Lenovo TruScale for Hosted Desktops with Nutanix is a complete bundled solution at a set price, delivered as a Lenovo TruScale service.

Today, Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group [ISG] and Nutanix are announcing an as-a-service solution for hosted desktops, with Lenovo TruScale for Hosted Desktops with Nutanix.

“We have been long-time partners with Nutanix around HCI, and we are now extending that to as-a-service with TruScale for Hosted Desktops with Nutanix,” said Brian Connors, VP and GM, Solutions, Strategic Alliances and Business Development, Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group, who is in charge of all the software business in Lenovo ISG. “Work at Home and the hybrid environment are here to stay. The pandemic has accelerated how we collaborate together in a remote setting. But it has to be done securely and it has to be done efficiently.”

Connors said that Lenovo started a Business Continuity Task Force with partners like Nutanix and Citrix after being challenged by customers to help them come up with solutions to hybrid environment issues.

“Lenovo recently did an 8000 customer survey [“Future of Work and Digital Transformation”] which found overwhelmingly, that the new normal was a hybrid environment,” he indicated. “83% said at least 50% of employees would be working a hybrid model after the pandemic was over.”

“Work From Anywhere is now becoming the norm, whereas before it was mainly a concept,” said Monica Kumar, Senior Vice President, Product Marketing, Nutanix. “Organizations are longing for full parity between remote and office experiences, with the ability to scale up and down with the right security associated with it.”

Connors stated that the new offering has three key tenets.

“First, it is a compete data centre solution, with our infrastructure of ThinkAgile HX platforms with Nutanix cloud software and a choice of four different devices from IDG group, and it’s all wrapped around a service,” he said. “We also include the software, so whether its Citrix or Nutanix Frame, or perhaps others that customers want to have choice over, we can bring that to bear as part of this solution. It also takes advantage of the One Lenovo – from pocket to data centre with a vertically integrated supply chain, and our restructuring which started April 1 around a services-led model.”

Second is the fact that it is all available as a single bundle with a single price.

“This is one monthly payment, a consumption-based model per user for everything, and a bundle with no capital outlay,” Connors said. “You can scale it up or out and all of it would be covered as a managed capability as one billing on a monthly basis.

Third is the fact that it is all wrapped around TruScale services. Connors noted that this is a follow-up along the lines of a service launched late last year with SAP to provide TruScale with an SAP HANA private cloud edition.

“Customers want to see cloud-like economics and capability but on-prem,” Connors said. “TruScale allows us to do that. It provides advisory and capacity planning for the customer, installation and deployment of the entire system, and monitoring and upgrading with health reports for the customer. We can also retire assets when their lifecycle is completed. All this is done with one point of contact – one Customer Success Manager. It will help customers reduce time to deploy and take a burden off them to let them focus on more strategic areas.”

Connors cited the example of an early reference customer, Fraser Health Authority, which services a 1.8 million person market in British Columbia.

“We were able to work with Nutanix to deliver a remote connectivity solution for Fraser Health which has 3000 clinician users on it, and can ramp up to 10,000,” he said. “Before this, at Fraser a clinician had to be both inside the office, and get a SIM key card, to get access to the system.”

Connors noted as well that the market has changed fundamentally, and this kind of service is essential to meet it.

“With our new focus on services-led, this is an example of the power and capability we can bring to bear on our customers,” he said. “Having a complete solution with trusted partners is important to customers. This is complex, and having the ability to have a monthly payment with no upfront capital outlay is critical. This is a different user today. The IT landscape is changing.”