HPE Superdome Flex: A Mission Critical Marvel
APRIL 4, 2019 • BLOG POST • JEFF KYLE, VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, HPE MISSION CRITICAL SOLUTIONS
IN THIS ARTICLE
- HPE Superdome Flex increases enterprise adoption with SAP HANA, T-Systems and more
- Next-generation HPE Superdome Flex server enables scientific communities like COSMOS to unlock new insight on the universe
HPE Superdome Flex server gains momentum since launch with industry collaborations and enhanced features using latest Intel technologies
The stars align
In November 2017, we unveiled the HPE Superdome Flex server. It was a momentous time. Following HPE´s acquisition of Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI), our engineering teams quickly came together to combine respective innovation in scale-up, shared memory computing. HPE Superdome and SGI UV systems were recognized as the two most powerful x86 servers in the industry, one in enterprise data centers and the other in science and engineering environments, and with complementary technologies. Superdome came with extreme RAS capabilities, broad OS support, and enterprise manageability. UV had a unique modular architecture able to address small and large environments seamlessly. Superdome Flex brought together the best of both systems. Sometimes stars do truly align.
So it was only fitting that the United Kingdom’s COSMOS advanced supercomputing facility founded by the late Stephen Hawking, was an early Superdome Flex customer. In an extraordinary video showcasing how COSMOS is unlocking the secrets of the universe with in-memory computing, we met Dr. James Ferguson. We recently caught up with Dr. Ferguson about his remarkable work over the past year in this new podcast. It’s captivating.
Back on Earth
HPE Superdome Flex has understandably been well-received in technical, high performance computing environments. It’s caught fire in the enterprise - spanning industries, geographies, and environments of all sizes. With SAP HANA, Superdome Flex quickly rose to number one in scale-up and scale-out capacity among all SAP-certified systems, and adding to its leadership, was recently certified at 32 sockets and 24TB of shared memory. It’s rising to become our most popular enterprise system, and when more than 40 percent of all SAP HANA servers deployed are from HPE, that’s saying something.
By meeting customer need for greater performance while reducing licensing costs, Superdome Flex has caught the attention of IT teams managing Oracle - it’s about increasing performance per core. And it is has the eye of Microsoft SQL Server users who are considering Linux, upgrading from SQL Server 2008, or eager to accelerate data analytics. The in-memory computing capabilities of Superdome Flex are also attracting software developers themselves, and why we have made a “sandbox” available to reimagine what's possible.
A new star is born
Today, I’m excited to introduce our next generation HPE Superdome Flex server. Featuring the recognizable modular, future-ready, scale-up design, as well as superior RAS to achieve the highest service levels, the new server utilizes 2nd generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors with choice of Gold or Platinum to deliver 4-32 sockets and up to 896 cores for high demand applications. It brings new, faster DDR4 memory technology to provide 768GBs to 48TBs of shared memory. And furthering the system’s flexibility, our next-generation Superdome Flex offers high performance DRAM or a combination of DRAM and HPE PersistentMemory pending upon workload needs. You can learn more here.
German global IT services and consulting company, T-Systems, has been leveraging our previous Superdome Flex to deliver cloud-based solutions. We asked them to test our next generation system and Lars Micheel, CTO for the SAP Portfolio Unit, provided his initial assessment:
“Our customers are on the path toward a real-time digital enterprise, and their SAP HANA environments are demanding and growing. With HPE Superdome Flex, T-Systems is well equipped to deliver end-to-end SAP HANA solutions that grow seamlessly with our customers business, while providing the reliability they need as they deploy critical SAP HANA environments as part of their digital transformation journey. We are experiencing positive results in our tests with the next generation HPE Superdome Flex providing HPE PersistentMemory, and look forward to capitalizing on the full potential of this platform to continue helping our customers transform their business.“
Building on the path to Memory-Driven Computing, our next generation Superdome Flex is the result of thousands of engineering team-hours. And like all HPE mission critical solutions, with a common objective – to help customers go further, faster, 24x7. Our innovation journey continues.