Lenovo ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliance for SAP HANA (Xeon SP Gen 1)

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series appliances combine industry-leading hyperconvergence software from Nutanix with Lenovo enterprise platforms that feature Intel Xeon Processor Scalable family. These appliances deliver the industry’s most feature-rich hyperconverged infrastructure to enterprise datacenters, bringing the benefits of web-scale technologies to enterprise applications through enterprise storage, data protection, infrastructure resilience, management and analytics, and security.

The ThinkAgile HX7820 for SAP HANA is a 4U rack-mount appliance that supports four processors, up to 6 TB of 2666 MHz TruDDR4 memory, up to 24 drives for all flash storage capacity with optional NVMe PCIe cache acceleration, and flexible network connectivity options with 1/10 GbE RJ-45, 10 GbE SFP+, and 10/25 GbE SFP28 ports.

The ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliance for SAP HANA is certified by SAP for deploying SAP HANA solutions on hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) in production environments.

The ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliance for SAP HANA is shown in the following figure.

Figure 1. Lenovo ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliance for SAP HANA

The ThinkAgile HX Series appliances are built on industry-leading Lenovo ThinkSystem servers that feature enterprise-class reliability, management, and security.

The ThinkAgile HX Series appliances offer ThinkAgile Advantage Single Point of Support for quick 24/7 problem reporting and resolution.

The ThinkAgile HX Series Appliances for SAP HANA offer the following key features:

• Certified to run SAP HANA in production on hyperconverged infrastructure.
• Factory-integrated, pre-configured ready-to-go appliances built on proven and reliable Lenovo ThinkSystem servers that provide compute power for SAP HANA workloads and powered by industry’s most feature-rich hyperconverged infrastructure software from Nutanix.
• Provide quick and convenient path to implement a hyperconverged solution powered by Nutanix with "one stop shop" and a single point of contact provided by Lenovo for purchasing, deploying, and supporting the solution.
• Meet workload demands with performance-optimized all-flash storage configurations.
• Deliver fully validated and integrated hardware and firmware that is certified with Nutanix software.
• Include Lenovo ThinkAgile Advantage Single Point of Support for quick 24/7 problem reporting and resolution.
• Offer Lenovo deployment services to get customers up and running quickly.

The Nutanix software running on the HX Series appliances deliver the following key features:

• A natively integrated solution for data protection and continuous availability at VM granularity that gives administrators an affordable range of options to meet the recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO) for different applications.
• A fault resistant platform, with no single point of failure and no bottlenecks with shared-nothing architecture, where all data, metadata and services are distributed to all nodes within the cluster, that is built to detect, isolate and recover from failures anywhere in the system.
• An intuitive user-centric management experience to simplify every aspect of the IT infrastructure lifecycle and provide a single pane of glass to monitor and control Nutanix clusters, with simplified workflows and rich automation for common administrative tasks.
• Powerful security features, such as two-factor authentication and data-at-rest encryption, with a security development lifecycle that is integrated into product development to help customers meet the most stringent security requirements.

The following figure shows the front view of the HX7820 Appliance for SAP HANA.

Figure 2. HX7820 for SAP HANA front view

The front of the HX7820 Appliance for SAP HANA includes the following components:

• 16x SAS/SATA and 8x AnyBay SFF hot-swap drive bays
• One VGA port
• One USB 2.0 port with XClarity Controller access
• One USB 2.0 port
• A power button
• Status LEDs
• A Pull-out LCD panel

The rear of the HX7820 Appliance for SAP HANA includes the following components:

• I/O Tray:
  • Three PCIe slots
  • One ML2 slot
  • One LOM card slot
• One 1 GbE port for XClarity Controller
• One DB-9 serial port
• Two USB 3.0 ports
• One VGA port
• Four hot-swap power supplies

The following table lists the system specifications of the ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliances for SAP HANA.

