Simplifying IT management with better value: the Lenovo Hyperconverged Solution

Only a few years ago, high-level management needed convincing of an esoteric new technology called virtualization. Naturally ahead of the curve, IT professionals in digitally-fluent companies of all sizes had a great deal of enthusiasm for the new platforms coming to market from VMware and Microsoft, but it took a while for the business benefits to become apparent.

Now, however, most data centers in the enterprise and those that provide public cloud services use virtualized servers in arrays. Multiple servers can co-exist on powerful hardware, running applications, operating systems and supporting services that are chosen to match the business’s needs. Server images are ready to deploy at a moment’s notice, and new instances created at the touch of a mouse, according to the organization’s priorities.

The latest tranche of virtualization technology came out of the hothouse called Google. The author of the disk-filing system that runs the Google multiplex began to release a technology (termed hyperconvergence by the IT industry press) that virtualized the whole of an organization’s data portfolio: not just servers in a single data center, but also the facilities in each data ‘node.’ Hyperconvergence technology treats the multiplicity of computing power, storage, network connections, public cloud facilities, remote offices, edge deployments and the internet connections between them all as a resource that can be managed entirely centrally, and one that can be deployed as the business needs it, on a second-by-second basis.

The controlling technology is based on Lenovo hardware, created explicitly for the purpose. The Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series of appliances gives organizations of any size the abilities of hyperconvergence in a single unit. New applications and services can be allocated compute, storage and connectivity regardless of where in a customer’s data center those resources are located, or what form they may assume. Just imagine an online store’s data bursts being effortlessly assimilated, by systems automatically spinning up and adding resources for that peak. Customers notice no difference in service, and data center operational costs are kept to a minimum, as they can be paid for on a per-second use basis.

Web-scale technologies are available that offer this type of agility and ease of management in a variety of form factors from Lenovo, from single units designed for light to medium loads, up to appliances optimized for mission-critical applications and services that depend on storage capabilities, raw computing power and/or databases, and intensive cognitive routines, like AI or machine-learning algorithms.

The highly-reliable Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series runs Nutanix software, which is factory installed, ready to drop into any setting. ThinkAgile HX appliances include the Nutanix software license, while ThinkAgile HX certified nodes enable organizations to use an existing licensing agreement with Nutanix or purchase the license separately. The software provides a single interface to manage and oversee all aspects of the entire organization’s infrastructure, and the wrap-around ThinkAgile Advantage support for both hardware and software from Lenovo means that you get the most reliable service available on the market today.

Creating resources for new projects or scaling resources for existing services is simple and means there’s no wasted element of infrastructure, so return on investment on new and legacy IT equipment is maximized. Customers can also realize substantial cost savings in terms of IT overheads. Instead of needing to (sometimes literally) plug cables between devices, or move hardware resources to where they’re needed, the ThinkAgile HX Series is pre-validated and optimized with ready-to-go technology, supporting the needs of the business. Whether it’s a high-end SAP 4/HANA ERP solution that runs your organization, or if you want to test a virtual desktop environment, the hyperconverged solutions from Lenovo give you the wherewithal to develop, test, and roll out to production in record time.

Lenovo platforms have been ranked #1 in reliability for six consecutive years, and #1 in customer satisfaction for ten years running. They also hold 140 performance world records, more than any other x86 vendor.With Lenovo ThinkAgile HX, you can accelerate your workloads with confidence and shrink your total cost of ownership.

To learn more about how the Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series can change the way your business thinks about its IT investments, get in touch with a representative local to you, today.