First Ever Enterprise Lenovo Server… Is An SMB Xeon Box

Lenovo has announced the first product from its Enterprise Product Group and it is aimed at small or medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

The ThinkServer TD330, the first Lenovo server to emerge from the company’s new Enterprise division, is not really what some would call an “enterprise” server, but it is designed to take on back-office tasks for organisations like schools or shops. It can power up to 16 cores of Xeon ES-2400 processor strength, and starts at £1299 in the UK.

Little black Lenovo server box

Chinese manufacturer Lenovo has expanded its computer business since buying IBM’s PC range in 2005, building on the ThinkPad laptops to grow its market share. Last month, the contest between HP and Lenovo for the top of the PC market was closer than the Romney-Obama race, with HP on 15.9 percent share and Lenovo on 15.7 percent, according to IDC.

In 2008, Lenovo launched Intel-based ThinkServers, which have increased in power and compete with IBM’s own low-end servers. For some years, it has made rackmounted data centre servers, which fully merit the “enterprise” label.

Lenovo’s Enterprise Product Group, which was announced last week, consolidates server, storage, networking and software into one division for commercial customers, including large enterprise, SMBs and system integrators.

“We’ve placed expanded emphasis on building our server portfolio this year, introducing products that meet the needs of all our customers – from enterprise customers to small businesses,” said Roy Guillen, vice president in charge of the new division. “The ThinkServer TD330 meets the need of an organisation that demands flawless dual socket performance in a flexible, scalable tower solution, and values the reliability and sturdiness that ThinkServer products are known for.”

The TD330 can be configured in many ways, and includes onboard RAID storage and diagnostics. and allows drives to be hot swapped.  It can go up to 192GB of memory, and has a choice of hard drive and network cards, with battery backup and cache.

The server has web enabled remote management, and tools for startup and monitoring. It supports IPMI 2.0-compliant protocols and interfaces, allowing it to be integrated without sacrificing any existing IT investments, and can be Energy Star compliant.

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