Lenovo debuts its ThinkServer family of products in South Africa, strengthening the company’s portfolio to offer a one-stop solution for enterprises and small and medium-sized business (SMB) clients. The ThinkServer product portfolio includes Rack Servers suited for cloud deployments, database or virtualisation workloads, as well as Tower Servers designed to manage business’s file/print and point-of-sale workloads.

Commenting on the introduction of Lenovo’s latest server offering, Lee Allcorn, Enterprise Business Group Leader at Lenovo MEA, said “Lenovo is well positioned as a strong global contender in the enterprise and SMB market, offering customers complete end-to-end solutions, including storage, server, networking and related software and services. The launch of ThinkServer in South Africa is a testament to our commitment to our clients in the country who desire exceptional performance, reliability and easy-to-use tools and solutions.”  

Allcorn added “In a market of approximately 8,000 units per quarter, single and dual socket servers make up 95% of the local market demand with tower and rack form factors representing 37% and 47% respectively. System X has historically achieved a 10% market share, and ThinkServer is an ideal SMB complement for our existing System X product range.” He continues, “ThinkServer embodies the attributes that are synonymous with all our Think products: rock-solid engineering, intuitive manageability, increased efficiency and best performance to provide a superior user experience.”

ThinkServer Rack Servers

The ThinkServer Rack Servers have a balanced design and are built for future-ready businesses. ThinkServer Racks offer prime performance, power-efficient designs and extensive standard features at an affordable price.  For example, the ThinkServer RS140 is a compact, entry-level 1U rack server with a purposeful design for small business or distributed environments. The RS140 runs a range of operating systems, including client OS capability for retail applications. It is among the quietest models in the industry, and it features easy-to-use, industry-standard management tools. The RS140 also has networking scalability and a wider range of processor support from Intel Core i3 to Intel Xeon. In addition, the RS140 can support 4-post and 2-post racks, offering more flexibility when it comes to business footprint. In addition to the RS140, other Rack Server models launched by Lenovo include RD350, RD450, RD550 and RD650.

ThinkServer Tower Servers

The ThinkServer Tower Servers are designed to provide performance, reliability and easy-to-use tools to be able to handle heavy workloads at an affordable budget. A case in point is the ThinkServer TS140, an affordable 4U enterprise-class server. The ThinkServer TS140 is a true server with enterprise-class Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3 series processors — providing a 15 percent performance increase over Lenovo’s previous-generation towers, giving businesses the power they require to run effectively. The TS140 includes reliability features such as error correcting code (ECC) memory and an on board storage controller with the capability of implementing up to RAID 5 to safeguard data.

As well as being affordable, the TS140 is upgradeable, allowing for the addition of up to 16TB of storage, up to 32GB of memory, and 4 PCI/PCIe slots. It also offers simple tools for deployment, monitoring, and on-going management. For example, the TS140 comes standard with the latest Intel Advanced Management Technology (AMT) 9.0 so many models can be accessed and managed from a remote location. The ThinkServer Tower Server models launched by Lenovo include TS140, TS440, TD340 and TD350.

ThinkServer Success Story

Several international Lenovo clients have already experienced the benefits of ThinkServer for their business systems. One such client is a German petrol station forecourt operator, which had been using standard desktop PCs as branch servers in more than 800 forecourts across Germany. The systems were under strain because many of the stations operate around the clock, meaning there was a high system failure rate, with the impact being that the gas stations would be unable to process payments. The additional technical support was also costly for the forecourt operator. When the operator started using the ThinkServer TS140, it could enjoy server-quality systems throughout its branches, for the price of a regular PC, for the first time. It also saves on technical support costs because the new hardware is more reliable, requiring less maintenance.

Extended Growth in the Server Market

In addition to the launch of ThinkServers in the country, Lenovo recently completed the integration of X86 servers in the country, extending the company’s capabilities in enterprise hardware and services – positioning Lenovo as a top player in the server market.  Organisations from IT businesses to healthcare and education institutions and logistics companies are all making use of the System X servers to enhance their business systems.

Croatian web hosting provider, Avalon, wanted to expand its operations with a new business in the US, and the first step was to build a new IT environment. Avalon chose to deploy the highly scalable System X infrastructure to ensure that American customers received the same service levels as their European counterparts, while giving Avalon room to grow.

Caris Life Sciences is continuously advancing its molecular profiling for cancer patients, and as a result the company’s needs for managing high-performance analytics and storage of up to a terabyte of data per patient have grown exponentially. Its next-generation sequencing (NGS) processes are now fully supported by NeXtScale System servers.

Technische Universität Darmstadt needed the right supercomputing solution to support the increasingly large and complex simulations required for state-of-the-art research. By deploying a supercomputing environment based on System X technology, the university delivers extreme performance for a broad range of research, paving the way for ground-breaking achievements.

To cut energy costs and free its IT team from routine administration, Europe Airpost consolidated its existing landscape of 100 virtual servers and 250 virtual workstations to an expert-integrated PureFlex solution. They were able to reduce application response times by up to 33 percent. Now, the company can deliver business services through a private cloud for efficient service in a highly competitive industry.

By combining Lenovo’s global reach, efficiency and operational excellence with IBM’s legendary quality, innovation and service, Lenovo will have competitive advantages to drive profitable growth and build the company into an enterprise leader. Allcorn concluded, “Customers are faced with the challenge of driving efficiencies and improving performance, while reducing operating costs. The ThinkServer portfolio is designed to achieve the right balance of performance, power-efficient designs and reliability, meeting the changing demands of IT in their businesses.”