenges.

Figure 1. Lenovo ThinkEdge SE450

The Lenovo ThinkEdge SE450 is a single-socket server, with a 2U height and short depth case that can go almost anywhere. It can be mounted on a wall, placed on the floor like a tower server, or mounted in a rack. This rugged edge server can handle continuous operating temperatures from 5°C and 45°C; and some configurations are designed to meet NEBS Level-3 and ETSI requirements for 96 hours operating excursions from -5°C and 55°C as well as tolerance to locations with high-dust and vibration.

The ThinkEdge SE450 is based on the 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor and is designed to virtualize traditional IT applications as well as new transformative AI systems, providing the processing power, storage, accelerator, and networking technologies required for today’s edge workloads. Lenovo’s innovation makes the ThinkEdge SE450 one of the most powerful, yet quiet servers on the market, allowing it to be deployed next to end users without disturbing the workplace.

Lenovo ThinkSystem servers consistently score #1 for reliability in independent customer surveys, as shown in the ITIC Reliability Study, https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1117-itic-reliability-study

Lenovo Azure Stack HCI offerings use the Microsoft Azure Stack HCI operating system on the host nodes, and optionally include Windows Server 2022 Datacenter in case you require unlimited guest OS virtual machine licenses. The Azure Stack HCI OS license provides the following benefits:

• Storage Spaces Direct: State of the art software-defined storage from Microsoft with multiple high-performance resiliency options, deduplication, compression and more.
• Windows Admin Center (WAC): A web-based management portal software is recommended for managing an Azure Stack HCI cluster. Deployment and update features in WAC make deployment extremely simple and easy to perform. Additionally, Lenovo’s XClarity plugin allows you to deploy their hardware as well as software from the same interface, enabling single pane of management. Cluster-aware updating features makes it easy to streamline software and firmware updates in a single maintenance window.
• Hyper-V: Hypervisor is included in the license
• Software-Defined Networking: Features such as virtual network encryption, firewall auditing, virtual network peering allows you to get the benefits of a more secure software defined network with Azure Stack HCI.
• Azure Stack HCI is hybrid by design, and you can benefit from native integration with Azure ARC and Azure Monitor and connect to Azure for a variety of Azure hybrid services seamlessly. Fleet management for hosts and VMs allows you to monitor and manage clusters at scale.

The flexible building block for your Microsoft Azure Stack HCI solution at the edge.

Lenovo and Lenovo partners have a comprehensive portfolio of professional services that support the full life cycle of your infrastructure. At every stage—from planning to deploying, supporting, optimizing, and end of life—extra help is available to accelerate meeting your business objectives.

With co-located engineering organizations and a history of technical collaboration, Microsoft and Lenovo consistently deliver innovative joint solutions for the data center and for edge scenarios. Lenovo’s leadership in reliability, customer satisfaction, and performance, combined with Microsoft’s leadership in software and cloud services, continues to deliver innovative data center and edge solutions and lower TCO for our joint customers.

To learn more about ThinkEdge SE450 server, contact your Lenovo representative or Business Partner, or visit https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1540-thinkedge-se450-edge-server

Microsoft Azure Stack HCI catalog:
https://azurestackhcisolutions.azure.microsoft.com/#/catalog?Manufacturer=Lenovo