Nebulon: SmartInfrastructure in Supermicro Ultra Servers

Nebulon, Inc. announced the availability of SmartInfrastructure, server-embedded, infrastructure software delivered as-a-service, which offers the benefits of the public cloud on-premises, from core to edge for any application: containerized, virtualized or bare-metal.

Leveraging Super Micro Computer, Inc.‘ Ultra servers, this data center service enables self-service infrastructure provisioning, infrastructure management-as-a-service, and enterprise shared and local data services. Nebulon also introduced two SmartInfrastructure solutions: SmartCore and SmartEdge. Finally, the company announced its first SmartEdge customer with Supermicro, UK-based service provider DC Intelligence Limited (DCI).

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The public cloud, Covid-19, and the growth of 5G and IoT at the edge, have increased the demand from application owners for a more scalable, cloud-like experience for their on-premises enterprise application infrastructures. According to the 2020 Gartner Critical Capabilities for Hyperconverged Infrastructure Software report, “I&O leaders are starting to leverage HCI for edge-computing use cases, but scale, cost, performance, security and management challenges remain.“ ⁽¹⁾ For those organizations looking to modernize at the core or at the edge, these challenges, combined with server overheads and related density issues as well as virtualization-only workload restrictions, limit the effectiveness of HCI.

SmartInfrastructure delivers a public cloud experience on-premises for enterprise application infrastructure. Similar to the cloud management benefits of smart home technology, this server-embedded, infrastructure software delivered as-a-service enables IT administrators and application owners to benefit from simple deployment and rapid time-to-value, zero-touch remote management, easy at-scale automation, AI-based insights and actions, and behind-the-scenes software updates.

SmartInfrastructure supports any application: containerized, virtualized and bare-metal, and is available anywhere, from core to edge to hosted data centers, serving the requirements of applications today and in the future. Furthermore, it is designed such that zero server resources are consumed in delivering enterprise data services, eliminating the HCI limitations on server density and keeping 100% of the server resources usable for applications.

“Supermicro’s Ultra server solution with Nebulon smartInfrastructure is a significant benefit to our customers,” said Eric Sindelar, GM, operations and advanced technology development, Supermicro. “We are seeing a lot of interest in Nebulon smartInfrastructure with our Ultra server line from both enterprises and service providers who are looking to simplify their core and edge data center deployments.“

DCI, a service provider specializing in providing data center colocation and cloud solutions, specifically chose Supermicro, known for itsrin high-performance, high-efficiency server technology innovation, with the firm‘s smartEdge solution, to run its edge offering ‘DataQube’. DataQube utilizes a liquid immersion cooling technology, to maintain temperatures of racks comprised of Nebulon-enabled Supermicro servers. With DataQube immersion cooling technology, DCI can deploy a modular, 5G-enabled data center without the need for traditional cooling infrastructure.

This approach means DCI can rapidly deploy a distributed cloud anywhere, anytime and deliver significant energy savings to its customers while reducing costs. The SmartEdge-based DataQube is for remote areas and heat-intensive regions such as Africa, where DCI is currently developing a solution for deployment of field hospitals as part of a charitable initiative.

“These hospitals are located in remote areas with hot climates and have specific IT needs for storing and processing patient data, viewing charts and using collaboration tools such as video calling with other physicians,” said Chris Ward-Jones, CTO, DCI. “These capabilities must be extremely reliable and be delivered at a low cost. With zero-touch remote management and improved density compared to traditional HCI, we can use the Nebulon smartEdge solution to flexibly and cost-effectively scale at the edge in a way previously not possible.“

SmartCore and SmartEdge solutions were designed to simplify management of on-premises enterprise application data with a hyperscale, API-first cloud control plane connected to IoT endpoints in the customer application servers to deliver self-service application infrastructure ease and cloud-like operations for any application from core to edge. With both SmartInfrastructure solutions, enterprises can enjoy a single top-down cloud-managed approach to address application deployment, management and maintenance challenges common at the core, and address density, costs and remote management challenges experienced at the edge.

“Customers want the cloud experience for their on-premises infrastructure across their core, hosted and edge deployments,” said Siamak Nazari, co-founder and CEO, Nebulon. “Supermicro with Nebulon smartInfrastructure, and specifically the Nebulon smartEdge solution, allows customers and partners like DCI to make this a reality.“

 ⁽¹⁾ Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Hyperconverged Infrastructure Software by Philip Dawson, Jeffrey Hewitt, Julia Palmer, Tony Harvey. December 9, 2020

Resources:
What is smartInfrastructure with Supermicro?
Blog: The benefits of smartInfrastructure. Is a public cloud experience for on-premesis IT a fit for your organization?    
Blog: What is nebulon smartInfrastructure? The public cloud experience for on-premises IT…explained     
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