AMD EPYC Server Ecosystem Grows With HCI Solutions From Nutanix and Other Partners

AMD (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc) announced the continued expansion of the EPYC processor ecosystem for virtualized environments and HCI with Lenovo announcing the ThinkAgile HX, the latest solution based on EPYC processors and Nutanix, Inc.’s hybrid cloud infrastructure solution.

This solution expands the ecosystem of EPYC based cloud and virtualized solutions.

As customers want more value for their data center budget, IT departments are moving to HCI to modernize and transform their enterprise data center. This creates a performing and efficient data center that is easier to manage for the changing needs of businesses. By choosing EPYC processors and Nutanix hybrid and multicloud solutions, customers can accelerate workloads like digital workspaces including VDI with performance, security features, and ecosystem support from major ISVs and OEM partners.

“IT leaders are faced with a difficult and evolving situation right now. As more employees are in a ‘work from anywhere’ situation, they have to rethink their data center operations and move them to a more digital and modern environment that can provide the security, performance and agility needed to support their business,” said Dan McNamara, SVP and GM, server business unit. “A virtualized or HCI environment powered by AMD EPYC processors gives these data center operators and IT administrators the power to provide a high-performance virtualized environment with security features, across a variety of OEM platforms and software solutions. This will not only help them in this ‘work from anywhere’ environment but also enable them to contribute to their company’s business goals.“

“As Nutanix evolves from delivering industry-leading HCI software to hybrid cloud infrastructure we look to provide our customers with the best software and hardware solutions to help modernize their data centers, as part of their hybrid and multicloud strategies,” said Tarkan Maner, chief commercial officer, Nutanix. “Nutanix software, along with OEM platforms and AMD EPYC processors, deliver the performance, flexibility, and choice our customers need to support databases, analytics, digital workspaces and other business critical applications. We’re excited to continue this collaboration with AMD and help our customers modernize their data centers.“

Growing EPYC HCI ecosystem
EPYC processors have become a choice to drive innovation of virtualization and HCI solutions due to its accelerated performance, class memory capabilities ⁽¹⁾, and security features. These solutions using EPYC processors are  available, customers have a choice of solutions when modernizing their data centers.

“In our business we are heavily focused on HCI solutions and SDS and the AMD EPYC processors have dramatically expanded the horizon of what we can build to support HCI and SDS,” said Aleksandr Ragel, co-founder and managing partner, Diaway OÜ. “This is why we chose the AMD EPYC processor to power the Diaway EdgeBox, a turnkey solution that’s ideal for large-scale SDS, HCI and diverse software stacks. We’ve seen customers use the EPYC powered EdgeBox for storage intensive workloads, and even pure HCI environments, where the EPYC processor does the compute and the EdgeBox runs the management layer for a private cloud. We are excited to continue our work with AMD to deliver fantastic HCI solutions based on EPYC.“

“AMD EPYC processors have enabled us to deploy high-density hyperconverged infrastructure servers with unprecedented flexibility,” said Bart Willems, technology director, Atipa Technologies. “The AMD EPYC processor’s high core counts and support of PCIe 4 were instrumental in allowing us to pack more performance for more VMs with faster network access and lower storage latency in as little data center space as possible.“

The company has worked with its OEM and software provider partners to offer solutions with performance, scalability, and TCO.

These HCI solutions include:

• Dell Technologies:

  • • Dell EMC XC Core XC6515. – The XC Core XC6515 is an EPYC processor based XC appliance from Dell Technologies. Qualified by Nutanix, the single socket 1U chassis provides up to 64 high performance cores, PCIe 4, and performance for VDI, database, and ROBO workloads.

    • Dell EMC solutions for Azure Stack HCI – The AX-6515 solution is powered by 2nd Gen EPYC processors and provides advantages for leveraging Microsoft virtualization environments.

• HPE:

  • • ProLiant DX325 and DX385 optimized with Nutanix software – Using EPYC processors based on ProLiant servers, which are the servers, are a choice for customers selecting Nutanix software with HPE.

    • ProLiant DL325 and DL385 Gen10 servers with Nimble Storage dHCI – Using 2nd Gen EPYC processors, these servers are architected for VDI users, business-critical applications, and mixed workloads with unpredictable growth.

    • SimpliVity 325 Gen10 HCI – A HCI solution for the enterprise edge based on the HPE DL325 Gen 10 server using the SimpliVity HCI software and powered by 2nd Gen EPYC processors. The solution offers customers a 1U footprint, 2-node HA, that lowers TCO with VDI-density.

• Lenovo Data Center Group:

  • • Lenovo ThinkAgile HX – in collaboration with Nutanix and AMD, Lenovo recently announced the ThinkAgile HX HCI solutions powered by EPYC processors, enabling customers to run virtual desktop workloads at a higher density, and maintain consistent performance (in the same 1U form factor), with up to 50% fewer servers. ⁽²⁾
      

• • • Lenovo ThinkAgile HX 3000 Series appliance – Featuring EPYC processors, it is available in a rack-dense 1U 1-node form-factor and supports high memory and core density, making it a solution for VDI and general virtualization workloads.

As HCI continues to provide agility for demanding IT requirements driving the customers’ cloud experience, the company has been working with its ecosystem partners to deliver tested and validated solutions. With the success with industry partners like Dell Technologies, HPE, Lenovo, Microsoft and Nutanix, AMD is committed to continue providing the best solutions for partners and customers.

⁽¹⁾ EPYC 7002 series has 8 memory channels, supporting 3,200MHz DIMMs yielding 204.8GB/s of bandwidth vs. the same class of Intel Scalable Gen 2 processors with only 6 memory channels and supporting 2,933MHz DIMMs yielding 140.8GB/s of bandwidth. 204.8/140.8=1.454545-1.0=45 or 45% more. EPYC has 45% more bandwidth. Class based on industry-standard pin-based (LGA) X86 processors. ROM-11
⁽²⁾ ThinkAgile HX Intel platform can have a maximum of 56C in a 2S platform vs. 128C in ThinkAgile HX AMD based platform. Higher VDI density claim is based on extrapolation of performance results for virtual desktops on ThinkAgile HX and ThinkSystem with Citrix. A 2S Intel ThinkAgile HX platform with 28C CPU would support approximately 260 Knowledge workers per node when system is CPU bound based on (Table 7 Section 4.6.2). A 2S AMD ThinkAgile HX platform with 64C CPU would support 500 Knowledge workers per node based on – Table 11 Section 4.3.2. This gives us approximately 92% improvement in Citrix Knowledge. AMD has not independently verified this data.
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Resources:
EPYC processors for HCI
AMD growth in HCI and virtualization
AMD Infinity Guard
HCI WP from Insight64 about HCI