Factory-integrated models of the ThinkAgile HX Series appliances are configured by using the Lenovo Data Center Solution Configurator (DCSC):
http://dcsc.lenovo.com

During the configuration process, you are selecting one of the base Configure-to-Order (CTO) models first, and then you are adding components (processors, memory, drives, and network adapters) to the selected model according to the output from the Nutanix Sizer tool:
http://services.nutanix.com/

Note: You are required to engage a Lenovo representative in the project that includes the ThinkAgile HX Series appliances.

The following table lists the base CTO model of the ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliance for SAP HANA.

The following table lists the base chassis for the HX7820 appliance.

The HX7820 Appliances for SAP HANA ship with the following items:

• Electronic Publications Flyer
• Fixed Rail Kit
• Four customer-selected power cables

The ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliance for SAP HANA ships with four processors. The following table lists the processor options that are available for selection.

It is possible to add two more processors to the models with two processors after the initial deployment by acquiring processor options and additional core capacity license options (see Software for details).

The following table lists the specifications of the processors for the appliances.

The ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliances for SAP HANA support Lenovo TruDDR4 memory. TruDDR4 memory uses the highest-quality components sourced from Tier 1 DRAM suppliers and only memory that meets strict requirements is selected. It is compatibility tested and tuned to maximize performance and reliability.

The ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliances for SAP HANA support 24 or 48 DIMMs. Each processor has six memory channels, and there are two DIMMs per channel.

It is possible to expand memory capacity after the initial deployment by adding more memory DIMMs to match one of the supported memory configurations.

The ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliance for SAP HANA provides 16x SAS/SATA and 8x AnyBay SFF hot-swap drive bays for configurable storage capacity, and it contains two internal M.2 SATA non-hot-swap SSDs configured in a RAID-1 drive group for software preload.

Configuration note: Two M.2 SATA SSDs are required for selection, and they must be of the same model and capacity. 

The following tables list the drive selection options.

The ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliances for SAP HANA provide two- or four-port 1/10 GbE RJ-45 or 10 GbE SFP+ network connectivity with the onboard Intel X722 NIC and a LOM card installed in the appliance. The appliances also provide four 10/25 GbE SFP28 ports with two Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx dual-port adapters.

The following table lists the network adapters.

Configuration notes:

• One of the 1/10 GbE RJ-45 or 10 GbE SFP+ LOM cards is required for selection.
• Additional two or four 10/25 GbE network ports can be selected, if needed, and they occupy the PCIe slots 5 and 6.
• Supported transceivers or DAC cables should be purchased for the SFP+ or SFP28 ports, and UTP Category 6 cables should be purchased for the 10 GbE RJ-45 ports. The maximum number of transceivers or cables that are supported per adapter equals the quantity of the adapter ports, and all adapter ports must have the same type of the transceiver or cable selected.

  The following transceivers and cables can be purchased:

  • UTP cables for 10 GbE RJ-45 ports
  • Transceivers and cables for 10 GbE SFP+ ports
  • Transceivers and cables for 25 GbE SFP28 ports

The following table lists cables for the 10 GbE RJ-45 ports.

The following table lists transceivers and cables for the 10 GbE SFP+ ports.

The following table lists transceivers and cables for the 25 GbE SFP28 ports.

The ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliances for SAP HANA ship with four 1600 W (230V) High Efficiency hot-swap power supplies listed in the following table.

The ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliances for SAP HANA ship with four customer-configured power cords. The following table lists the rack power cables and line cords that can be ordered for the HX7820 Appliances for SAP HANA.

The HX7820 Appliances for SAP HANA ship with the rail kit shown in the following table.

The following table summarizes the rail kit features and specifications.

* While certain servicing tasks require the appliance to be removed from the rack cabinet, the majority of appliance components can be serviced from the front or rear of the appliance, which does not require the removal of the appliance from the rack cabinet.
** If a 0U PDU is used, the rack cabinet must be at least 1100 mm (43.31 in.) deep.
^ Measured when mounted on the rack, from the front surface of the front mounting flange to the rear most point of the rail.

