The state of the Stack: What is new with HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack?

[EzmeralExperts]

by guest blogger, Mark Evans, Sr. Technical Marketing Engineer

HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack was officially launched in the fall of 2017.  Since that time, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has seen significant traction across the world. With the first generation product in market, I am still often asked, when is the Gen10 version coming to market? 

Launching a new solution involves a lot of learning.  As solutions are deployed, HPE learns a lot about how to deploy them, what the solutions are capable of, how to support them, and most importantly - how customers really use them. The teams at HPE have taken the time to listen and, in the first six months after release, HPE received feedback from partners and customer deployments that shaped the HPE Azure Stack offering.

I’m happy to announce that HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack (Gen10) is now officially available.  On June 4, 2018, HPE will begin shipping the HPE Gen10 Azure Stack solution.  The newest platform is based on the HPE ProLiant Gen10 DL380 server, which improves performance, scale, and security. 

Increased performance

The Gen10 platform leverages dual Skylake Processors and expands the customer CPU choice from 6 CPUs to 19 CPUs. Core counts improve up to 28 per CPU and speeds up to 3GHz – up to a 45% improvement in aggregate clock rate over Gen9. Customers are able to select the processor that best matches the specific workloads they run. Total RAM memory has doubled from 784GB of RAM to 1.5TB resulting in up to a 2x improvement in VM scale with an additional improvement of up to 66% improvement in memory bandwidth and performance. 

Increased capacity

The SSD Cache and HDD Capacity Storage are improved as well.  SSD Cache storage increased from 4 drives to 6 drives and range from 800GB to 3.2TB. HDD capacity storage increased from 10 drives to 12 drives and leverage 4TB, 6TB, 8TB and 10TB HDD drives. The result is the HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack (Gen10) platform supports up to 120TB RAW capacity and up to 19.2TB of cache per node, making the solution an attractive alternative to expensive all-flash configurations while providing excellent performance.

Increased bandwidth

The DL380 Azure Stack server node is upgraded to the 10/25/GbE HPE 640FLR NIC, providing more bandwidth and performance. The hardware solution is integrated using the HPE Flex Fabric family of networking solutions. The TOR switches are upgraded from the HPE 5900 to the HPE 5950 network switch to support the 10/25GbE connections and together provide a 150% increase in network bandwidth over Gen9. 

Greater Security

Lastly, the newest and coolest feature is the unmatched security. HPE Silicon Root of Trust provides protection as soon as the server is powered on and the iLO firmware comes alive. As it initiates, HPE Integrated Lights-Out 5 (iLO5) firmware inspects the silicon for the immutable fingerprint that verifies the firmware code is valid and uncompromised. In today’s environment of constant security threats, this feature alone is a game changer. HPE Silicon Root of Trust provides enhanced detection and recovery options that can keep a business online.

To learn more, go online to the HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack solution website:  www.hpe.com/cloud/azure-stack

Mark

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