Microsoft validates Lenovo ThinkSystem SE350 edge server for Azure Stack HCI

Microsoft and Lenovo have teamed up to validate the Lenovo ThinkSystem SE350 for Microsoft's Azure Stack HCI program. The ThinkSystem SE350 was designed and built with the unique requirements of edge servers in mind. It is versatile enough to stretch the limitations of server locations, providing a variety of connectivity and security options and can be easily managed with Lenovo XClarity Controller. 

The ThinkSystem SE350 solution has a focus on smart connectivity, business security, and manageability for the harsh environment.

The ThinkSystem SE350 is the latest workhorse for the edge. Designed and built with the unique requirements for edge servers in mind, it is versatile enough to stretch the limitations of server locations, providing a variety of connectivity and security options and is easily managed with Lenovo XClarity Controller. 

The ThinkSystem SE350 is a rugged compact-sized edge solution with a focus on smart connectivity, business security, and manageability for the harsh environment.

The ThinkSystem SE350 is an Intel Xeon D processor-based server, with a 1U height, half-width and short depth case that can go anywhere. Mount it on a wall, stack it on a shelf, or install it in a rack. This rugged edge server can handle anything from 0-55°C as well as full performance in high dust and vibration environments.

Information availability is another challenging issue for users at the edge, who require insight into their operations at all times to ensure they are making the right decisions. The ThinkSystem SE350 is designed to provide several connectivity options with wired and secure wireless Wi-Fi and LTE connection ability. This purpose-built compact server is reliable for a wide variety of edge and IoT workloads.

Azure Stack HCI solutions bring together highly virtualized compute, storage, and networking on industry-standard x86 servers and components. Combining resources in the same cluster makes it easier to deploy, manage, and scale, while managing command-line automation or Windows Admin Center.

Consumers can achieve virtual machine (VM) performance for server applications with Hyper-V, the foundational hypervisor technology of the Microsoft cloud, and Storage Spaces Direct technology with built-in support for non-volatile memory express (NVMe), persistent memory, and remote direct memory access (RDMA) networking.

Morpheus Data links hybrid cloud and container gap with VMware automation and AWS cloud native services

Building on momentum from its recent v4.0 software release for Kubernetes, Morpheus Data released another major set of new features – this time focused on helping VMware customers simplify hybrid cloud automation and avoid the lock-in from hypervisor focused approaches.

VMware users who want to quickly realize the benefits of multi-cloud automation can now simplify automation while leveraging existing tools with Morpheus integration with vRealize Orchestrator workflows and VMware NSX enhancements.

It also takes advantage of VMware on AWS without limiting automation options via Morpheus support for VMC on AWS in addition to dozens of other clouds; and quickly modernize legacy apps and enable new innovation with secure access to hundreds of AWS services directly from the Morpheus catalog.

VMware has long been a key technology in the datacenter, but many still struggle to turn it into the elastic and on-demand private cloud that it could be; this challenge is contributing to growth in public clouds like AWS. A need to better manage both on-prem platforms and public clouds is evident in a recent 451 Research survey where 62 percent of enterprises identified hybrid cloud as their go-forward strategic IT approach.

Morpheus v4.1 eliminates the need to choose between these options by now adding VMware Cloud on AWS to the dozens of clouds already supported. All existing features supported for vCenter on-premises are instantly available for customers who want to add VMware on AWS. Clouds in Morpheus can be scoped and exposed to specific tenants, groups, and user roles to enable governance and hybrid application lifecycle management.

AWS currently holds approximately 33 percent of the public cloud market and is on an annual run rate of over $30 billion. Much of the growth beyond basic compute and storage as a service comes from access to hundreds of cloud-native application services including analytics, blockchain, database, machine learning, and IoT.

With Morpheus v4.1, Ops teams can use Morpheus for secure role-based access and policy enforcement while still giving developers access to cloud-native application services from AWS. Leveraging Morpheus integration with AWS CloudFormation, applications like Elasticsearch, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, and hundreds more can be added to the Morpheus service catalog and blueprinting engine or accessed via API and CLI.

