Home Enterprise Scale Computing Fleet Manager Zero-Touch Provisioning Announced

Scale Computing Fleet Manager Zero-Touch Provisioning Announced

by Harold Fritts
Scale Computing HC325df

Scale Computing adds Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP) for Fleet Manager, eliminating the need for IT staffing at the edge and reducing the costs of adding or replacing hardware. The ZTP feature of SC//Fleet Manager provides cloud-like simplicity for administrators, allowing them to centrally configure clusters of edge computing infrastructure before nodes arrive on-premises, reducing the installation time by 90 percent or more.

Scale Computing adds Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP) for Fleet Manager, eliminating the need for IT staffing at the edge and reducing the costs of adding or replacing hardware. The ZTP feature of SC//Fleet Manager provides cloud-like simplicity for administrators, allowing them to centrally configure clusters of edge computing infrastructure before nodes arrive on-premises, reducing the installation time by 90 percent or more.

In our Scale Computing: Unboxing to Up and Running in No Time piece last year, we took Scale Computing to task and validated their claim that their solution could be up and running in minutes. With ZTP Scale has removed the need for manual initialization of nodes and clusters, with non-IT resources performing the installation.

Scale also announced the SC//HyperCore Ansible Collection for integration with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. SC//HyperCore is Red Hat certified and available for download from the Red Hat Automation Hub. SC//HyperCore customers can interact with SC//HyperCore clusters as Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to automate common application deployment and maintenance tasks.

Integrating SC//HyperCore with Red Hat Ansible brings edge computing closer for DevOps teams and Service Providers. Now, users can specify the desired end-state of infrastructure and workloads to automatically modify the entire environment to achieve that end state during initial deployment or as the desired state is modified over time.

ZTP is available in two versions, depending on user needs:

ZTP – Managed from cloud-based SC//Fleet Manager

  • ZTP is built into SC//Fleet Manager for an easy way to manage upgrades and changes, with nothing to install or update
  • SC//Fleet Manager ZTP works out of the box, anywhere in the world, to allow users to deploy at scale
  • Nodes and clusters can now be easily installed with non-IT resources
  • Typos and inconsistencies are less likely since all node, and cluster initialization info is presented on a single page, with the software serial number auto-filled
  • Time/productivity savings details:
    • No need to attach a keyboard/video/mouse
    • Intelligent auto-population of known data
    • The software serial number for each node will be auto-populated by SC//Fleet Manager
    • Initializing nodes will be defaulted, saving an entry on each subsequent node
    • The cluster will know all nodes in advance, removing manual verification of node status before clustering can be completed.

Centralized Pre-Configuration for Added Security

  • Users can stage their clusters between node purchase and site install, so when nodes are powered on, they provision themselves, initialize, and register with SC//Fleet Manager.
  • Highly secured sites for customers with air-gapped environments and unable to work with cloud-based Fleet Manager, Scale Computing offers a “One-Touch Provisioning (OTP)” option.
  • Ideal for customers working with integrators or secure air-gapped environments, OTP is available via USB

Pricing and Licensing

SC//Fleet Manager, now including ZTP, is priced based on the number of clusters under management.

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