HPE Helps SMBs Easily Flex and Scale IT to Accelerate Growth

Today, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced server and storage innovations to help small and midsized businesses (SMB) strike the right balance of hybrid IT today and as they grow, including solutions that provide a futureproof and risk-free path from entry to private cloud.

Resource-constrained SMBs are increasingly embracing a hybrid mix of on-prem and cloud infrastructure to help provide agility and efficiency as they grow. To support the right mix, HPE is announcing enhancements to its leading HPE StoreEasy Storage family including integrated cloud backup with Microsoft Azure as well as an expansion to the award-winning HPE ProLiant Easy Connect hybrid cloud platform and HPE Flex Solutions.

In addition, new enhancements to flash-ready HPE StoreVirtual 3200 Storage give even the most budget-constrained customers the ability to scale their storage up, out and across to meet changing business needs while also supporting a diverse set of unified file and block workloads – a first for the entry storage market.

The leading entry NAS platform under $15k just got a complete makeover

Unstructured data growth continues to be one of the biggest headaches for customers as they grow, and is a workload ideally suited to consolidation onto optimized infrastructure. To meet this need, HPE has enhanced the StoreEasy Storage portfolio through new configurations featuring the Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2016 Standard Edition operating system, the latest Intel® Xeon processors, and high-speed memory. These new platforms provide enhanced deduplication and compression to maximize usable space, include built-in tools to simplify capacity expansion and deliver new security and cloud-based protection features to reduce risk.

Already the densest 2U NAS appliance on the market, new 10TB drive bundles provide 25 percent greater density, allowing the HPE StoreEasy 1650 Expanded to scale up to 280 TB of internal capacity in just 2U, so more data can be consolidated without additional hardware. System administrators and HPE channel partners can configure automatic notifications and recommendations when it’s time to add capacity to the system. Once the new drives arrive, the system provides a best practices-based provisioning tool that optimizes for capacity and/or performance.

New security features within the HPE StoreEasy Storage family harden protection from man-in-the-middle attacks while data is in flight while providing up to 2X better encryption performance for large files. This augments the platform’s existing multi-dimensional security and data protection features.

Customers looking to transition to a hybrid IT approach can leverage the Microsoft Azure cloud as a backup target for data stored on HPE StoreEasy Storage systems. Using native Microsoft integration, it only takes a few simple steps to configure an off-site Azure vault that can be used for data restoration in the case of an outage or catastrophic failure. StoreEasy can also be used as an on-premises backup target for customers using Microsoft Data Protection Manager to protect Microsoft applications, virtual machines and client PCs.

New HPE ProLiant Easy Connect supports growing SMBs and more complex workloads

Combining the flexibility and scalability of the cloud with the security and control of on-premises IT, HPE has expanded the ProLiant Easy Connect family with the new HPE ProLiant Easy Connect ML110 Managed Hybrid Server. With support for up to 150 SMB users per site at any number of sites, the solution allows customers to maintain the right mix of cloud-based applications and on-premises control for business growth, more complex workloads and expansion to remote sites. Subscribers can purchase flexible subscription services based on 8, 10 or 14 HPE ProLiant ML 110 Gen9 Server cores—allowing businesses to grow without adding IT specialists, compromising security or giving up cloud flexibility.

HPE ProLiant Easy Connect is ideal for small businesses, education and enterprise multi-sites such as remote offices and branches. Customers with limited on-site IT resources benefit significantly as the solution is managed remotely from the cloud by HPE managed service provider (MSP) partners. Pre-integrated with cloud services, WiFi connection and managed remotely from the cloud, ProLiant Easy Connect provides an agile, scalable and on-demand IT solution.

Also new to HPE ProLiant Easy Connect:

• New high availability and 24×7 support options for customers who need protection against business disruption and data loss in the event of a system failure
• Aruba Central integration for centralized, proactive WiFi device monitoring with the potential to reduce the need for costly partner on-site visits
• Simplified management for MSPs thanks to integration with ConnectWise and Autotask, leading professional service automation tools.

