ThinkAgile VX650 V3 2U Integrated System and VX650 V3 2U Certified Node

The Lenovo ThinkAgile VX650 V3 Integrated System and Certified Nodes are 2-socket 2U systems that feature the 5th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (formerly codenamed "Emerald Rapids) and 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (formerly codenamed "Sapphire Rapids).  VX650 V3 provides up to 64 cores per 5th generation processor and up to 60 cores per 4th generation processor and support for the new PCIe 5.0 standard for I/O, the VX650 V3 offer the ultimate in two-socket performance in a 2U form factor.  VMware offers a unique, software-defined approach to hyper convergence, leveraging the hypervisor to deliver compute, storage and management in a tightly integrated software stack.

Suggested uses: Inference, virtualization, VDI, HPC, ERP

Figure 1. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX650 V3 with 2.5-inch drive bays

ThinkAgile features

The ThinkAgile VX650 V3 offer the following key features:

• Factory-integrated, pre-configured ready-to-go integrated systems built on proven and reliable Lenovo ThinkSystem servers that provide compute power for a variety of workloads and applications and powered by industry-leading hyperconverged infrastructure software from VMware.
• Provide quick and convenient path to implement a hyperconverged solution powered by VMware vSAN with "one stop shop" and a single point of contact provided by Lenovo for purchasing, deploying, and supporting the solution.
• Meet various workload demands with cost-efficient hybrid or performance-optimized all-flash storage configurations.
• Deliver fully validated and integrated hardware and firmware that is certified with VMware software.
• ThinkAgile Integrated Systems are bundled with Premier Support providing a single-point-of-contact for quick 24/7 hardware and software support, problem reporting and resolution.
• Five-year hardware warranty, bundled with Premier Support that provides a 24x7 Single Point of Support
• The VX650 V3 Certified Node for SAP HANA is Certified by SAP to run SAP HANA in production on hyperconverged infrastructure.
• Offer Lenovo deployment services to get customers up and running quickly.

The VMware software running on ThinkAgile VX650 V3 delivers the following key features:

• Distributed architecture that allows "pay-as-you-grow", non-disruptive scaling by adding new nodes to the cluster (scale-out) to increase capacity and performance.
• Advanced capacity management, including deduplication, compression, and erasure coding (RAID 5/6), which helps deliver greater storage utilization with dramatically lower storage capacity and costs.
• Provides 4x higher performance through optimized storage compression techniques with ESA
• Automation of VM storage provisioning and control of storage service levels (capacity, performance, availability) with VM-centric policies to load balance storage resources.
• Native HCI security solution with two-factor authentication (SecurID and CAC) and data-at-rest encryption that does not require self-encrypting drives (SEDs).
• Stretched cluster with local and site failure protection between two geographically dispersed sites for higher level of availability with near zero downtime.
• Centralized management with provisioning, administering, and monitoring virtual resources across multiple hosts and clusters from a centralized interface.
• Rapid workload provisioning, simplified data center operations, increased business efficiency, and decreased CAPEX and OPEX costs.
• VM and data protection with agent-less, image-level virtual machine backups and application-aware protection for business-critical Microsoft applications (Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint) along with WAN-efficient, encrypted backup data replication.
• Reduced unplanned downtime and virtually eliminated planned downtime for server and storage maintenance with live workload migration, high availability, and fault tolerance.
• Enhanced application performance and availability with resource management, load balancing, and access prioritization.
• Intelligent operations management and automation to proactively monitor and manage compute, storage, and networking resources, identify performance bottlenecks, and re-balance workloads by leveraging predictive analytics.
• Capacity planning and optimization guidance to address future needs with performance trends, projections and extended forecasts.
• Managing remote offices and branch offices with rapid provisioning of servers through virtualization, minimization of host configuration drift, and enhanced visibility into regulatory compliance, across multiple sites.