HPE advances HPE SimpliVity to deliver an AI-driven experience, modernizes data protection and enhances usability

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced on Monday advancements to its HPE SimpliVity, its hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform, ushering in a new generation of HCI powered with artificial intelligence to simplify virtual machine (VM) management and free IT staff to focus on innovation. 

Building upon its software-defined architecture, HPE SimpliVity is enhancing its customer experience with HPE InfoSight, one-click cluster upgrades, and the integration of HPE StoreOnce.

HPE SimpliVity has always gone beyond standard HCI consolidation. In early days, one could argue that IT architectures were “hardware confined.” Most systems incorporated only a very basic consolidation of servers, storage and hypervisor in each node. Software-defined technology and traditional hyperconvergence soon overtook the original architecture, allowing for tremendous IT productivity and efficiency gains over the previous infrastructure. 

Software-defined infrastructure removed the IT silos and replaced wasteful, manual processes and over-provisioning with efficient, fluid pools of virtual compute and storage. Throughout that evolution, HPE SimpliVity provided data centers with game-changing HCI features, from built-in backup, rapid recovery, inline deduplication and compression, to a HyperGuarantee that guarantees simplicity, efficiency and power of the platform.

HPE SimpliVity makes it simple for any VM administrator to deploy, manage, scale, and upgrade their infrastructure. As the industry’s most efficient all-in-one system, HPE SimpliVity eliminates more infrastructure and management silos than its competitors. HPE SimpliVity intelligently self-manages efficiency, performance, and resiliency without the need for manual tuning or configuration tradeoffs. 

The first release of HPE InfoSight for HPE SimpliVity, enables customers to gain predictive resource planning that takes the guesswork out of managing capacity. HPE InfoSight provides HPE SimpliVity customers global visibility and analytics into detailed system, performance, and capacity utilization insights, along with support automation with automatic alerts and signature detection into complex problems.

One-click cluster upgrades for HPE SimpliVity enable a seamless full-stack software upgrade that simplifies and removes risk. Customers now have the ability to upgrade firmware, hypervisor, and HPE SimpliVity software across the nodes in a HPE SimpliVity cluster in one click, delivering confidence to simply, and non-disruptively perform upgrades across sites.

HPE SimpliVity is hyper-efficient, uniquely combining compute, storage, and networking with built-in backup and recovery, delivering consolidation and cost savings. HPE SimpliVity has improved data efficiency with 90 percent storage capacity savings across primary VMs and backups. These savings are guaranteed with the HPE SimpliVity HyperGuarantee. 

Only HPE SimpliVity deduplicates compresses, and optimizes data inline, globally, enabling customers to save on expensive capacity resources, and enabling VM mobility.

Modernized data protection with HPE StoreOnce integration. As HPE SimpliVity is accelerating into more enterprises, customers are looking to continually improve their data protection strategy. HPE is integrating with HPE StoreOnce for HPE SimpliVity, enabling enhanced protection and data mobility across HPE storage. 

HPE StoreOnce integration with HPE SimpliVity enables an app-aware data protection solution with rapid recovery and policy-based automation for simple management and cost-effectiveness. This solution complements the HPE SimpliVity built-in backup and recovery capability for long-term retention and compliance.

HPE SimpliVity customers gain space-optimized, intelligent HCI for multi-site deployments, enabling VMs to benefit from performance, efficiency and resiliency in the smallest possible footprint. For edge sites, zero administration is enabled by centralized, unified management across all sites, empowering customers to manage workloads across distributed sites where staff resources are scarce. 

For superior business continuity, customers can rapidly failover virtually any number of edge sites in the event of disaster, using single click edge-to-core VM mobility and recovery. Orchestration is fast and efficient, enabling all edge workloads to be recovered quickly, minimizing business downtime.