The ThinkAgile HX Series for SAP HANA appliances support the following software components:

• Hypervisor
• Nutanix Acropolis
• Nutanix Prism
• Nutanix Calm (optional)
• Nutanix Flow (optional)
• SAP HANA

Note: For the information on appliance firmware levels, hypervisor versions, and software versions that have been tested for interoperability, refer to the Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series Best Recipes:
http://datacentersupport.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht505413

Hypervisor

The ThinkAgile HX7820 for SAP HANA supports the Nutanix AHV hypervisor (Bundled with AOS) that is factory-preinstalled on the 2x M.2 SSDs configured in a RAID-1 drive group. The following table lists the hypervisor available for selection.

Nutanix Acropolis

The ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliances for SAP HANA can be configured with one of the Nutanix software editions that are listed in the following table. The Nutanix software is factory-preloaded and the appropriate license can be downloaded from the Nutanix website to match the serial number of the appliance.

Configuration note: The HX7820 Appliances for SAP HANA can be deployed as a cluster of 3 or more nodes (AOS 5.9 or later).

The Starter edition offers the core set of Nutanix software functionality. This edition is ideal for small-scale deployments with a limited set of workloads.

The Pro edition offers rich data services, along with resilience and management features. This edition is ideal for enterprises running multiple applications on a Nutanix cluster or with large-scale single workload deployments.

The Ultimate edition offers the full suite of Nutanix software capabilities to tackle complex infrastructure challenges. This edition is ideal for multi-site deployments.

The following table compares features of the Nutanix software editions.

* Requires a separate license.
^ Software-based encryption that uses standard drives.

The ThinkAgile HX Series appliances for SAP HANA support the following systems management tools:

• Lenovo XClarity Controller
• Light path diagnostics
• Lenovo XClarity Administrator and XClarity Pro
• Lenovo XClarity Energy Manager

Lenovo XClarity Controller

The ThinkAgile HX appliances contain Lenovo XClarity Controller (XCC) Enterprise, which provides advanced service-processor control, monitoring, and alerting functions.

Virtual Operator Panel provides quick access to system status, firmware, network, health, and alerts information. With proper authentication, it also allows to configure systems management and network settings and to control system power (Power on, Power off, Restart). The Virtual Operator Panel can be accessed from the XClarity Mobile App running on the Android or iOS mobile device that is connected to the front USB port with XClarity Controller access (See Components and connectors).

Light path diagnostics

The HX7820 appliances include basic light path diagnostics, which provides the system LEDs on the front of the appliance (see Components and connectors) and the LEDs near the monitored components (for example, the DIMM error LEDs on the system board). Also, the appliances offer an LCD display panel, which provides quick access to system status, firmware, network, and health information.

Lenovo XClarity Administrator and XClarity Pro

Lenovo XClarity Administrator is a centralized systems management solution that helps administrators deliver infrastructure faster. This solution integrates easily with Lenovo x86 servers, appliances, certified nodes, Top-of-Rack Ethernet switches, and storage systems, providing automated agent-less discovery, inventory, monitoring, and alerts across multiple systems. In addition, some managed endpoints support firmware updates and configuration management.

Lenovo XClarity Administrator is an optional software component for the ThinkAgile HX Series appliances which can be used to manage firmware upgrades outside of the Nutanix Prism software.

Lenovo XClarity Energy Manager license is included in the XClarity Controller Enterprise upgrade.

For more information, refer to the Lenovo XClarity Energy Manager web page:
http://datacentersupport.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/lnvo-lxem

The ThinkAgile HX7820 Appliances for SAP HANA have the following dimensions and weight (approximate):

• Height: 173 mm (6.8 in.)
• Width: 447 mm (17.6 in.)
• Depth: 800 mm (31.5 in.)
• Weight (maximum): 58.7 kg (129.4 lb)

The ThinkAgile HX Series appliances comply with ASHRAE class A2 specifications. The appliance performance might be impacted when the operating temperature is outside the ASHRAE A2 specifications. Some HX7820 appliances comply with ASHRAE class A3 and class A4 specifications, provided the following configuration requirement is met: Processors with TDP more than or equal to 150 W not installed.

