Lenovo unveils data management solutions for enterprise AI

Lenovo has announced its latest data management innovation, launching the ThinkSystem DG Enterprise Storage Arrays and ThinkSystem DM3010H Enterprise Storage Arrays. These all-flash arrays are designed to simplify AI workload enablement and unleash the value of data.

The company has also revealed two integrated and engineered ThinkAgile SXM Microsoft Azure Stack servers. These provide a unified hybrid cloud option, streamlining data management.

Easing AI workloads with all-flash arrays

Businesses are confronting escalating challenges in scaling their operations to meet expanding data, security and sustainability demands. Lenovo said its new flash solutions offer expedited deployment of AI workloads. 

According to the company, the new solutions, fortified with ransomware protection, will provide enhanced security features across edge-to-cloud environments, promoting workload consolidation and facilitating faster insights.

The company said it recognizes the need for data management solutions to navigate diverse data complexities and to streamline storage, analysis and management. The new storage arrays aim to tackle these challenges by eliminating data silos and accelerating insights from data across hybrid multicloud environments.

“Delivering more efficient, easy-to-use end-to-end solutions is critical to enabling new workloads and customers to benefit from AI. The DG Series all-flash arrays will deliver new flash performance for petabyte-scale datasets to power AI workloads,” Stuart McRae, executive director and GM of data storage at Lenovo, told VentureBeat. “As AI becomes more ubiquitous and customers look to deploy distributed AI and AI at the edge, the new ThinkSystem DG Series will provide a new level of affordable flash performance and scalability for unstructured data.”

The Lenovo ThinkSystem DG Enterprise Storage Arrays are a new line of all-flash arrays (AFAs) with quad-level cell (QLC) memory technology. The company claims these arrays deliver up to six times faster performance and up to 50% cost savings compared to HDD arrays.

They are specifically designed to handle read-intensive enterprise AI workloads and large-dataset workloads, enabling faster data intake and accelerating time to insight.

New servers, better performance

Additionally, Lenovo introduced the ThinkAgile SXM4600 and SXM6600 servers, integrated systems designed for Microsoft Azure Stack Hub. These servers aim to streamline and expedite achieving value in Azure hybrid and multicloud environments. 

Lenovo claims these solutions offer significant enhancements, with transactional database performance improving up to 183% and a consolidation ratio of up to three-to-one for Microsoft applications.

“SXM servers provide Azure consistent services on-premises. This allows customers to extend Azure services to on-premises infrastructure, allowing them to meet business requirements such as data governance, latency, cost management, or integration with legacy technologies,” Lenovo’s McRae told VentureBeat. “This will greatly simplify setting up Azure hybrid ecosystems and accelerates time to value. The Azure Arc technology enables interoperability with multiple cloud technologies.” 

Lenovo’s ThinkAgile SXM solutions incorporate lifecycle management, easy integration with Azure, and the ability to extend applications across both public and private cloud infrastructures.

“For the new DG and all DM products, Lenovo is delivering new Unified Complete Software solutions that provide an all-in-one offering for all functions. Unified Complete also includes autonomous ransomware protection and hybrid cloud data management at no additional cost,” said McRae. “In Q4, all currently installed DM Series systems with Premium SW can upgrade to Unified Complete at no additional cost.”

Next-gen storage solutions for faster data inference

Lenovo said that the DG Series is designed for high-performance unstructured data. With six times the performance of legacy systems and scalability to more than 17 petabytes (PB) of data, the DG can scale to large AI datasets. It can manage about 1PB of data for edge inferencing in an efficient 2U design. 

The DG and DM storage solutions capitalize on the comprehensive Lenovo Unified Complete Software suite. This suite safeguards business data throughout the data’s lifecycle and incorporates features essential for combatting ransomware and protecting against data breaches. Ransomware protection is built in, as are multi-tenant key management and immutable file copies to improve data security.

Lenovo also points out that efficiency in power and design can contribute significantly to corporate sustainability. By lowering power consumption and minimizing the need for rack space and cooling in data centers, customers can reduce their carbon footprints.

That’s why Lenovo has developed DG storage solutions focused on improved efficiency, reduced power consumption and optimized cooling. The company says these solutions can deliver up to 25% power savings compared to hybrid arrays. Additionally, they facilitate workload consolidation, leading to reduced rack space and a smaller data center footprint.

“Compared to legacy arrays, the DG series delivers power-efficient flash capacity with advanced four-to-one data efficiency features that enable customers to consolidate multiple legacy hybrid storage devices to one efficient DB series solution,” said McRae. “The support for multi-protocol data (block, file, object) makes it simple to consolidate multiple storage devices to one efficient flash solution.”

TruScale: A server/storage model based on consumption

Lenovo also announced the launch of TruScale Infinite Storage, a server and storage model based on consumption, enabling customers to pay for the capacity they use on a monthly basis.

According to Lenovo, TruScale offers a service-based approach for DM and DG series storage. It includes non-disruptive technology upgrades and optional comprehensive management of the storage infrastructure.

“TruScale Infinite Storage provides a true cloud-like business experience on premise by delivering dynamic non-disruptive scaling of performance and capacity, as well as never having to worry about the infrastructure becoming obsolete,” added McRae.

The company said the Unified Complete software will be included with DG Series and upcoming DM products in the coming year. Partners and customers will no longer need to determine which features are required for specific datasets or manage separate license keys.