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HPE revamped its best-selling servers for the first time in five years. The initial ProLiant Gen11 series consists of five new models. The first model is now available.

ProLiant is a flagship for HPE. Organizations use the servers for a variety of on-premises workloads, ranging from software-defined computing to artificial intelligence.

With each generation, processors and capacity are updated. The new ProLiant Gen11 series initially consists of five new models with various configurations. The first model — the ProLiant RL300 Gen11 — is now generally available.

The model runs on Ampere Altra and Ampere Altra Max CPUs. The number of cores varies per configuration. The servers allow up to sixteen DDR4 memory modules, sufficient for 4TB of memory. There’s room for ten NVMe SSDs (2.5 inches) and two M.2 SSDs.

ProLiant DL3XX Gen11

The other four models — the ProLiant DL325 Gen11, DL345, DL365 and DL385 — will be available for orders starting November 10. HPE is also launching the models through HPE GreenLake, more on that later. All four servers run on AMD EPYC CPUs. The most comprehensive configuration supports 96 CPU cores and up to 6TB of DDR5 memory. Disk capacity varies per configuration.

The servers are suitable for a variety of workloads. HPE recommends the cheaper models (DL325 and DL345) for software-defined computing, software-defined storage and content delivery networks (CDNs). The more expensive models (DL365 and DL385) are tailored towards general-purpose virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs), data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

According to HPE, the new servers support up to twice as much I/O bandwidth as previous generations. In addition, the servers offer up to 50 percent more cores per CPU and up to 33 percent higher GPU density per server.

Software and security

In terms of software, customers can opt to have HPE GreenLake Compute Ops Management pre-installed. The software was launched to manage Gen10 servers in 2021. Meanwhile, both Gen10 and Gen11 servers are supported. The software allows organizations to manage servers in multiple locations with a cloud-native interface.

HPE GreenLake Compute Ops Management isn’t mandatory. The servers are just as manageable with iLO, HPE’s good old management solution. OpenBMC, an open-source alternative, is supported as well. The ‘best’ management software varies per environment, organization and use case. Resellers can advise on the right choice.

In terms of security, HPE integrated Silicon Root of Trust to protect firmware against malware and ransomware. In addition, Secure Device Identity guards the unique identity of servers. Lastly, Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) provide an additional layer of authentication.

HPE GreenLake

Broadly speaking, ProLiant Gen11 servers are available in two forms. For starters, you can order a server and install, configure and maintain the system independently. Secondly, the servers are available in a pay-as-you-go model through HPE GreenLake.

Customers of HPE GreenLake pay in instalments. Furthermore, HPE shoulders some of the server configuration and maintenance.

Organizations with older ProLiant servers can leverage HPE Financial Services to receive discounts on Gen11 servers. HPE Financial Services helps existing customers cost-effectively upgrade to the latest generation.