Hewlett Packard Enterprise recently announced eight new HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 servers, the latest additions to a new generation of enterprise servers that introduce industry-first security capabilities, optimise performance for complex workloads and boost productivity with management features enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI).
The new servers will feature upcoming Intel Xeon 6 processors for data centre and edge environments.
“Our customers are tackling workloads that are overwhelmingly data-intensive and growing ever-more demanding”, said Krista Satterthwaite, senior vice president and general manager, Compute at HPE. “The new HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 servers give organisations – spanning public sector, enterprise and vertical industries like finance, healthcare and more – the horsepower and management insights they need to thrive while balancing their sustainability goals and managing costs. This is a modern enterprise platform engineered for the hybrid world, designed with innovative security and control capabilities to help companies prevail over the evolving threat landscape and performance challenges that their legacy hardware cannot address”.
Chip-to-Cloud and Full Lifecycle Security
The HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 portfolio sets a new standard for enterprise security with built-in safeguards at every layer – from the chip to the cloud – and every phase of the server lifecycle. HPE Integrated Lights Out (iLO) 7 introduces an enhanced and dedicated security processor called secure enclave that is engineered from the ground up as HPE intellectual property. HPE ProLiant Compute servers with HPE iLO 7 will help organisations safeguard against future threats as the first server with quantum computing-resistant readiness and to meet the requirements for a high-level cryptographic security standard, the FIPS 140-3 Level 3 certification[i].
The chip-enhanced security features of HPE iLO 7 uniquely distinguish HPE ProLiant servers from other vendors. Embedded into the server hardware, secure enclave establishes an unbreakable chain of trust to protect against firmware attacks and creates full line-of-sight from the factory and throughout HPE’s trusted supply chain. This extends to the end of the product lifecycle with HPE Onsite Decommission Services which collects equipment and transports it to an authorised sorting and recycling facility.
AI-Driven Insights Improve Operations Management, Automation and Power Efficiency
HPE Compute Ops Management is a cloud-based software platform that helps customers secure and automate server environments. Proactive and predictive automation, now enhanced with AI-driven insights, helps organisations improve energy efficiency by forecasting power usage and enabling enterprises to set thresholds to control costs and carbon emissions on a worldwide level. A new global map view simplifies management so customers can instantly identify server health issues across distributed IT environments and multi-vendor toolset integration reduces downtime by up to 4.8 hours per server every year[ii]. Automated on-boarding simplifies server set-up and ongoing management, particularly in remote or branch-office deployments where local IT resources are not available.
All new HPE Compute Ops Management features, including AI-informed insights, new map-based visibility and third-party tool integration, will be available to HPE ProLiant Compute Gen10 servers and newer.
To aid customers evaluating future purchases, a standalone tool called HPE Power Advisor estimates environment performance metrics such as energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
Servers Optimised for Performance, Energy Efficiency and Available with Direct Liquid Cooling
New additions to the HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 portfolio are right-sized to address demanding workloads that include AI, data analytics, edge computing, hybrid cloud and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions. Addressing the exponential growth in power demands placed on data centres, the HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 portfolio is engineered to optimise performance, energy efficiency and cost with up to 41% better performance per watt compared to legacy enterprise systems[iii]. HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 servers deliver up to 65% in power savings per year[iv] and enable organisations to free up data centre capacity with one Gen12 server providing the same compute performance as seven Gen10 servers[v].
“Partnering with reliable, innovative hardware vendors like HPE helps us meet the evolving needs of our clients and empower them with comprehensive, workload-optimised IT infrastructure solutions”, said William Bell, executive vice president, Products at phoenixNAP. “We were the first customer in the world to order HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 servers and the benefits of the upgrade were immediate. By delivering these advanced technologies as a service, phoenixNAP enables organisations of all sizes to tackle challenges related to performance, energy efficiency, data security, and infrastructure management at scale.”
To meet customer demand for more energy efficient data centres, HPE is offering optional direct liquid cooling (DLC) on Intel-based HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 one-socket and two-socket rack servers. Liquid removes heat more efficiently than air, removing more than 3,000 times more heat based on volume[vi]. HPE has built the world’s fastest direct-liquid cooled supercomputers[vii] and with more than 300 DLC patents and over 50 years of experience, HPE is a leader in deploying direct liquid-cooled servers and data centres.
Availability
Six of the eight new HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 servers featuring upcoming Intel Xeon 6 processors will be available Q1 2025. This includes HPE ProLiant Compute DL320, DL340, DL360, DL380, DL380a and ML350 Gen12 servers. HPE Synergy 480 and HPE ProLiant Compute DL580 Gen12 servers are expected Summer 2025.
The HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 portfolio will be available standalone or via HPE GreenLake, offering scalability, cost efficiency and service agility. These solutions can be purchased through an authorised channel partner. HPE Services helps customers make the most of the HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 portfolio by providing advisory, professional, operational, managed, financial and asset management assistance to accelerate business operations.
[i] FIPS 140-3 Level 3 certification is a standard adopted by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Commercial National Security Algorithm (CNSA) 2.0 to verify cryptographic modules.
[ii] Forrester Consulting, New Technology: The Projected Total Economic Impact™ of HPE Compute Ops Management, commissioned by HPE (June 2024) https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a00141308enw
[iii] Based on internal power and performance measurements comparing an 86-core HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 server compared to a similarly configured Gen10 server.
[iv] Reflects results posted on spec.org SPECrate2017_int_base: #20893 published as of 01-01-2025. The performance per watt advantage is based on internal power and performance measurements on similar configured high energy efficient servers and compared against an estimated 86-core Gen12 system. SPEC and SPECrates are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC).
[v] Reflects results posted on spec.org SPECrate2017_int_base: #20893 published as of 01-01-2025 that compares estimated thermal design power of a 48-core HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 server. SPEC and SPECrates are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC).
[vi] A propylene glycol-based liquid coolant cools 3.94X the heat as compared to an equal mass of air and is 869.9X denser than air, making this liquid coolant capable of handling 3427.5X the heat of the same volume of air.
[vii] Per the November 2024 TOP500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers.
Image Credit: HPE
