Acer expands server and storage solutions in the US

cer America today announced a comprehensive line of server and storage solutions that deliver superior price/performance ratios and reliability across a broad range of usage models. Acer’s family supports the full spectrum of applications from small- to medium-sized businesses, labs, remote sites and medium-sized enterprises to government installations and data centers, including the most advanced cloud computing facilities and high performance computing (HPC) operations.

Acer’s server and storage products include tower, rack, blade and multi-node solutions that are based on Intel® Xeon® and AMD Opteron™ processors and designed to deliver superior quality through vertically integrated, U.S.-based manufacturing. The products are backed by an extensive service offering plus specialized expertise in virtualization, multi-node architectures and other technologies that are required for implementing complete solutions in today’s increasingly demanding business and professional computing environments.

“Acer has steadily built one of the broadest lines of server and storage solutions in the world and now we are bringing this offering to the U.S. to meet customer demands for cost-effective performance, simplified management, flexible scalability, and return on storage investments over time,” said Gianluca Degliesposti, vice president of worldwide business development for Acer Servers and Storage. “Our initial family of 16 server solutions also leverages our deep expertise in virtualization, multi-node architectures and HPC to meet increasingly challenging needs in cloud computing and other complex computing applications. We plan to further expand our family this year to meet additional customer needs across the full range of server and storage environments.”

These Acer server and storage solutions support the release of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Microsoft’s comprehensive virtualization capabilities.

“Acer and Microsoft have been working together for several years to deliver innovative solutions to our shared customers, and we are excited about the launch of Acer’s broad server and storage offerings in the U.S.,” said Steve Guggenheimer, corporate vice president of the OEM division, Microsoft Corp. “As a result of our collaboration on virtualization, these new products deliver agility and savings in the traditional data center and an easy migration path to private and public cloud computing, and our combined HPC solutions enhance resource management for analysts, engineers and scientists in the most demanding computing environments.”

Acer also relies on its technological partnership with Intel, its long-time supplier for advanced processors and network connectivity solutions.

“Acer and Intel share common views on the future of server technologies and solutions,” said Kirk Skaugen, vice president and general manager of Intel Corporation’s Data Center Group. “Our two companies have already worked closely on the development of a variety of server products that will now be available to customers in the United States. These products take advantage of the unique features of the Intel® Xeon® series of processors, as well as Intel’s network interface solutions, to deliver high performance and superior energy efficiency in a wide variety of applications.”

Acer provides best-in-class storage solutions for its server offering, through a strategic partnership with Hitachi Data Systems, that integrates tailored storage solutions into Acer’s server offerings to better meet customer demand for cost-effective storage performance, simplified storage management, and return on storage investment over time.

“Our collaboration with Acer has proven highly successful for small- and medium-sized enterprises worldwide,” said Mike Walkey, senior vice president of global partners and alliances, Hitachi Data Systems. “We look forward to partnering with Acer globally on additional business opportunities as we expand our collaboration into the U.S. market. Together with Acer, we provide a unique end-user value proposition for businesses that face the increasingly difficult challenge of managing explosive data growth, IT costs, complex applications, legal compliance and security.”

Acer Key Benefits

* Complete offering built on open, industry-standard architectures: Acer’s family includes tower, rack, blade and multi-node systems in a wide range of configurations to meet customer requirements for price, scalability, green efficiency, density and performance. Acer has built its family through strategic partnerships with leading suppliers that enable the company to deliver solutions that are optimized for each application using world-class technologies and components (see accompanying document with information about Acer Server and Storage partners).

* Vertical integration: Acer is one of the only major server and storage players that vertically integrates manufacturing and configuration in the U.S. to support the requirements of government, HPC and other mission-critical applications. This enables the company to deliver measurably better quality and order delivery times.

* Leadership expertise in key emerging computing applications: Acer has specialized expertise in virtualization and multi-node architectures that are driving a new era of computing, and earlier this month was named the server supplier in Taiwan’s program to build a 170-teraflop supercomputer for the country’s national research organizations, the National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL).

* Best-of-breed SMB storage solutions through strategic partnership with Hitachi Data Systems: The combination of world-class storage solutions and Acer’s channel supply program guarantees the most reliable storage solutions with customized configurations and specialized sales support, and provides a clear advantage for SMBs with no extensive IT infrastructure looking for performance and scalability, while maintaining maximum uptime.

* Comprehensive service offering: Acer offers round-the-clock phone support plus four-hour review and remediation for all calls, as well as next-day parts delivery and on-site repair. Additionally, the company provides specialized server-specific offerings including advanced configuration and troubleshooting support, plus other specialized expertise for customers who need a close relationship with a knowledgeable server partner.

* Commitment to indirect sales channels: Unlike other suppliers of its size and with similar economies of scale and supply-chain leverage, Acer’s Server and Storage Division has adopted the same exclusively indirect sales strategy as that used in the company’s Commercial PC business. Acer is committed to an exclusively indirect sales model, and will be developing a variety of channel support programs.

Acer Product Details
Acer will be offering solutions in the U.S. for all server platforms including tower, rack, multi-node and blade platforms.

* Acer tower server (AT) line - Delivering the flexibility that companies need to grow their business, these servers are optimized for high price/performance ratios and incorporate one or two processors to maximize compute capabilities with increased I/O and storage options.

* Acer rack server (AR) line - Reducing operating costs is critical for long-term business success. Acer’s new rack-based servers can help by reducing power consumption, space and cooling costs. These smart servers feature up to four processors and deliver robust manageability, optimal power efficiency and I/O flexibility while minimizing space requirements in rack server environments.

* Acer rack multi-node server (Gemini AW series) line - Cloud environments benefit from increased performance, reduced size and optimal power and cooling. These new multi-node designs from Acer enable applications to be run independently and in parallel using multi-node architectures in space-saving 2U form factors. They optimize performance, density and power efficiency for applications that require a high-density design with full remote control capabilities.

* Acer blade server (AB) line - Delivering operational efficiency and control is critical for dense server deployments, and these servers are optimized to deliver. With shared power, integrated Ethernet and InfiniBand options and designed for rapid deployment, these systems deliver reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) throughout the IT-management lifecycle, from installation through remote management to migration and new service deployment.

* Acer Network Attached Storage (AN) line - These systems deliver the ideal solution for customers who are looking for industry-standards-based storage systems with key features like data de-duplication and snapshot. They include the Acer AN1600 F1, which delivers up to 12 SAS or SATA hot-plug drives and is protected by a robust operating system and key reliability features like RAID, redundant hot-plug power and redundant hot-plug cooling. The solution delivers outstanding performance in a space-saving 2U design.

Configurations, Pricing and Availability
MSRP depends on configuration and begins at $721.11 for the Acer tower server (AT) line, $1,105.52 for the Acer rack server (AR) line, $3,583.58 for the Acer rack multi-node server (Gemini AW series) line, $2,299.99 for the Acer blade server (AB) line, and $10,499 for the Acer network attached storage (AN) line. Joint Acer/HDS solutions for the U.S. market will be available at a later date.