New Just Right IT Flex Solutions Accelerate SQL Server with Flash

For customers looking for simple, proven solutions to accelerate time to value for Microsoft SQL Server, HPE has refreshed its Flex Solutions for Microsoft SQL Server featuring new hybrid flash HPE MSA 2042 Storage systems and support for Microsoft SQL Server 2016. These HPE Flex Solutions are lab tested and verified across servers, storage and networking using Microsoft SQL Server software to ensure performance-tuned, reliable and cost-effective solutions to address SMB needs.

Boost agility and resiliency with HPE StoreVirtual 3200 – multi-dimensional scale at an entry price

First introduced in August 2016, the HPE StoreVirtual 3200 is a next-gen alternative to traditional entry storage systems that lack the architectural flexibility to accommodate rapidly changing business needs. The flash-ready HPE StoreVirtual 3200 is the industry’s first storage array to use 64-bit ARM processors and is based on the same software-defined storage (SDS) operating system deployed over 200,000 times in HPE’s StoreVirtual VSA and Hyper Converged systems. This portfolio of StoreVirtual-based, SDS solutions provides a futureproof and risk-free path from entry to private cloud.

The HPE StoreVirtual 3200 enhancements introduce capabilities previously only seen in enterprise storage arrays, allowing customers to extend investments and respond more quickly to new demands with the ability to:

• Scale “up,” growing storage capacity and performance by adding additional drives or by adding additional drive enclosures to a pair of storage controllers.
• Scale “out,” easily doubling application performance, boosting maximum capacity and unlocking new resiliency options by grouping multiple controller pairs into a single storage cluster.
• Scale “across” by federating multiple clusters and using HPE Peer Motion to easily move workloads between StoreVirtual arrays.

These new scaling options enable customers to tailor resiliency to individual business needs, including stretch cluster and synchronous replication to protect from system- or site-wide outages with proven “five-nines” availability.

In addition, HPE StoreVirtual 3200 now supports 10GBase-T interconnects, allowing customers to reduce networking costs up to 40 percent by running 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections from hosts to storage over standard twisted-pair copper infrastructure already widely deployed within most IT environments.

HPE StoreVirtual 3000 File Controller Improves ROI and simplify management with new unified storage options

To help entry storage customers consolidate more workloads on less physical infrastructure, the new HPE StoreVirtual 3000 File Controller expands the capabilities of the HPE StoreVirtual 3200 system to serve both structured and unstructured data needs from the same pool of capacity.

The StoreVirtual 3000 File Controller enables file shares to be created in minutes with native Windows integration and full compatibility with Microsoft Windows Dynamic Access Controls. Customers can reduce costs with advanced data services like sub-file deduplication and compression for up to 60 percent capacity savings. Support for up to 2000 concurrent connections allows customers to easily consolidate end-user file access while integration with Microsoft Work Folders on user devices enables anywhere, anytime access to files and eliminates the cost and risk associated with un-sanctioned file sync and share services.

Built-in resiliency features include redundant hardware components and an online, self-healing file system while snapshots, replication and transparent client failover ensure seamless access to data. Security features include encryption for both data at rest and data in flight while the ability to run antivirus and backup software directly onboard the system provides an additional layer of protection.

Pricing and Availability

• Existing HPE StoreEasy customers running Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 or 2012 can take advantage of the new Upgrade Kit for HPE StoreEasy Storage for greater security and encryption plus optimized deduplication for larger volumes and files, available worldwide.
• HPE ProLiant Easy Connect Servers are available now across India.
• HPE Flex Solutions for Microsoft SQL Server 2016 are available worldwide now.
• HPE StoreVirtual 3200 storage systems are currently available worldwide.
• HPE StoreVirtual 3000 File Controllers are currently available worldwide.
• The latest software update for the StoreVirtual 3200 is available as a no-cost upgrade to existing customers, to be made available in the current calendar quarter.