Hardware features

The ThinkAgile VX650 V3 are based on the SR650 V3 and have the following hardware features:

Scalability and performance

The VX650 V3 offer numerous features to boost performance, improve scalability and reduce costs: 

• Supports one or two fifth-generation Intel Xeon Processor Scalable processors
  • Up to 64 cores and 128 threads
  • Core speeds of up to 3.9 GHz
  • TDP ratings of up to 350 W
• Supports one or two fourth-generation Intel Xeon Processor Scalable processors
  • Up to 60 cores and 120 threads
  • Core speeds of up to 3.7 GHz
  • TDP ratings of up to 350 W
• Support for DDR5 memory DIMMs to maximize the performance of the memory subsystem:
  • Up to 32 DDR5 memory DIMMs, 16 DIMMs per processor
  • 8 memory channels per processor (2 DIMMs per channel)
  • Supports 1 DIMM per channel operating at 5600 MHz (5th Gen processors) or 4800 MHz (4th Gen processors)
  • Supports 2 DIMMs per channel operating at 4800 MHz (5th Gen processors) or 4400 MHz (4th Gen processors)
  • Using 256GB 3DS RDIMMs, the server supports up to 8TB of system memory
• Supports up to eight single-width GPUs or three double-wide GPUs, for substantial processing power in a 2U system.
• Supports up to 40x 2.5-inch hot-swap drive bays, by using combinations of front-accessible (up to 24 bays), mid bays (8 bays) and rear-accessible (8 bays).
• Supports 20x 3.5-inch drive bays for lower-cost high-capacity HDD storage. 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drive bays can be mixed if desired.
• Supports 36x NVMe drives without oversubscription of PCIe lanes (1:1 connectivity). The use of NVMe drives maximizes drive I/O performance, in terms of throughput and latency.
• Supports high-speed controllers from Broadcom providing 12 Gb SAS connectivity to the drive backplanes. A variety of PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 RAID adapters are available.
• Supports up to two externally accessible 7mm hot-swap drives with RAID functionality for operating system boot functions.
• Supports M.2 drives for convenient operating system boot functions. Available M.2 adapters support two M.2 drives in a RAID 1 configuration for performance and reliability.
• The server has a dedicated industry-standard OCP 3.0 small form factor (SFF) slot, with a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, supporting a variety of Ethernet network adapters. A simple-swap mechanism with a thumbscrew and pull-tab enables tool-less installation and removal of the adapter. The adapter supports shared BMC network sideband connectivity to enable out-of-band systems management.
• Dedicated models to support NVIDIA Bluefield-2 Data Processing Unit (DPU) with dual ports of 25GbE
• The server offers PCI Express 5.0 I/O expansion capabilities that doubles the theoretical maximum bandwidth of PCIe 4.0 (32GT/s in each direction for PCIe Gen 5, compared to 16 GT/s with PCIe Gen 4 and 8 GT/s with PCIe Gen 3). A PCIe 5.0 x16 slot provides 128 GB/s bandwidth, enough to support a dual-port 200GbE network connection.
• The server offers up to eight PCIe 5.0 slots, all with rear access, plus an internal bay for a cabled RAID adapter or HBA, plus a slot dedicated to the OCP adapter.

Availability and serviceability

The VX650 V3 provide many features to simplify serviceability and increase system uptime:

