Lenovo launches StorSelect program in latest play for the datacenter
Lenovo is intensifying its play for the $87 billion data center technology market with the rollout of new storage offerings, networking capabilities, servers and hyper-converged appliances.
According to Tom Shell, SVP of Lenovo's Data Center Product Group, the new products are part of Lenovo's aim to "redefine the data center inside and out."
"This dramatically expanded portfolio is a powerful demonstration of Lenovo's commitment to creating purposeful data center innovation in a truly open ecosystem," he said.
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On the storage front, Lenovo is launching a new software-defined appliance program dubbed StorSelect. Lenovo says StorSelect is an open ecosystem where the company will work with ISV vendors to pair their SDS software with Lenovo hardware.
Initial partners include Nexenta Systems and Cloudian, who will integrate software into the Lenovo Storage DX8200N and DX8200C appliances, which are both built upon Lenovo's x86 server platforms.
The company also unveiled new additions to its V-Series family of 12Gb SANs. The new V3700 V2 and V5030 appliances bring premium features such as encryption and virtualization, Lenovo said.
As for networking, Lenovo is launching a new cloud network operating system, dubbed the Lenovo Cloud NOS. Lenovo said the cloud platform offers new functionality to improve resiliency and cloud-level scalability, as well as programmable APIs for extensible dev-ops.
In addition, Lenovo is expanding its go-to-market partnership with Juniper, which was originally announced in March. The two companies have signed a reseller agreement where Lenovo will offer Juniper's EX2200 Gigabit Power over Ethernet (PoE) and EX4550 10GbaseT switches, as well as the QFX10002-72Q data center spline aggregation system, to augment Lenovo's data center access products.
In the server department, Lenovo is announcing a refresh of mission-critical servers that leverage Intel Xeon E7-4800 and E7-8800 v4 processors.
Finally, Lenovo expanded its portfolio of HX Series hyperconverged appliances, based on software from Nutanix, to cover a broader range of workloads and deployment cost requirements. New offerings include the HX1000 Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO) appliance, and the HX2000Series for small to mid-size businesses.