Lenovo Offers New ThinkServers for Cloud and Virtualization Deployments

Lenovo announced two new additions to the ThinkServer family—the ThinkServer RD530 and RD630 rack servers. Designed to easily integrate into existing IT infrastructures that handle complex workloads, the servers deliver the powerful processing power and memory capacity needed for compute-intensive deployments such as cloud and virtualized environments. Intelligent power consumption features help deliver a 160 percent improvement in performance per watt compared to previous generation Lenovo servers complement the servers’ raw horsepower. Additionally, built-in full redundancy reduces 90 percent of server downtime due to single point system failure, making the new ThinkServers ideal for IT departments needing high performance, scalability and high availability for even the most demanding applications.

The ThinkServer RD530 and RD630 servers offer a compelling value to companies seeking a rack server optimized to increase performance, maximize efficiency and ensure business continuity, as well as deliver the flexibility to manage different application requirements in the data center. Based on industry standard protocols and IPMI 2.0 compliant interfaces, customers can easily deploy the servers in hybrid server networks, allowing them to integrate the new ThinkServers without sacrificing their existing IT investments. IT managers can install the operating system and drivers using a two-click rapid deployment feature—enabling the servers to go into production within minutes of being racked—and integrated remote management tools make simple work of monitoring and maintenance.

“The size and scale of today’s enterprise data centers requires IT organizations to balance needs for uncompromised performance and cutting-edge power efficiency, while at the same time manage increasing amounts of data with fewer resources,” said Lu Yan, senior vice president, Think Product Group, Lenovo. “Whether organizations need a server platform for IT and web infrastructure, collaboration, business processing or decision support, the RD530 and RD630 ThinkServers deliver high performance and simple management with the unmatched reliability and value of Lenovo’s Think-branded business products.”

Available in either 1U (RD530) or 2U (RD630) configurations with tool-less rail kits for easy installation, Lenovo’s latest two-socket rack servers come equipped with choices of processors from the Intel® Xeon® E5-2600 product family. With up to eight cores per processor, the Intel processors achieve up to 30 percent greater CPU performance and more than twice the memory bandwidth compared to the current Lenovo server platform. Both servers feature up to 320GB of RAM deployable in 20 DIMM slots, hardware and advanced RAID (redundant array of independent disks) controller options and large memory capacity that provides full redundancy with up to eight (RD530) or 16 (RD630) hot-swappable hard drives.

Lenovo’s new ThinkServers also deliver impressive power savings and are up to 45 percent more efficient than previous generation Lenovo servers. Exclusive Smart Grid power management technology leverages Intel Node Manager® to scale power management to the data center level, simultaneously managing as many as 1,000 servers. SmartGrid can be used at each level of the data center hierarchy—rack, row, room or group—to provide IT policy-based, power management that increases server utilization while significantly lowering energy consumption and operating costs.

A new chassis design that improves thermal efficiency 30 percent and helps ensure uninterrupted performance in ambient temperatures up to 104ºF (40ºC), above the industry average of 95ºF (35ºC) enhances the power efficiency of the ThinkServer RD530 and RD630. The design also delivers an added benefit with improved fault tolerance, resulting in a 40 percent lower risk of failure due to vibration and shock issues. The servers further improve power consumption in the data center with high efficiency 80 PLUS Gold-rated power supplies, optional low voltage memory and fan speed control algorithms that compensate for altitude and temperature.

“Intel welcomes Lenovo’s new generation of server platforms. By utilizing the Intel Xeon processor E5 family’s leadership performance and breakthrough I/O capabilities, Lenovo is able to offer optimized solutions for customers across a broad spectrum of workloads,” said Boyd Davis, vice present and general manager of Intel’s Datacenter Infrastructure Group. “Lenovo’s new server platforms also take advantage of Intel Node Manager technology to provide customers with greater flexibility, control, and power management in their datacenters.”

Pricing and Availability
The ThinkServer RD530 and RD630 are available mid-June at www.lenovo.com or through Lenovo business partners. Prices for the ThinkServer RD530 and RD630 start at $2,399 and $2,699, respectively.