• The server offers Single Device Data Correction (SDDC, also known as Chipkill), Adaptive Double-Device Data Correction (ADDDC, also known as Redundant Bit Steering or RBS), and memory mirroring for redundancy in the event of a non-correctable memory failure. Note: ADDDC in not supported with 9x4 RDIMMs.
• The server offers hot-swap drives, supporting RAID redundancy for data protection and greater system uptime.
• Available M.2  boot adapters support RAID-1 (using Intel VROC) which can enable two NVMe M.2 drives to be configured as a redundant pair.
• The server has up to two hot-swap redundant power supplies and up to six hot-swap redundant fans to provide availability for business-critical applications.
• The light path diagnostics feature uses LEDs to lead the technician to failed (or failing) components, which simplifies servicing, speeds up problem resolution, and helps improve system availability.
• Supports a new dedicated Firmware and Root of Trust Security Module that stores all system firmware settings, making it easier to transfer customer settings in the event of a system board replacement, while still maintaining data security.
• Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer more reliability and performance than traditional mechanical HDDs for greater uptime.
• Proactive Platform Alerts (including PFA and SMART alerts): Processors, voltage regulators, memory, internal storage (SAS/SATA HDDs and SSDs, NVMe SSDs, M.2 storage, flash storage adapters), fans, power supplies, RAID controllers, server ambient and subcomponent temperatures. Alerts can be surfaced through the XClarity Controller to managers such as Lenovo XClarity Administrator,and integrated into VMware vCenter. These proactive alerts let you take appropriate actions in advance of possible failure, thereby increasing server uptime and application availability.
• The built-in XClarity Controller 2 continuously monitors system parameters, triggers alerts, and performs recovery actions in case of failures to minimize downtime.
• Built-in diagnostics in UEFI, using Lenovo XClarity Provisioning Manager, speed up troubleshooting tasks to reduce service time.
• Lenovo XClarity Provisioning Manager supports diagnostics and can save service data to a USB key drive or remote CIFS share folder for troubleshooting and reduce service time.
• Auto restart in the event of a momentary loss of AC power (based on power policy setting in the XClarity Controller 2 service processor)
• Offers a diagnostics port on the front of the server to allow you to attach an external diagnostics handset for enhanced systems management capabilities.
• Support for the XClarity Administrator Mobile app running on a supported smartphone or tablet and connected to the server through the service-enabled USB port, enables additional local systems management functions.
• Three-year or one-year customer-replaceable unit and onsite limited warranty (varies by geography), 9 x 5 next business day. Optional service upgrades are available.

Manageability and security

Systems management features simplify local and remote management of the VX650 V3:

• The server includes XClarity Controller 2 (XCC2) to monitor server availability. Optional upgrade to XCC Platinum to provide remote control (keyboard video mouse) functions, support for the mounting of remote media files (ISO and IMG image files), boot capture, power capping and new XCC2 Platinum features. New XCC2 Platinum features include System Guard, new security modes including a CNSA-compliant mode, FIPS 140-3 and NIST 800-193 support, and a new Neighbor Group feature.
• Dedicated Ethernet port at the rear of the server for remote management (BMC management).
• Lenovo XClarity Administrator offers comprehensive hardware management tools that help to increase uptime, reduce costs and improve productivity through advanced server management capabilities.
• UEFI-based Lenovo XClarity Provisioning Manager, accessible from F1 during boot, provides system inventory information, graphical UEFI Setup, platform update function, RAID Setup wizard, operating system installation function, and diagnostic functions.
• Support for Lenovo XClarity Energy Manager, which captures real-time power and temperature data from the server and provides automated controls to lower energy costs.
• An integrated industry-standard Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) enables improved setup, configuration, and updates, and simplifies error handling.
• Support for industry standard management protocols, IPMI 2.0, SNMP 3.0, Redfish REST API, serial console via IPMI
• An integrated hardware Trusted Platform Module (TPM) supporting TPM 2.0 enables advanced cryptographic functionality, such as digital signatures and remote attestation.
• Administrator and power-on passwords help protect from unauthorized access to the server.
• Supports Secure Boot to ensure only a digitally signed operating system can be used. Supported with HDDs and SSDs, as well as 7mm and M.2 drives.
• Industry-standard Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) NI support for faster, stronger encryption.
• Intel Execute Disable Bit functionality can prevent certain classes of malicious buffer overflow attacks when combined with a supported operating system.
• Intel Trusted Execution Technology provides enhanced security through hardware-based resistance to malicious software attacks, allowing an application to run in its own isolated space, protected from all other software running on a system.
• Additional physical security features are an available chassis intrusion switch and available lockable front bezel.