The HX Series appliances are supported in the following environment:

• Air temperature:
  • Operating:
    • ASHRAE Class A4: 5 °C - 45 °C (41 °F - 113 °F); for altitudes above 900 m (2,953 ft), decrease the maximum ambient temperature by 1 °C for every 125-m (410-ft) increase in altitude
    • ASHRAE Class A3: 5 °C - 40 °C (41 °F - 104 °F); for altitudes above 900 m (2,953 ft), decrease the maximum ambient temperature by 1 °C for every 175-m (574-ft) increase in altitude
    • ASHRAE Class A2: 10 °C - 35 °C (50 °F - 95 °F); for altitudes above 900 m (2,953 ft), decrease the maximum ambient temperature by 1 °C for every 300-m (984-ft) increase in altitude
  • Non-operating: 5 °C - 45 °C (41 °F - 113 °F)
  • Storage: -40 °C - +60 °C (-40 °F - 140 °F)
• Maximum altitude: 3,050 m (10,000 ft)
• Humidity:
  • Operating:
    • ASHRAE Class A4: 8% - 90% (non-condensing); maximum dew point: 24 °C (75 °F)
    • ASHRAE Class A3: 8% - 85% (non-condensing); maximum dew point: 24 °C (75 °F)
    • ASHRAE Class A2: 8% - 80% (non-condensing); maximum dew point: 21 °C (70 °F)
  • Storage: 8% - 90% (non-condensing)
• Electrical: 200 - 240 (nominal) V AC; 50 Hz / 60 Hz
• Acoustics (maximum configuration, operating): 6.1 bels
• Vibration:
  • Operating: 0.21 G rms at 5 Hz to 500 Hz for 15 minutes across 3 axes
  • Non-operating: 1.04 G rms at 2 Hz to 200 Hz for 15 minutes across 6 surfaces
• Shock:
  • Operating: 15 G for 3 milliseconds in each direction (positive and negative X, Y, and Z axes)
  • Non-operating:
    • 12 kg - 22 kg: 50 G for 152 in./sec velocity change across 6 surfaces
    • 23 kg - 31 kg: 35 G for 152 in./sec velocity change across 6 surfaces

The ThinkAgile HX Series appliances conform to the following regulations:

• United States FCC Part 15, Class A
• Canada ICES-003/NMB-03, Class A
• UL/CSA 60950-1
• Mexico NOM-019
• Argentina IEC60950-1
• Japan VCCI, Class A
• Australia/New Zealand AS/NZS CISPR 22, Class A
• China CCC GB4943.1, GB9254 Class A, GB17625.1
• Taiwan BSMI CNS13438, Class A; CNS14336-1
• Korea KN22, Class A; KN24
• Russia/GOST ME01; IEC-60950-1; GOST R 51318.22, 51318.24, 51317.3.2, and 51317.3.3
• IEC 60950-1 (CB Certificate and CB Test Report)
• Europe CE Mark (EN55022 Class A, EN60950-1, EN55024, EN61000-3-2, EN61000-3-3)
• CISPR 22, Class A
• Germany TUV-GS (EN60950-1/IEC60950-1, EK1-ITB2000)
• Reduction of Hazardous Substances (ROHS)
• Energy Star 3.0

The ThinkAgile HX Series appliances can be configured with a three-, four, or five-year hardware warranty with 24x7 ThinkAgile Advantage Single Point of Support (Lenovo appliance hardware and Nutanix software) and various levels of coverage with a well-defined scope of services, including service hours, response time, term of service, and service agreement terms and conditions.

The Lenovo local support centers perform problem determination and resolution for hardware-related issues and escalate to Nutanix, on behalf of the customer, for software-related problem determination. Nutanix will contact the customer and will own the software-related problem resolution until closure.

