In 2020, in the face of a global pandemic, reality has changed, and telecommuting has become a prerequisite for business survival - so teleworking in 2020 has become a full-fledged work day. When this reality changed, it turned out (all of a sudden?) That most enterprises are not ready for mass "remote", simply because they do not have the appropriate IT infrastructure.
As practice has shown, the ideal solution from the point of view of security and unification for organizing remote workplaces is the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), which has been on the market for quite a long time.
To address the challenges of building IT infrastructure for enterprise VDI, Lenovo, together with the world leader in hyperconverged solutions, Nutanix, developed and certified Lenovo ThinkAgile HX3375 and HX3376 specialized server solutions, which will be discussed in this article.
ThinkAgile HX3375 and HX3376. We figure out what's inside
The ThinkAgile HX3375 and HX3376 are a 2-socket 1U server powered by AMD EPYC 7002 processors with Nutanix software preinstalled. There are no technical differences between HX3375 and HX3376 - they are the same server, the main difference is Nutanix Acropolis OS licenses and Lenovo ThinkAgile Advantage unified technical support. The HX3375 includes pre-installed Nutanix Acropolis licenses (Starter, Pro, or Ultimate) and ThinkAgile Advantage support, while the HX3376 does not. Nutanix licenses for ThinkAgile HX3376 must be purchased separately. In this case, it is allowed to use existing Nutanix licenses purchased earlier.
Nutanix Acropolis software
ThinkAgile HX3375 and HX3376 solutions include preinstalled Nutanix AOS (Acropolis Operating System) software.
Nutainx AOS software does not use the traditional expensive SANs. It combines storage and compute resources from a single building block, the ThinkAgile HX3375 / 6 node, into a distributed hyperconverged system, where each compute node is in turn a unit of a shared storage cluster. As a result, each building block forms a unified horizontally scalable hyperconverged system without a single point of failure.
Nutanix software does not require the creation of classic RAID arrays, but uses the RAIN architecture, where the unit of possible failure is the entire server - the cluster node.
Distributed storage system (DSF) automatically arranges data in a cluster across different classes of disks using intelligent algorithms for data redistribution. To maximize performance, algorithms ensure that the most frequently accessed data is available in RAM or SSDs on the host.
There are three editions of Nutanix Acropolis OS in total, below is the difference between these editions.
| Feature
|
Nutanix software edition
|
|
|
| Starter
|
Pro
|
Ultimate
|
|
| Enterprise storage
|
|||
| Cluster size
|
12 nodes max
|
Unlimited
|
Unlimited
|
| Heterogeneous clusters
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Online cluster grow / shrink
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Storage containers
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| VM-centric snapshots and clones
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Data tiering
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Inline compression
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Inline performance (cache) deduplication
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Post-process compression
|
#
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Post-process capacity deduplication
|
#
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Erasure Coding (EC-X)
|
#
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Nutanix volumes
|
#
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| VM Flash Mode (Pin to SSD)
|
#
|
#
|
Yes
|
| Nutanix Files
|
Optional
|
Optional
|
Optional
|
| Nutanix Objects
|
Optional
|
Optional
|
Optional
|
| Infrastructure resilience
|
|||
| Data path redundancy
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Redundancy factor
|
2 (Fixed)
|
2 or 3 (Tunable)
|
2 or 3 (Tunable)
|
| Availability domains
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Data protection
|
|||
| Asynchronous replication and disaster recovery (DR)
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Application-consistent snapshots
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Local snapshots
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Cloud Connect (Backup to public clouds)
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Self-service restore
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Multiple site DR (many to many)
|
No
|
Optional*
|
Yes
|
| Metro availability
|
No
|
Optional*
|
Yes
|
| Synchronous replication and disaster recovery
|
No
|
Optional*
|
Yes
|
| Security
|
|||
| Client authentication
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Cluster lockdown
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Data-at-rest encryption
|
No
|
Optional
|
Yes
|
| Management and analytics
|
|||
| Prism Starter (Single- and multi-cluster management)
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Pulse (Automated service agent)
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Cluster health
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| One-click upgrades (Nutanix OS and Hypervisor)
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Rest APIs
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Virtualization
|
|||
| Built-in Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV)
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| VMware vSphere (ESXi)
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| VM management
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Intelligent VM placement
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Virtual network configuration
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Host profiles
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| VM high availability
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Self-service portal
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Built-in controls
In addition to Nutanix, the ThinkAgile HX3375 / 6 nodes include the Lenovo XClarity Controller Enterprise management software suite, which provides centralized remote management of Lenovo servers.
The XClarity Controller (XCC) is used to monitor server availability, provide remote control functionality (keyboard, video, mouse), support ISO and IMG image file attachment, and monitor energy utilization.
XClarity Administrator serves as a comprehensive equipment management tool, representing a single and convenient administrator console.
XClarity Energy Manager collects real-time power and temperature data from the server and provides automated control to reduce energy costs.
Iron question
Now let's go directly to the hardware.
The server is based on AMD EPYC 7002 processors supporting 64 cores (128 threads). For VDI, this is the most optimal solution due to considerations of running a large number of virtual workstations, each of which should be allocated processor cores.
The front panel of the server supports the installation of ten 2.5-inch hot-swappable storage devices, 6 of which are slots for classic SAS / SATA drives, and 4 for AnyBay, i.e. media that support NVMe installation.
Two implementations are supported at the back, in the standard version there are three PCIe slots for installing I / O cards. The alternative is to replace two of the three PCIe slots with two additional 2.5 "drives.
Both implementations also have standard VGA, USB control ports and two hot-swappable power supplies.
The systems also include a dedicated small form factor slot that meets the industry standard OCP 3.0 with PCIe 4.0 x16 interface. This slot supports a variety of Ethernet network adapters. The adapter replacement mechanism is extremely straightforward, using a thumb screw with a tongue, allowing the adapter to be inserted and removed without tools.
A two-socket motherboard is installed inside the server, with 16 TruDDR4 slots per socket. Each processor has 8 memory channels and 2 DIMMs per channel.
Using 128GB 3DS RDIMMs, the server supports up to 4TB of system memory.
The system has 6 or 8 internal fans that are hot-swappable.
A separate plus is the ability to support up to two single-width graphics processors, each with a power of up to 75 W, which allows you to very effectively use this server not only to run classic virtual workstations, but also as a graphics VDI node.
The hypervisor uses two M.2 drives in a RAID 1 configuration for increased reliability.
Below is an architectural block diagram of the ThinkAgile HX3375 / 6, showing the main components of the server and their connections. ThinkAgile HX3375 / 6
nodesboth in terms of hardware and in terms of pre-installed software, at the moment, they are perhaps one of the best solutions on the market for building VDI farms of any scale, from the smallest infrastructures of several dozen virtual workstations to huge enterprise-level clusters that can serve thousands or tens of thousands of user jobs.
Given the current situation with the widespread need for remote work, high-quality solutions for the infrastructure of virtual desktops are still relevant. For this reason, we are organizing a webinar " Lenovo-Nutanix ThinkAgile HX - the foundation of VDI infrastructure" and we invite everyone to participate in it.
Webinar program:
- Storage Optimization Tools for Desktops
- File servers for user profiles and data - Files
- Wide selection of brokers, from Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and VMware Horizon to Nutanix Frame cloud solution
- Q&A session
- Raffle prizes
You can sign up for the webinar at the LINK .