Energy efficiency

The VX650 V3 offer the following energy-efficiency features to save energy, reduce operational costs, and increase energy availability:

• Energy-efficient system board components help lower operational costs.
• Carbon offset is available at click of button. You can project the carbon emissions per device for an average lifecycle (up to 5 years). That information is available here
• High-efficiency power supplies with 80 PLUS Platinum and Titanium certifications
• Solid-state drives (SSDs) consume as much as 80% less power than traditional spinning 2.5-inch HDDs.
• Support for Lenovo XClarity Energy Manager provides advanced data center power notification, analysis, and policy-based management to help achieve lower heat output and reduced cooling needs.
• The server uses hexagonal ventilation holes, which can be grouped more densely than round holes, providing more efficient airflow through the system and thus keeping your system cooler.

The ThinkAgile VX650 V3 are based on the ThinkSystem SR650 V3 server.

The following table provides an overview comparison between the VX systems.

The following table lists the standard specifications.

Factory-integrated models of the integrated systems and certified nodes are configured by using the Lenovo Data Center Solution Configurator (DCSC), http://dcsc.lenovo.com

To ensure that the controlled GPUs and accelerators are only sold in the supported markets, the following configure-to-order base machine-type models (CTO MTMs) are selectable in DCSC:

• Standard Open models are available in all markets worldwide. Controlled GPUs cannot be configured using these models. These are CTO1WW models.
• GPU Controlled models are used to order any of the controlled GPUs and accelerators. Controlled models are not available in affected markets. If you start from a controlled model, your configuration must include a controlled GPUs.

The following table lists the base CTO models.

CTO models for NVIDIA Bluefield SmartNIC DPUs

The VX650 V3 supports the new VMware vSphere Distributed Services Engine (DSE) using the NVIDIA Bluefield SmartNIC Data Processing Unit (DPU). This solution improves the performance of VMware vSphere by offloading tasks from server CPUs to the DPU thereby making data center applications more efficient.

For more information, see the DPU adapter section.

The ThinkAgile VX650 V3 are based on the ThinkSystem SR650 V3 server, however there are key differences:

• No onboard SATA controller support
• Persistent Memory not supported
• RAID adapter supported for boot only
• VROC RAID support for boot only
• No SATA HDDs
• Encryption not supported on SED drives
• Fibre Channel support for data migration only
• No InfiniBand support
• Drives are categorized as Cache or Capacity drives and are formed as disk groups (up to 5 disk groups for OSA configurations.  ESA configurations only consist of a storage tier, no cache drives or disk groups required

For details about the ThinkSystem SR650 V3, see the SR650 V3 product guide:
https://lenovopress.com/lp1601-thinksystem-sr650-v3-server

To verify what specific hardware components are supported with the VX650 V3, see the DCSC configurator:
https://dcsc.lenovo.com

The VX650 V3 supports processors in either the 5th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processor family or the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processor family. 

Topics in this section:

• 5th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors
• 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors

5th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors

The VX650 V3 systems support the following processors. The systems support 1 or 2 processors installed.

For details about these options, including configuration rules, see the SR650 V3 product guide:
https://lenovopress.com/lp1601-thinksystem-sr650-v3-server#processors

4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors

The VX650 V3 systems support the following processors. The systems support 1 or 2 processors installed.

For details about these options, including configuration rules, see the SR650 V3 product guide:
https://lenovopress.com/lp1601-thinksystem-sr650-v3-server#processors

5th Generation Memory options

The VX650 V3 systems support the following 5th generation memory options.

For details about these options, including configuration rules, see the SR650 V3 product guide:
https://lenovopress.com/lp1601-thinksystem-sr650-v3-server#memory-options

4th Generation Memory options

The VX650 V3 systems support the following 4th generation memory options.

For details about these options, including configuration rules, see the SR650 V3 product guide:
https://lenovopress.com/lp1601-thinksystem-sr650-v3-server#memory-options

The following table lists the supported Disk Groups for each VX system.

The VX650 V3 have three drive bay zones and supports up to 20x 3.5-inch or 40x 2.5-inch hot-swap drive bays or a combination of drive bays, depending on the selected chassis and backplane configuration. The server also supports configurations without any drive bays if desired.

All drives are hot-swap and are accessible from the front, from the rear, or from drive bays that are located in the middle of the server (accessible when you remove the top cover of the server).

