Hewlett Packard Enterprise Advances HCI Solutions for Expanding Remote Workforce Initiatives in Wake of COVID-19

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) today announced that the enhanced HPE SimpliVity 325 Gen 10 hyperconverged infrastructure solution (HCI) with the new 2nd Gen AMD EPYCTM processor, doubles the virtual desktops supported per server to provide businesses a 50% lower cost per remote worker1. In addition, HPE Nimble Storage dHCI, a disaggregated HCI platform released last year, is now available through HPE GreenLake, enabling virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and virtual machines as-a-service with a pay as you go model. Advancements to Nimble Storage dHCI also include increased scale and support for expanded HPE ProLiant server models with the new 2nd Gen AMD EPYCTM processor, helping customers use VDI for unpredictable workloads, large scale environments, and performance intensive desktop users. 

“Our experience with HPE SimpliVity has been incredible, especially with our large SQL databases, file servers, and virtual desktops that we can rapidly recover in minutes with ease,” said David Wunderley, Director of Emerging Infrastructure & Operations Support at Pitt Ohio. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, we moved the majority of our corporate users to work from home, and doubled our concurrent VDI user count overnight with no performance impact. The new high density HPE SimpliVity 325 with the 1U form factor will help VDI environments like ours make the most of performance and availability in an extremely small footprint.”

“With HPE Nimble Storage dHCI, we can now provide a superior VDI solution for our 380+ VDI users and 400+ sales reps working remotely due to our changing business model and COVID-19,” said Rob Collins, Head of Infrastructure and Service Management at PetSure. “In the past, we were using AWS for our VDI workloads, but the costs were too high for us. With HPE Nimble Storage dHCI, we are able to reduce our operating costs by 50%, improve our performance 2X for our VDI workloads, and achieve 50% faster application provisioning.”

In today’s environment, businesses are being asked to shift their employees to a virtual office environment to curb the spread of COVID-19. This places new, urgent requirements on IT to quickly enable a remote workforce. Meeting the business and employee needs for VDI requires solving the challenges associated with performance, scale, complexity, and data protection. HPE SimpliVity and HPE Nimble Storage dHCI overcome the limitations of traditional infrastructure with intelligent management, easier scalability, cloud data protection, and the performance to support every worker, including knowledge users. During these uncertain times, when capacity is strained and costs need to be controlled, HPE provides businesses with solutions that can help IT optimize their infrastructure to deliver secure, reliable remote access.

HPE sets new virtual desktop density standard with HPE SimpliVity

Businesses need a reliable, high performing, and highly secure workspace for their remote employees. HPE SimpliVity helps to address this growing remote workforce with an intelligent, software-defined HCI solution that simplifies the time needed to deploy, manage, and scale VDI. For all businesses with remote workers, HPE SimpliVity 325 Gen10 combined with the new 2nd Gen AMD EPYCTMprocessor delivers double the virtual desktops per server on average than any other HCI vendor1. This drives down the cost for each remote worker by 50% in a small, efficient 1U platform, delivering a small footprint for entry-level and distributed edge HCI use cases. 

“The COVID-19 global pandemic is an unprecedented situation that is affecting all businesses, our communities, and our way of life,” said Patrick Osborne, VP and General Manager of HPE SimpliVity. “As an edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service company, HPE is here to help our clients bring together the right expertise and technology solutions to meet their most immediate challenges and unexpected demands.  With these challenges, customers are looking to rapidly unleash mobile productivity and desktop virtualization, and HPE SimpliVity and Nimble Storage dHCI solutions provide performance and flexible payment options for our customers.”

HPE delivers VDI as-a-service with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is architected for VDI users, business-critical applications, and mixed workloads with unpredictable growth. To support remote worker initiatives, HPE is announcing the following:

• Support for HPE GreenLake: HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is now available through HPE GreenLake, delivering VDI as-a-service, accelerating time to value, and simplifying IT management. As a cloud consumption experience, businesses pay monthly for what they use, convert capital to operating expense, and scale compute and storage on-demand. 
• Expanded server support and scale: HPE Nimble Storage dHCI has added support for HPE ProLiant DL325, DL385, DL560, and DL580 servers, and increased the scale of servers supported from 20 to 32.  HPE Nimble Storage dHCI enables HPE ProLiant customers to convert their existing server investments into a disaggregated HCI. 
• One-click software upgrades: HPE Nimble Storage dHCI has simplified lifecycle management with one-click, unified software upgrades for server firmware, hypervisor and storage software, saving IT productivity time and de-risking upgrades. The upgrades can be performed directly in VMware vCenter.

Financial Offers to Manage Cash Flow

In addition to the recently announced newly-configured VDI solutions, today’s HCI offerings for VDI are supported through HPE Financial Services, which can help alleviate some of the strain felt by businesses around the globe as they navigate an uncertain business climate. HPE Financial Services can help release capital from existing infrastructures, defer payments, and provide pre-owned tech to relieve capacity strain. As part of the innovative financing structures to reduce cash outlays during uncertainty, HPE SimpliVity and Nimble dHCI customers can delay payments for up to 180 days to help preserve cash. 

Availability

HPE SimpliVity 325 Gen10 with the new AMD EPYCTM processor is now orderable globally direct and though channel partners, with expected shipping in late May 2020.

HPE GreenLake is now available for HPE Nimble Storage dHCI globally. The expanded server support, scale and one–click software upgrade enhancements will be available globally direct and though channel partners in 2H2020.

Additional Resources

Visit this blog to read more about the HPE SimpliVity 325 and here to learn more about Nimble Storage dHCI. For details on the latest features, the Around the Storage Block podcast is also available to listen to.

Register free today for HPE Discover Virtual Experience to learn how we can help with your recovery, while transforming for tomorrow’s edge-to-cloud world.

About Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the global edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service company that helps organizations accelerate outcomes by unlocking value from all of their data, everywhere. Built on decades of reimagining the future and innovating to advance the way we live and work, HPE delivers unique, open and intelligent technology solutions, with a consistent experience across all clouds and edges, to help customers develop new business models, engage in new ways, and increase operational performance. For more information, visit: www.hpe.com.