Atlantis USX on Hyper Steroids ?

Atlantis Computing released their next wave of innovation in the form of a neat hyperconverged solution which is going to lead to more disruption in the aggressive space already dominated by the likes of products from Simplivity, Nutanix and VMware.

I won’t go too much into what hyperconvergence is but the key point to remember is that most companies have realised that I.T. in the datacenter is complex, time consuming and has too many moving parts. For this reason a simple approach to this is a 1 box solution that can be racked and configured in minutes and ready to serve virtualisation workloads. Add to this a special software sauce and a feature set that is akin to providing I.T. with critical data services and acceleration and you have the recipe for success. Tapping into this market is further fuelled by the choices an end user can make from the Atlantis proposition.

Fundamental to the solution from Atlantis is the hardware choice that consumers are open to. The fact that the hardware platform could be Supermicro, HP, Lenovo or Cisco means that I.T. shops that previously had the challenge of meeting a set vendor criteria (e.g. Gartner vendors only) should now be more receptive of testing and implementing these types of solution. 4 node appliances are the norm here. Atlantis have done a great job in partnering with some of the biggest names in the industry to provide a more welcoming set of hardware platforms.

All flash is clearly the way that most companies are veering towards and Atlantis have an attractive configuration allowing up to 24TB in its high end appliances. Coupled with various memory configurations and the flexibility in the choice of hypervisor (currently VMware vSphere or Citrix XenServer) mean that the attraction only grows by opening up the product to more potential customers. I can see Hyper-V being another great addition to the family but let’s hope we see this in the future.

Pricing is very key and Atlantis have made this available through channel partners with pricing starting at a reasonable $78000 for a Supermicro solution. This means that SMB and Enterprise alike can afford to purchase the solution.

The diagram below highlights the overall solution that Atlantis provides :

For me there is one area that I would like to see in the future and that is around backup and D.R. but the already comprehensive solution will tick many boxes for those considering a modern, scaleable and simple datacenter.

SUPPORT is always forgotten about when it comes to implementing a solution especially one not from the Big I.T. crowd. I have to say that Atlantis’ model of support is a breath of fresh air as its a true 24 x 7 x 365 model covering the hardware and the software and can be logged via the phone or the web. Of course, the hypervisor support will be something your hypervisor vendor can deal with.

Wrapping up, Atlantis Hyperscale (as its known) is about providing I.T. with simple to deploy solutions that are scaleable, efficient, tangible and have a price point that fits most and I would say Atlantis have met their mark with this first offering in the crowded and often competitive hyperconverged market.