Axellio: Validation for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI for FabricXpress All-NVMe Server

Axellio, Inc. announced its all-NVMe server, FabricXpress has received validation for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI, which was recently announced as the HCI program for Windows Server 2019.

FabricXpress FX-1000

This validated solution provides organizations with seamless integration to Microsoft Azure Cloud, matching the resources for storage-intensive workloads on-premises or in the cloud for private cloud or hybrid cloud deployments.

The company’s FabricXpress HCI solution stands out from traditional servers because it’s for HPC and fast storage, taking demanding environments to a new level of consolidation and performance. FabricXpress delivers 72 NVMe SSDs per server, and packs two servers into one 2U chassis.

This , running Windows Server 2019, showed off its power and density last year at Microsoft Ignite when it pushed more than one million IO/s per node. The stack, starting at 4U in size, can scale up to 460TB usable without additional nodes. The solution scales almost infinitely – up to 3PB usable in one 16-node cluster.

Capacities can be extended through the use of compression and deduplication. Also, multiple clusters can be managed as one large cluster using the new cluster sets functionality in Windows Server 2019.

FabricXpress all-NVMe for Azure Stack HCI uses the same Hyper-V based software-defined compute, storage and networking as Azure Stack, and meets the same validation requirements. The solution integrates on-premises workloads with Microsoft hybrid data services including Azure Site Recovery and Azure Backup, Cloud Witness and Azure Monitor.

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The company aims to make every stage of the solution simple, efficient and powerful for single-use and multiple concurrent workloads – more typically seen in mid- to large-enterprise environments. The firm, driven by decades of engineering experience, makes the most of the software/hardware relationship within each of their solutions, allowing administrators to simplify infrastructures and focus on more pressing matters.

By providing an integrated HCI platform for mid-sized and large organizations, FabricXpress all-NVMe for Azure Stack HCI is for replacing aging storage and server infrastructures, consolidating virtual workloads, increasing application response time, and decreasing total infrastructure cost of ownership.

The company has a long history of working with Microsoft Corp., including its platform certification to run with Windows Server Software-Defined (WSSD) solutions, which is a validated Windows Server 2016 solution. It also partners with third-party vendors like 5Nine Software, Inc. to ease transitions and migration from competitive interfaces such as VMware, Inc.

HCI continues to grow in popularity with organizations as a replacement to aging compute and storage infrastructures. MarketsandMarkets predicts the HCI market will grow from $4.1 billion in 2018 to $17.1 billion by 2023.

Many organizations are also evaluating a hybrid cloud strategy. The company and Microsoft Azure Stack HCI helps make this connection to run workloads where they need the greatest performance, simplicity and efficiency, all managed through Windows Admin Center (WAC).

“As more organizations renovate their old IT infrastructures, they’re looking at HCI platforms for their ability to lower costs and provide performance when and where they need it, especially when it comes to supporting compute-intensive workloads,” said Bill Miller, CEO, Axellio. “We are excited to be working with a company like Microsoft to provide enterprise customers with the performance and flexibility to address their most demanding workloads on-premises or in the cloud.“

“When Microsoft validates platforms like the Axellio FabricXpress, we’re giving enterprise customers a solution that will meet their demanding compute and storage requirements using their same applications and saving money on new licensing costs with easy connectivity to a trusted public cloud,” said Siddhartha Roy, partner group program manager, Microsoft.

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