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In early June 2017, HPE confirmed the launch of its Generation-10 ProLiant servers, which the tech giant promised would incorporate the latest in storage and memory technology that it promised will be prepared for future versions of the technologies as they are released. With the launch of the new solution set to make waves in the tech world, we thought it best to give you the lowdown on Gen10, so read on for information on everything we know so far.

The lowdown

Speaking at last month’s HPE Discover event in Las Vegas, Susan Blocher - Vice President of Global Marketing Data Center for Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Infrastructure Group - vowed to peel back the layers on the Gen10 line of ProLiant servers, doing her bit to differentiate the new technology from the many other available offerings. Ms Blocher said that when designing the range, the business had three evolving customer needs in mind - agility, security and economic control.

These days, the vast majority of businesses are either actively involved in the world of the hybrid cloud, or at least entering into it. Although classic enterprise infrastructure businesses are providing more viable competition to Gen10, HPE has acknowledged that the public cloud is currently serving up the main threat.

The tech giant has time and time again stressed that the new Gen10 will represent the world’s most secure industry standard to date, which is likely a response to increasing business demand for servers that are protected against the growing threat of cyber attacks.

Evolving customer needs

It is widely known that business IT customers are also looking for better ease and speed of deployment, a reduction in latency and enhanced performance - all of which contribute to compromised agility. Speaking at the Las Vegas event, HPE also mentioned customers’ desire for pay-as-you-go, flexible consumption models to compete with public cloud, and the continuing need for better security to match rapidly evolving threats.

In order to meet these evolving customer needs, HPE lauded its scalable persistent memory - up to 1.5 terabytes - and the fact that it is the only server manufacturer to have any persistent memory in its product portfolio. On top of this, Gen10’s new Intelligent System Tuning feature is set to provide considerable performance improvements. According to HPE, Gen10 boasts 58% more storage on average per server than its competitors. It’s compelling stuff.

Regarding software-defined infrastructure, HPE claimed the new Gen10 will have the ability to update servers at an “unprecedented” scale, deploying as many as 10,000 servers within just minutes. HPE is also promising more flexible, scalable firmware update capability and a new streamlined user interface.

More control for users

With Gen10, HPE has confirmed its customers will have more economic control than ever before after research carried out by the organisation confirmed what we all thought - that businesses often end up paying for services they don’t use when purchasing business IT products. While one of the main benefits of the public cloud is to better control budgets, on premises solutions can often be oversubscribed.

The new capabilities of Flexible Capacity are billed as giving customers “the best of both worlds”, providing an ideal solution for larger enterprise customers. Smaller firms on the other hand are set to benefit from the new Capacity Care service, which takes some of Flexible Capacity’s key components and provides a dashboard from which organisations can monitor exactly when they need to add capacity to their network. What’s more, this new specification is expected to ease the procurement process for firms.

The matter of security

Gen10’s security feature is at the firmware level, with an integrated lights out (iLO) offering made from custom HPE silicon and iLO firmware. Its main aim is to reply to firmware attacks, and stop servers from executing compromised firmware code. HPE says the iLO chip has an immutable fingerprint in the silicon, preventing servers from starting up unless the firmware matches the fingerprint.

HPE has claimed no other server suppliers are offering the same level of security as with the new Gen10 products. Its “silicon root of trust” protection includes encryption and breach detection technologies, and is complemented by HPE supply chain security and HPE Pointnext security assessment and protection services.

There will be two software items for the Gen10 ProLiants:

  • Server management software product OneView 3.1 that will “transform compute storage and network into software-defined infrastructure”.
  • Intelligent System Tuning benefits from a partnership with Intel for Xeon Scalable Processors.

    Scalable Persistent Memory

    Gen10 ProLiants will have Scalable Persistent Memory, which looks set to be an update on HPE’s existing Persistent Memory feature. It will have terabyte-scale capacity running at memory speeds, which HPE claim will delivery the fastest persistent memory on the market at the moment. The tech giant claims the new product will bring 20-times faster restores, based on comparing restoring a Microsoft SQL Hekaton in-memory database with SSDs versus restoring with HPE Scalable Persistent Memory.

    What’s more, the pay-as-you-go options give users the chance to scale server resources up or down and only pay for what they actually use.

    The 10th generation of ProLiant servers will be available this summer, but if you need reminding of HPE’s previous ProLiant offerings, take a look at our infographic here.

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