The base warranty provides 9x5 Next Business Day response with parts delivered. Lenovo’s additional support services provide a sophisticated, unified support structure for a customer's data center, with an experience consistently ranked number one in customer satisfaction worldwide.

The following Lenovo support services are available for selection:

• Premier Support provides a Lenovo-owned customer experience and delivers direct access to technicians skilled in hardware, software, and advanced troubleshooting, in addition to the following capabilities:  
  • Direct technician-to-technician access through a dedicated phone line.
  • 24x7x365 remote support.
  • Single point of contact service.
  • End to end case management.
  • 3rd Party collaborative software support. 
  • Online case tools and live chat support.
  • On-demand remote system analysis.
• Warranty service level upgrades (Preconfigured Support) are available to meet the on-site response time targets that match the criticality of customer's systems:
  • 3, 4, or 5 years of service coverage.
  • Foundation Service: 9x5 service coverage with next business day onsite response, with optional YourDrive YourData.
  • Essential Service: 24x7 service coverage with 4-hour onsite response or 24-hour committed repair (available only in select regions), bundled with YourDrive YourData.
  • Advanced Service: 24x7 service coverage with 2-hour onsite response or 6-hour committed repair (available only in select regions), bundled with YourDrive YourData.
• Managed Services

  Lenovo Managed Services provide continuous 24x7 remote monitoring (plus 24x7 call center availability) and proactive management of a customer's data center using state of the art tools, systems, and practices by a team of highly skilled and experienced Lenovo services professionals.

  Quarterly reviews check error logs, verify firmware and operating system device driver levels, and software as needed. Lenovo will also maintain records of latest patches, critical updates, and firmware levels, to ensure customer's systems are providing business value through optimized performance.

• Technical Account Management (TAM)

  A Lenovo Technical Account Manager helps customers optimize operations of their data centers based on a deep understanding of customer's business. Customers gain direct access to a Lenovo TAM, who serves as their single point of contact to expedite service requests, provide status updates, and furnish reports to track incidents over time. Also, a TAM helps proactively make service recommendations and manage service relationship with Lenovo to make certain that customer's needs are met.

• Enterprise Software Support

  Lenovo Enterprise Software Support is an additional support service that provides customers with software support on Microsoft, Red Hat, SUSE, and VMWare applications and systems. Around the clock availability for critical problems plus unlimited calls and incidents helps customers address challenges fast, without incremental costs. Support staff can answer troubleshooting and diagnostic questions, address product compatibility and interoperability issues, isolate causes of problems, report defects to software vendors, and more.

• YourDrive YourData

  Lenovo’s YourDrive YourData service is a multi-drive retention offering that ensures that customer's data is always under their control, regardless of the number of drives that are installed in their Lenovo server. In the unlikely event of a drive failure, customers retain possession of their drive while Lenovo replaces the failed drive part. Customer's data stays safely on customer premises, in their hands. The YourDrive YourData service can be purchased in convenient bundles with Foundation, Essential, or Advanced services.

• Health Check

  Having a trusted partner who can perform regular and detailed health checks is central to maintaining efficiency and ensuring that customer systems and business are always running at their best. Health Check supports Lenovo-branded server, storage, and networking devices, as well as select Lenovo-supported products from other vendors that are sold by Lenovo or a Lenovo-Authorized Reseller.

Some regions might have different warranty terms and conditions than the standard warranty. This is due to local business practices or laws in the specific region. Local service teams can assist in explaining region-specific terms when needed. Examples of region-specific warranty terms are second or longer business day parts delivery or parts-only base warranty.

If warranty terms and conditions include onsite labor for repair or replacement of parts, Lenovo will dispatch a service technician to the customer site to perform the replacement. Onsite labor under base warranty is limited to labor for replacement of parts that have been determined to be field-replaceable units (FRUs). Parts that are determined to be customer-replaceable units (CRUs) do not include onsite labor under base warranty.