The server also supports one or two M.2 drives, installed in an M.2 adapter internal to the server.

For details about NVMe drives  see the the SR650 V3 product guide:  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1601-thinksystem-sr650-v3-server#nvme-drive-support

For details about these options, including configuration rules, see the SR650 V3 product guide:
https://lenovopress.com/lp1601-thinksystem-sr650-v3-server#internal-storage

For OS boot functions, the systems also support one or two 7mm hot-swap drives at the rear of the server, or one or two M.2 drives installed on an adapter internal to the server. The following table lists the supported controllers/enablement kits for M.2 and 7mm boot drives.

For details about these options, including configuration rules, see the SR650 V3 product guide:
https://lenovopress.com/lp1601-thinksystem-sr650-v3-server#internal-storage

The VX650 V3 support the following storage controller options.

For details about these options, including configuration rules, see the SR650 V3 product guide:
https://lenovopress.com/lp1601-thinksystem-sr650-v3-server#controllers-for-internal-storage

This section lists the supported drives:

• Boot drives
• Internal drives for VX650 V3 Integrated System
• Internal drives for VX650 V3 Certified Node
• Internal drives for VX650 V3 SAP HANA Certified Node
• Internal drives for VX650 V3 DPU Integrated System
• Internal drives for VX650 V3 DPU Certified Node
• Internal drives for VX650 V3-DPU SAP HANA Certified Node

Configuration Note:

• VMware will no longer support higher capacity hard drives greater than 8TB
• Express Storage Architecture (ESA) supports a minimum of 1 drives and a maximum of 24 drives.  Please reference the vSAN ESA ReadyNode Hardware Guidance for additional requirements.
• VMware vSAN certification for Generic NVMe drives: The drives are listed in the VMware Compatibility Guide (VCG) under the drive vendor company name instead of Lenovo. To check a drive for vSAN certification, search the VCG using the Supplier part number. Part numbers can be found using the Product Guide for the corresponding Drive Family on Lenovo Press https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/servers/options/drives#sort=last_update. 

Boot drives

The VX650 V3 systems support the following drive for boot functions.

Internal drives for VX650 V3 Integrated System

The following table lists the drives support in the VX650 V3 Integrated System. For both All Flash Storage and Hybrid Storage configurations, drives are classified as either Cache drives, Capacity drives, or both.

Configuration Note:  CORE needed for 40 dive configurations and needed for 3.5" Mixed USE NVMe drives.

Internal drives for VX650 V3 Certified Node

The following table lists the drives support in the VX650 V3 Certified Node. For both All Flash Storage and Hybrid Storage configurations, drives are classified as either Cache drives, Capacity drives, or both.

Configuration Note:  CORE needed for 40 dive configurations and needed for 3.5" Mixed USE NVMe drives.

Internal drives for VX650 V3 SAP HANA Certified Node

The following table lists the drives support in the VX650 V3 SAP HANA Certified Node. For All Flash Storage configurations, drives are classified as either Cache drives, Capacity drives, or both.

Configuration Note:  CORE needed for 40 dive configurations

Internal drives for VX650 V3 DPU Integrated System

The following table lists the drives support in the VX650 V3 DPU Integrated System. For both All Flash Storage and Hybrid Storage configurations, drives are classified as either Cache drives, Capacity drives, or both.

Configuration Note:  CORE needed for 40 dive configurations and needed for 3.5" Mixed USE NVMe drives.

Internal drives for VX650 V3 DPU Certified Node

The following table lists the drives support in the VX650 V3 DPU Certified Node. For both All Flash Storage and Hybrid Storage configurations, drives are classified as either Cache drives, Capacity drives, or both.

Configuration Note:  CORE needed for 40 dive configurations and needed for 3.5" Mixed USE NVMe drives.

Internal drives for VX650 V3-DPU SAP HANA Certified Node

The following table lists the drives support in the VX650 V3-DPU SAP HANA Certified Node. For All Flash Storage configurations, drives are classified as either Cache drives, Capacity drives, or both.

Configuration Note:  CORE needed for 40 dive configurations