Lenovo, in partnership with Nutanix, Microsoft, and VMware, launched a range of new and updated ThinkAgile hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) appliances and systems to help customers get comfortable with the new normal: remote work.

The updates to the ThinkAgile portfolio — including Nutanix’s ThinkAgile HX Series, Microsoft Azure’s ThinkAgile MX, and VMware’s ThinkAgile VX Series —  target the digital workforce  in the post-pandemic era with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

COVID-19 is accelerating VDI market growth as organizations continue to plan for longer-term remote work. With more users accessing desktops from home on laptops and mobile phones, VDI provides simpler management for secure scaling. "This new norm is forcing many companies at different sizes and scales to think differently,”  Kamran Amini, VP and GM of server, storage and software defined infrastructure at Lenovo Data Center Group said. Amini added that businesses are looking to drive more resiliency and agility while responding to rapid change.

Lenovo’s strategy is to provide infrastructure flexibility from storage systems to HCI. “Choice is key because we're not pushing a single agenda like we see the rest of our market competitors doing,” Amini said. 

To this end, Lenovo expanded its portfolio with a new platform in collaboration with Nutanix and AMD. This is Lenovo's first time using AMD chips instead of Intel processors in its ThinkAgile line. It's called Lenovo ThinkAgile HX AMD, and it uses AMD’s EPYC server processors.

Lenovo ThinkSystem two-socket servers tap into the power of AMD’s 64-core 7000 Generation EPYC processors that will enable customers to deploy more VDI users on a single platform with up to 50% fewer servers than before, the company claims. Reducing the number of servers needed to run core workloads cuts the initial deployment cost as well as ongoing cluster management expenses.

“We see more and more customers asking for a platform that is based across both Intel and AMD, and that's why we’re introducing this platform,“ said Shekhar Mishra, director of software defined infrastructure for Lenovo Data Center Group. Mishra called ThinkAgile HX AMD “a no compromise platform” whether customers choose to deploy it as a general purpose sever or HCI based on Nutanix software. 

General availability for ThinkAgile HX AMD is planned for late November. 

Lenovo boosted its Microsoft partnership and enhanced its current MX line with the new Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Azure Stack HCI Edge to give customers a simplified path to deploy a hybrid cloud infrastructure.  

Mishra said the new ThinkAgile MX appliances “cater more toward hyperconverged customers,” allowing them to tier and move data between the edge, their on-premises data centers running Microsoft’s HCI stack, and its Azure public cloud.

Hyperconverged customers “need an ease of deployment, for a day zero implementation, but also they need ongoing lifecycle maintenance management of the cluster itself,” Mishra explained. To this end, Lenovo also integrated its XClarity Integrator for Microsoft Windows Admin Center to deliver a “single, simplified console for lifecycle management.”

“We are giving customers the choice, all the way from edge to core to cloud across the entire ecosystem with Microsoft,” said Mishra. The company plans to offer consumption-based pricing of Azure Stack HCI and Azure Stack Hub. 

The ThinkAgile VX series, powered by VMware vSAN, added a feather to its cap as the new Lenovo ThinkAgile VX HCI family is now both vSAN and SAP HANA certified. 

According to the vendor, the new VX Series offers double the SAP HANA database memory for mission-critical workloads, and it removes performance bottlenecks with faster load times via super-fast non-volatile memory express (NVMe) storage. NVMe support also provides users with a single platform to manage both SAP and non-SAP workloads.   

The ThinkAgile VX series is built and tested by Lenovo with VMware vSAN certified components. These pre-configured hardware systems are designed to reduce data center complexity, aggregating servers, storage, and virtualization resources into a single virtual structure.  

And sticking to the tune of simplicity,  Lenovo added its XClarity system management software to the update. The management console automates foundation server management tasks. 

The ThinkAgile VX series will be available later this month.