The HPE Superdome X in Today’s Modern Data Center

The data center today is vastly different from the data center of a few years ago. Back then, there tended to be one server per workload, and IT needed to manage a multitude of servers. This model was eventually replaced by virtualization, and many more server systems were consolidated. In today’s data center, workloads are shifted based on response to workloads, and the degree of server consolidation is higher than ever. Here is a closer look at some of the critical capabilities that the modern data center requires, and how the HPE Superdome X delivers those capabilities.

Enterprise Scalability and Performance

Of all the attributes of the modern data center, the most important are scalability and performance. The cloud certainly enables companies to offload some workloads, but not all. The cloud is shared infrastructure that’s accessed across the public Internet, which means that it can’t deliver the extreme levels of performance that dedicated enterprise servers can. Further, analysts estimate that data growth is 30% to 50% per year, which requires both compute power as well as high storage capacities. The HPE Superdome X is capable of providing extreme scalability for both processing power and memory, as well as storage capacity. Capable of supporting up eight server blades with 384 cores and 24 TB of RAM, the Superdome X can support today’s most demanding workloads. When coupled with a flash storage array like the 3PAR StorServ, you can also get extreme I/O performance and storage capacity.

Resource and Workload Flexibility

The demands and workloads on your infrastructure can change dramatically as you continue to implement new applications and initiatives. The ability to change, adapt and keep up with new trends is critical. The hardware partitioning (nPar) capability provided by the HPE Superdome X enables it to support multiple diverse workloads exactly as if they were running on separate server--albeit without the need to manage multiple servers. nPars are completely isolated from each other, keeping the resource requirements of each partition independent of the other partitions. Plus, if requirements change in the future, the nPars can be changed and reconfigured as needed.

Enterprise-Level Availability

More and more applications require 24 x 7 availability. In addition, the consumerization of IT leaves end users with the expectation that IT services should always be available. Designed to support enterprise-class workloads, the reliability/availability/serviceability (RAS) and firmware technologies built into the HPE Superdome X provide a layered approach to detection, logging, analyzing and repair that will reduce processing interruptions and minimize the time to find and repair errors. The Superdome X’s Firmware First feature enables the firmware to diagnose problems and take corrective actions before OS and higher-level software is impacted.

Simplified Management and Automation

Data center technologies have grown at an exponential rate, which has led to increased complexity. Virtualization is the norm, and many companies are attempting to deal with multiple server platforms as well as embrace new technologies, such as containers and the Internet of Things. To deal with this, there is a need to free up resources that are spent on operations and troubleshooting. The Superdome X’s ability to combine the functionality of multiple servers into a single enclosure reduces IT operations requirements as well as operating costs, and can potentially reduce licensing requirements.

HPE and Microsoft are the underwriters of this article.