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Lenovo Data Centre boosts cloud strategy with HCI partnerships

Sibahle Malinga
By Sibahle Malinga, ITWeb senior news journalist.
Johannesburg, 05 Oct 2020
Bevan Lock, technical sales lead at Lenovo Data Centre Group.
Bevan Lock, technical sales lead at Lenovo Data Centre Group.

Lenovo Data Centre Group SA has ramped up its hybrid cloud strategy to help local organisations keep pace with their evolving digital transformation needs and adapt their business according to the requirements of the ”new normal” presented by COVID-19 disruptions.

The Chinese multinational technology company’s data centre division offers flexible pay-per-use cloud and edge computing capabilities, smart infrastructure solutions, security capabilities for corporate data and virtualisation solutions.

Lenovo Data Centre Group has collaborated with Microsoft, Nutanix and VMware to introduce new hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) solutions, aimed at simplifying the management of data centres and services.

The new solutions combine common data centre hardware using locally attached storage resources with intelligent software to create flexible building blocks that replace organisations’ legacy infrastructure.

In a telephonic interview with ITWeb, Bevan Lock, technical sales lead at Lenovo Data Centre Group, said since Lenovo introduced hyper-converged solutions four years ago, it has seen double-digit growth in SA.

As part of its focus on providing local firms with agile and preconfigured edge-to-hybrid cloud solutions, the company’s new solutions aim to simplify the deployment and management of data to help organisations achieve greater productivity and agility within IT teams.

“Our hyper-converged strategy is premised on our ability to help customers make the most of their digital transformation strategy.

“We have partnered with the leaders in hyper-convergence solutions and we want to be the partner of choice to our customers, end-users, our resellers and distributors, and importantly, a partner of choice to our software vendors which are driving hyper-converged technologies into the local market.

“This is especially important during a time when organisations are looking to provide maximum support and flexibility to their customers and staff, some of whom are still working remotely, and in different locations across the country,” noted Lock.

In collaboration with Microsoft, Lenovo has announced the new Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Azure Stack HCI Edge and data centre solutions, enabling organisations to rapidly deploy a hybrid cloud infrastructure.

This enables Lenovo and Azure customers to get a one-stop shop for Azure Stack HCI with the new ThinkAgile MX appliances, to provide easy deployment and management of Azure services from edge-to-core-to-cloud.

Lenovo, in partnership with Nutanix, developed the new Lenovo ThinkAgile HX HCI solutions to enable organisations to run their virtual desktop workloads and maintain consistent performance (in the same 1U form factor), with up to 50% fewer servers.

In collaboration with VMware, Lenovo has developed the ThinkAgile VX HCI Solutions, to improve agility and reliability for SAP HANA database deployments.

The COVID-19 crisis has become a driver for change and innovation, pushing many local organisations to do things differently regarding their digitisation strategy, said Lock.

“The flip side of COVID-19 is that change brings innovation. One of the greatest uses for hyper-converged is to build a virtual desktop environment or infrastructure, and with so many employees still working remotely, it’s about how to support those infrastructures, and provide utmost security. Our partnership with these three organisations makes it easier for organisations to deploy remote working solutions and break down the longstanding digital barriers that many organisations face today,” Lock continues.

To guide business leaders through their cloud strategy and execution, Lenovo has introduced workshops to pair customers with its principal consultants to simplify and streamline the many options across multiple cloud platforms.

“We are definitely seeing an increase in the demand for hybrid cloud in SA, as more organisations seek to run some workloads in-house, which has many benefits, including a degree of control over facilities – hyper-converge helps them get the most out of that.

“While global cloud players like Oracle, Google and Amazon Web Services, which specialise in public cloud offerings, have seen growth and demand for their services, at the same time, in the local market we’ve been seeing significant growth from local players who are building their own cloud offerings and they’ve been able to leverage local expertise and a great understanding of the local market. This helps local organisations become more efficient in their cloud journey while reducing costs and ensuring they provide a better service.”

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