If warranty terms include parts-only base warranty, Lenovo is responsible for delivering only replacement parts that are under base warranty (including FRUs) that will be sent to a requested location for self-service. Parts-only service does not include a service technician being dispatched onsite. Parts must be changed at customer’s own cost and labor and defective parts must be returned following the instructions supplied with the spare parts.

Lenovo support services are region-specific. Not all support services are available in every region. For information about Lenovo support services that are available in a specific region, refer to the following resources:

• Service part numbers in Data Center Solution Configurator (DCSC):
  http://dcsc.lenovo.com/#/services
• Lenovo Services Availability Locator
  https://lenovolocator.com/

For service definitions, region-specific details, and service limitations, refer to the following documents:

• Lenovo Statement of Limited Warranty for Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) Servers and System Storage
  http://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht503310
• Lenovo Data Center Services Agreement
  http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht116628

The ThinkAgile HX Series appliances include a three-, four-, or five-year Nutanix software support and subscription (matches the duration of the selected hardware warranty period) that entitles customers to submit service requests to troubleshoot Nutanix software issues and receive code updates, including fixes, patches, and new software releases.

The Lenovo local support centers perform problem determination and resolution for hardware-related issues and escalate to Nutanix, on behalf of the customer, for software-related problem determination. Nutanix will contact the customer and will own the software-related problem resolution until closure.

Software support that is provided by Nutanix includes 24x7 phone and web coverage with the following target response times (priorities are assigned by Nutanix based on the impact on productivity):

• Priority 1 (Emergency: Productivity halted): Within 30 minutes.
• Priority 2 (Critical: Significant impact on productivity): Within 2 hours.
• Priority 3 (Normal: Minimal impact on productivity): Within 4 hours.
• Priority 4 (Low: General requests for information): Within next two business days.

For more information, refer to the Lenovo Support Plan – ThinkAgile HX and Lenovo Converged HX Series:
http://datacentersupport.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht505404

Lenovo solution support team works closely with SAP and is dedicated to troubleshooting the SAP HANA software and hardware issues and can coordinate any cross company support functions (SAP, SUSE, Red Hat, Nutanix) that may be necessary to resolve the problem as soon as possible.

The following Lenovo Professional Services are available for the ThinkAgile HX Series appliances to get customers up and running quickly:

• Nutanix deployment services - Base (per node)
  • Conducting remote preparation and planning
  • Verifying firmware versions and performing firmware updates, if needed
  • Installing and configuring hypervisor and Nutanix controller VM
  • Creating Nutanix cluster
  • Configuring storage
  • Configuring administrative features
• Nutanix deployment services - Advanced (per cluster)
  • Configuring Nutanix containers and Acropolis (AHV) cluster
  • Transferring knowledge
• Nutanix deployment services - Advanced with XClarity (per cluster)
  • Nutanix deployment services - Advanced
  • Installing Lenovo XClarity
  • Installing system updates

The following optional Lenovo basic installation services are available for the ThinkAgile HX Series appliances:

• Unpacking and inspecting the systems
• Mounting the systems in a rack cabinet
• Connecting the systems to electrical power and network
• Checking and updating firmware to the latest levels
• Verifying operations
• Disposal of the packaging materials (within the customer site)

The SAP HANA onsite deployment that is provided by Lenovo Professional Services is required for the ThinkAgile HX Series Appliances for SAP HANA.

For more information, refer to the Data Center Deployment Services web page:
http://www.lenovo.com/us/en/data-center/services/deployment

For more information, see these resources:

• Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series
  http://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/p/WMD00000326
• Lenovo Data Center Solution Configurator (DCSC):
  http://dcsc.lenovo.com
• Nutanix documentation
  http://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/docs
• Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series Best Recipes
  http://datacentersupport.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht505413
• Lenovo Data Center Support
  http://datacentersupport.lenovo.com