HPE Unveils Latest ProLiant MicroServer With Unique MSP Remote Management Capabilities

Empowering partners to better serve small businesses, the ProLiant Gen10 Plus is about the size of a book, but ‘packs a big punch’ and is cloud-ready.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise introduced its latest MicroServer on Wednesday—a system designed and priced to meet the needs and constraints of small businesses and the channel partners who service them.

The HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus comes in a compact form factor that fits comfortably in the smallest of offices while delivering enough power to comprehensively serve a couple dozen users.

“This thing packs a big punch, but it is very small,” Tim Peters, HPE’s vice president for small and medium business, told CRN.

[Related: HPE Introduces Small Office Solutions, Entry-Level Servers To Help Partners Engage SMBs]

The box is twice as small as the prior Gen10 ProLiant MicroServer, he said, but with twice the performance.

“That’s a revolution, if you will,” Peters said.

The latest option in the ProLiant line can be provisioned with powerful Intel Xeon processors, or a less expensive Pentium chip. HPE’s silicon root of trust technology that protects the system down to the firmware is embedded along with remote management and predictive analytics tooling.

And the machine is quiet enough to put in a library, Peters said.

“Customers want this thing to disappear and not be heard,” he told CRN. “It’s like a book on a shelf.”

The server comes with integrated software that’s easy to deploy for any junior tech. That simplicity and greater automation further reduces costs while increasing operational efficiency.

At the direct request of channel partners, HPE’s latest small-office machine comes equipped with iLO technology that for the first time allows services providers to monetize remote management services, Peters told CRN.

MSPs can use an iLO enablement kit that allows them to efficiently manage all the servers under their charge, which wasn’t possible with previous generations of the server, he said.

Customers can purchase the servers included in the HPE Small Office Deployment, a full office in-a-box solution, through HPE Financial Services on 3-year contracts at predictable prices that start at $125 a month, he said.

The Gen10 Plus servers can come configured for three distinct use cases.

The “office in a box” configuration meets the general needs of a small business with up to 10 workers. “Scalable file and backup” centralizes access to files for secure collaboration, scaling up to 16 terabytes of memory; and an “edge to cloud option” is designed to simplify access to cloud services.

Robert Checketts, senior manager for HPE’s SMB segment, characterized the new machines as

“distraction-free technology.”

“At the same time, we made sure each of these solutions were cloud-ready so if and when customers wanted to go in that direction, it was available for them to do so,” Checketts told CRN.