Lenovo upgrades enterprise offerings with storage, networking and latest Xeon server chips

Firm unveils portfolio of new products aimed at the data centre

Lenovo has unveiled several new and updated offerings aimed at the enterprise and data centre markets, including upgraded servers based on Intel's latest Xeon chips, new software-defined storage (SDS) appliances, a reseller agreement for Juniper Networks kit, and additional models in the firm's line of hyperconverged infrastructure based on the Nutanix platform.

Lenovo, which acquired IBM's x86 server business in 2014, has made no secret of its desire to expand its market share in the enterprise space, and the firm said that the expanded portfolio provides greater flexibility for customers to deploy the right solutions for specific IT environments and business scenarios without being locked into rigid technology stacks.

"With the latest advances in server performance, SDS, hyper-convergence and rejuvenated networking capabilities, all delivered seamlessly in a partner-centric model, Lenovo is striving to redefine the data centre inside and out," said Tom Shell, senior vice president of Lenovo's Data Centre Product Group.

Lenovo has unveiled updated versions of its x3850 X6 and x3950 X6 servers featuring Intel's new Xeon E7 v4 processors, offering up to 39 per cent faster performance than the previous generation, according to Lenovo.

The x3850 and x3950 are rack-mount four-socket and eight-socket systems respectively, with maximum memory capacities of 6TB and 12TB, although the new E7-8800 v4 and E7-4800 v4 chips are capable of supporting up to 24TB.

Lenovo also expanded its HX Series of hyperconverged appliances based on the Nutanix platform. The new models comprise the HX1000 aimed at remote office/branch office situations, the HX3000 Series, described as a "compute heavy" solution optimised for virtual desktop workloads, and the HX5000 Series, a "storage heavy" version optimised for demanding virtual workloads.

On the storage side, Lenovo unveiled an SDS appliance programme called StorSelect, which sees the firm partner with developers of SDS software to deliver jointly developed products based on Lenovo's x86 server hardware.

The first such offerings comprise the Lenovo Storage DX8200N and DX8200C, based on software platforms from Nexenta and Cloudian respectively. The DX8200N supports unified file and block storage for scale-up deployments with all-flash, hard disk or hybrid configurations, while the DX8200C uses object-based storage software, which is ideal for large scale-out environments.

Also unveiled were additions to the V-Series of storage area network (SAN) appliances that Lenovo acquired from IBM. The V3700 V2 and V5030 are flexible hybrid and all-flash SAN solutions that now feature 12Gbps SAS host interfaces.

Lenovo detailed the first fruits of its partnership with Juniper Networks, announced in March. This will see Lenovo offer Juniper's EX2300 Gigabit Power over Ethernet and EX4550 10GbaseT switches, as well as the QFX10002-72Q data centre spline aggregation system to complement Lenovo's existing data centre offerings.

Finally, the firm announced its own operating system for network hardware, Lenovo Cloud NOS, which it claims has been developed to offer better scalability and programmability for cloud-scale environments. It is expected to run on some of the Juniper kit being resold under the partnership agreement.