Lenovo Targets Midsize Businesses With New Edge-to-Cloud Solutions

Lenovo has announced a suite of edge-to-cloud IT infrastructure solutions designed for growing businesses to overcome resource limitations, optimize for remote work, and accelerate innovation. The solution, targeting midsize businesses, includes new server, storage, and service offerings, is a complete series of easy-to-use solutions and services to help with achieving intelligent transformation and business growth.

Midsize businesses make up 70 percent of the worldwide economy and workforce with projections indicating a significant increase in IT spend by 2026. As the digital transformation continues to accelerate globally, growing businesses must be able to quickly adapt to ever-changing market demands, achieve faster deployment, seamlessly manage resources and reduce security risks. Today, many organizations face limitations in IT staffing, skills, and funding, creating barriers to infrastructure transformation. The new cloud and on-prem server-based solutions from Lenovo provide reliable infrastructure and proven expertise that improves workforce productivity and allows businesses to start small, remain competitive, and grow.

Kamran Amini, VP and GM of Server & Storage, Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group, said:

“As the global digital transformation continues, the right IT infrastructure and services are at the heart of every business, unlocking intelligence that expands opportunities and fuels growth. Working with our broad system of channel partners and solution providers, Lenovo’s new IT infrastructure solutions and TruScale services for midsize businesses are optimized to help organizations improve customer service, accelerate sales and roll out next-generation applications so they can grow their business now and well into the future.”

Optimized Servers, Storage, Services

The new offering featuring optimized servers, storage, and services, provides businesses with the tools to unlock more value and accelerate growth with remote work and hybrid cloud solutions. Lenovo’s expanded portfolio features new single-socket ThinkSystem V2 Servers, newly enhanced Lenovo TruScale Infinite Storage, and a range of award-winning services.

The new ThinkSystem V2 servers provide a flexible, energy-efficient, and low-noise solution for constrained spaces inside and outside the data center making them an ideal solution for edge deployment. The new single-socket ThinkSystem ST50 V2, ST250 V2, and the SR250 V2 servers offer companies simple solutions that are easily tailored for running their business, including support for business-critical applications in retail, manufacturing, and financial services.

ThinkSystem Servers

The Lenovo ThinkSystem ST50 V2 is a small form-factor tower with an optional rack-mount kit. The ST50 V2’s compact size, rack-mount option, and quiet acoustics allow it to fit nicely into an office environment. It’s powered by the latest Intel Xeon E-2300 Processor or the Intel Pentium processor with up to 8 cores at 95W and is configurable with up to 64GB of memory in 4x DIMM slots using 16GB UDIMMs 3200MHz TruDDR4. Additionally, this compact server is delivered with support for three PCIe slots and has the capability to add a single NVIDIA GPU.

RAID is supported with Intel VROC software as well as support for multiple hardware RAID configurations. The system board includes an RJ45 GbE network interface.

Included is Lenovo’s XClarity Provisioning Manager Lite to enable easy setup and firmware upgrades, while Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) monitors system health and prevents data disruption.

The following figure shows the Lenovo ThinkSystem ST250 V2.

Features similar to the ST50 V2, The rackable Lenovo ThinkSystem ST250 V2 is a single-socket tower server. This server is delivered with either the Intel Xeon E-2300 Processor or Intel Pentium processor enabling up to 8 cores.As the business grows, the ST250 V2 has the capability to expand storage configurations with up to 16x 2.5-inch hot-swappable HDDs/SSDs, and two internal M.2 modules, while protecting data with various RAID options. NVIDIA GPU support is also available. The ST250 V2 server includes two GbE ports. Also included, Lenovo XClarity software, providing easy-to-use systems management and reducing provisioning time.

The Lenovo ThinkSystem SR250 V2 is a single-socket 1U rack server featuring optimized performance and flexibility for future growth, along with enterprise-class reliability, management, and security. The server supports one Intel Xeon E-2300 Series processor (formerly codenamed “Rocket Lake”) or Intel Pentium (“Comet Lake Refresh”) and up to 128 GB of 3200 MHz TruDDR4 ECC memory.

The figure below shows the Lenovo ThinkSystem SR250 V2 with ten 2.5-inch hot-swap drives.

Scalable internal storage configurations include up to ten 2.5-inch or four 3.5-inch drives with software RAID or advanced hardware RAID protection. A wide selection of drive sizes and types are supported, including NVMe PCIe SSDs, SAS/SATA SSDs, and SAS/SATA HDDs. The SR250 V2 features integrated dual-port 1 Gb Ethernet NIC and additional PCIe expansion slots, with one PCIe Gen4 to maximize performance. NVIDIA GPU is also supported by the SR250 V2.

The next-generation Lenovo XClarity Controller, which is built into the SR250 V2 server, provides advanced service processor control, monitoring, and alerting functions.

With GPU support, multiple PCIe slots, and lightning-quick TruDDR4 memory, enhanced performance and connectivity comes standard with the servers included in this solution. Lenovo XClarity software provides easy-to-use systems management and dramatically reduces provisioning time, while an array of XClarity integrators allow utilization of XClarity through external IT applications to streamline IT management and contain costs.

Storage Systems

In combination with ThinkSystem servers, the affordable Lenovo ThinkSystem DM5100F storage system is an all-flash SAN storage solution that adapts to new workloads, allowing businesses to start small and grow, as well as manage data from the edge to the cloud.

Powered by the ONTAP storage management software, the DM5100F delivers enterprise-class storage management capabilities with a wide choice of host connectivity options and enhanced data management features.

Built-in XClarity Management

The Lenovo XClarity management software gives companies an easy-to-use dashboard that can standardize, simplify and automate IT management tasks, enabling systems to be configured in as little as three minutes. The simplified approach to deployment and configuration can prevent up to 90 percent of typical service calls.

Lenovo TruScale for Hosted Desktops enables remote and branch office workers to be productive and secure from anywhere. To make it even easier to support those branches, Lenovo offers Professional Services Tokens, which can be purchased for hourly increments of IT technical expertise and service support.

Enhanced Recovery and Protection

Small and midsize businesses usually take the brunt of cyberattacks. In fact, according to a major provider of network services, 43 percent of cyberattacks target small and midsize businesses resulting in almost 60 percent of those attacked going out of business. To address the onslaught of cyberattacks, Lenovo offers ThinkSystem V2 servers with ThinkShield Security and ThinkSystem DM storage solutions with built-in automatic ransomware protection. For example, with Lenovo’s backup and recovery solution, integrated with Veeam software, businesses can stay protected from security risks, data loss, and unforeseen disruptions.

As the digital evolution continues, growing businesses have an opportunity to ready their IT infrastructure for the future so they can be more competitive. Lenovo’s suite of edge-to-cloud IT infrastructure solutions delivers options for growing small to medium businesses.

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