The AMD EPYC™ Server Ecosystem Grows with New HCI Solutions From Nutanix and Other Partners Supporting “Work from Anywhere” Environment

Rhea-AI Summary

AMD announced the expansion of its EPYC processor ecosystem for virtualized environments and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) with Lenovo's new ThinkAgile HX solution, optimizing Nutanix's hybrid cloud infrastructure. This collaboration allows customers to streamline data center operations while improving performance and security in a 'work from anywhere' environment. EPYC processors offer superior virtualization and HCI performance, helping businesses achieve better data center efficiency with reduced costs. AMD continues to partner with major tech firms to enhance its cloud and virtualization offerings.

Positive

• Expansion of AMD EPYC ecosystem with Lenovo's ThinkAgile HX enhances virtualization performance.
• Collaboration with Nutanix and other OEM partners improves data center efficiency and agility.
• AMD EPYC processors provide leading security features and scalability for diverse applications.

Negative

• None.

— AMD EPYC processor powered solutions provide leading virtualization performance and security features for the modern data center —

— AMD EPYC processors with Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure deliver exceptional performance for the Mulitcloud Era —

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 14, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) today announced the continued expansion of the AMD EPYC™ processor ecosystem for virtualized environments and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) with Lenovo announcing the ThinkAgile HX, the latest solution based on AMD EPYC processors and Nutanix’s hybrid cloud infrastructure solution. This new solution expands the ecosystem of AMD 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 high performing and efficient data center that is easier to manage for the quick-changing needs of businesses. By choosing AMD EPYC processors and Nutanix hybrid and multicloud solutions, customers can accelerate workloads like digital workspaces including VDI with fantastic performance, advanced security features, and broad 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, senior vice president and general manager, Server Business Unit, AMD. “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 leading-edge security features, across a wide 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 at 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.”

The Growing AMD EPYC HCI Ecosystem
AMD EPYC^™ processors have become a leading choice to drive innovation of virtualization and HCI solutions due to its accelerated performance, class leading memory capabilities¹, and advanced security features. These solutions using AMD EPYC processors are now widely available, customers have a choice of solutions when modernizing their data centers.

“In our business we are heavily focused on HCI solutions and software defined storage and the AMD EPYC processors have dramatically expanded the horizon of what we can build to support HCI and software defined storage,” said Aleksandr Ragel, co-founder and Managing Partner, Diaway. “This is why we chose the AMD EPYC processor to power the DIAWAY EDGEBOX™, a turnkey solution that’s ideal for large-scale software-defined storage, 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 virtual machines with faster network access and lower storage latency in as little data center space as possible.”

AMD has worked closely with its OEM and software provider partners to offer solutions with leading performance, scalability, and total cost of ownership (TCO). These HCI solutions include:

• Dell Technologies
  ○ Dell EMC XC Core XC6515 – The Dell EMC XC Core XC6515 is an AMD EPYC processor based XC appliance from Dell Technologies. Fully 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 AMD EPYC processors and provides advantages for leveraging Microsoft virtualization environments.
• HPE
  ○ HPE ProLiant DX325 & DX385 optimized with Nutanix software – Using AMD EPYC processors based on HPE ProLiant servers, which are the world’s most industry-standard servers, are an advanced choice for customers selecting Nutanix software with HPE.
  ○ HPE ProLiant DL325 and DL385 Gen10 servers with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI – Using 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors, these servers are architected for VDI users, business-critical applications, and mixed workloads with unpredictable growth.
  ○ HPE SimpliVity 325 Gen10 HCI – An industry-leading HCI solution for the enterprise edge based on the HPE DL325 Gen 10 server using the HPE SimpliVity HCI software and powered by 2^nd Gen AMD EPYC processors. The solution offers customers a small 1U footprint, 2-node high availability, that lowers TCO with industry-leading VDI-density.
• Lenovo Data Center Group
  ○ Lenovo ThinkAgile HX – in collaboration with Nutanix and AMD, Lenovo recently announced the new Lenovo ThinkAgile HX HCI solutions powered by AMD 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 servers².
  ○ The Lenovo ThinkAgile HX 3000 Series appliance – Featuring AMD EPYC processors, it is available in a rack-dense 1U 1-node form-factor and supports high memory and core density, making it a good solution for virtual desktop infrastructure and general virtualization workloads.

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

Supporting Resources

• Learn more about AMD EPYC processors for HCI
• Read more about the AMD growth in HCI and virtualization
• Learn more about AMD Infinity Guard
• Check out a recent HCI whitepaper from Insight64 about HCI
• Follow AMD on Twitter
  

About AMD
For more than 50 years AMD has driven innovation in high-performance computing, graphics and visualization technologies ― the building blocks for gaming, immersive platforms and the datacenter. Hundreds of millions of consumers, leading Fortune 500 businesses and cutting-edge scientific research facilities around the world rely on AMD technology daily to improve how they live, work and play. AMD employees around the world are focused on building great products that push the boundaries of what is possible. For more information about how AMD is enabling today and inspiring tomorrow, visit the AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) website, blog, Facebook and Twitter pages.

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^{¹ EPYC™ 7002 series has 8 memory channels, supporting 3200 MHz DIMMs yielding 204.8 GB/s of bandwidth vs. the same class of Intel Scalable Gen 2 processors with only 6 memory channels and supporting 2933 MHz DIMMs yielding 140.8 GB/s of bandwidth. 204.8 / 140.8 = 1.454545 - 1.0 = .45 or 45% more. AMD 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 (https://lenovopress.com/lp0665.pdf Table 7 Section 4.6.2). A 2S AMD ThinkAgile HX platform with 64C CPU would support 500 Knowledge workers per node based on - https://lenovopress.com/lp0664.pdf Table 11 Section 4.3.2. This gives us approximately 92% improvement in Citrix Knowledge. AMD has not independently verified this data.}

^{Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.}

^{AMD, the AMD logo, EPYC, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.}

FAQ

What is the significance of AMD's partnership with Lenovo regarding EPYC processors?

The partnership expands the AMD EPYC ecosystem, allowing for enhanced virtualization performance and efficiency in data centers.

How do AMD EPYC processors benefit businesses in a hybrid cloud environment?

They offer superior performance, security features, and scalability, helping businesses modernize their data center operations.

When was the announcement about AMD EPYC processors and Lenovo ThinkAgile HX made?

The announcement was made on October 14, 2020.

What are the key features of AMD EPYC processors highlighted in the press release?

Key features include high performance for virtualization, advanced security capabilities, and flexibility for various business applications.