In February 2016, we introduced Virtual SAN 6.2 along with the next generation of options for consuming the VMware Hyper-Converged Software stack (HCS): The extended Virtual SAN Ready Node program. The latest enhancements to the program allow key partners like Supermicro to pre-install VMware HCS on their Ready Nodes and optionally offer software licensing and unified support for the combined products.

In his first guest appearance on Virtual Blocks, Sim Upadhyayula, Director of Solution Enablement, walks us through the latest announcements of Supermicro.

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Supermicro together with VMware has been committed to providing building block solutions with scale-out capabilities to the enterprise and service provider segments. In the space of hyper-converged infrastructure, Supermicro partners with VMware to certify individual components to enable a “Build your own” model and complete server platforms as part of the VSAN Ready Node program.

When it comes to the infrastructure lifecycle and management, it often boils down to five critical steps: Sizing, configuration, order ability, deployment and maintenance/management. Our customers have been asking us to simplify these steps, so that they can focus on more important aspects of running their day to day operations. With this goal in mind, over the past few years, the Supermicro engineering team has been working closely with VMware’s engineering team to make the sizing, configuration and order ability simpler. We are proud to take the last few steps towards a turnkey operation and announce that all Supermicro VSAN Ready Nodes are now available with an option of pre-installing the VMware Hyper Converged Software stack at the factory itself, delivering hassle free operations from day one. Additionally, customers can procure software licenses and support from Supermicro, so that they can implement a vertically integrated solution with a single point of contact, Supermicro, which radically simplifies the lifecycle management.

The ability to deploy systems in mission-critical situations is another key requirement for many of the Enterprise and SP customers, along with other traditional use cases such as VDI environments and DR scenarios. Supermicro is the first to market all NVMe flash solutions with highest density and lowest latency to meet these requirements. With the advanced features that Virtual SAN 6.2 delivers, such as deduplication and compression, erasure coding, software checksum and quality of service, our customers can now fully utilize the functionalities and capabilities of our all flash NVMe and SSD solutions and deploy them in their Tier 1 mission-critical applications, thereby increasing performance and lowering the overall TCO. Additionally, all of Supermicro’s VSAN Ready Nodes are available with the latest generation Intel processors (E5-2600 v4), which facilitates greater number of cores, density, performance and faster memory that is vital for virtual environments.

With the increased functionality of VMware HCS and Virtual SAN 6.2, Supermicro’s jointly validated VSAN Ready Nodes provide the peace of mind when it comes to configuration, order ability, deployment and service & support so that customers can focus on the most important part – which is running “their” business. All the above functionalities with pre-installed software are available in all of our different versions of the ready nodes, which our customers have embraced. With these new features and Supermicro’s all new NVMe solutions, customers can now deploy one homogenous VMware environment for all their datacenter needs, from mission-critical applications to archival needs. This further contributes to increased performance, peace of mind and an enjoyable user experience coupled with the lowest TCO.

The latest benchmark study on increased efficiency and economies achieved by deploying all flash solutions can be found on our website. More material on the different use cases and how the latest flash technologies enable end users in deploying the total solutions across the entire spectrum of their datacenters can be found at www.supermicro.com

Lastly, Supermicro’s partnership with VMware over the years has resulted in simplifying and accelerating the deployment of hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) architecture in the datacenters to reap the benefits of lower TCO and increased performance with reduced complexity. With the broadest selection of VSAN Ready Nodes and the most recent options that the program offers to further customize those, Supermicro continues to stay fully committed to bringing the latest innovations first to simplify and enhance the operations of data centers.

Sim Upadhyayula

Supermicro, Director of Solution Enablement

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Listen to Don Clegg, VP of Marketing and Business Development for Supermicro, discuss the latest introduction of VSAN Ready Nodes with pre-installed VMware Hyper-Converged Software: