Scale Computing announced an industry-changing, innovative new feature for Scale Computing Fleet Manager: Zero-Touch Provisioning. The zero-touch provisioning (ZTP) feature of SC//Fleet Manager provides cloud-like simplicity for administrators, allowing them to centrally configure clusters of edge computing infrastructure in SC//Fleet Manager prior to nodes arriving on-premises, decreasing the time of installation by 90% or more. Nodes and clusters no longer require manual initialization with ZTP and can now be easily installed with non-IT resources.

The company also announced the SC//HyperCore Ansible Collection for integration with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. 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. This important product integration brings the edge computing ideal even closer for DevOps teams and Service Providers, allowing them to specify the desired end-state of infrastructure and workloads to automatically modify the entire environment to achieve that end state, whether during initial deployment or as the desired state is modified over time.   

"Scale Computing engineering has always been focused on providing customers and partners the best in simple, secure, efficient, and highly available IT infrastructure. We extended that focus to making customers successful at the edge, whether deploying thousands of clusters or just a few. Edge infrastructure shouldn't require hands-on initialization," explained Scott Loughmiller, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder of Scale Computing. "Our new SC//Fleet Manager gives users the ability to see and manage their entire fleet from an intuitive cloud-based console at fleet.scalecomputing.com. The innovative ZTP feature eliminates the need for technical staffing at the edge and will prove indispensable for edge computing deployments, especially those that need to deploy at scale with speed. In addition, integrating SC//HyperCore with the Red Hat Ansible Automation platform is another step in Scale Computing providing simple, secure, efficient, and highly available IT infrastructure at the edge, in the data center, and on-premises," Loughmiller added.

"Intel has spent years solving the complexities of IT and operational divides, fine-tuning and validating edge solutions, and working with our partners to bring hundreds of market-ready packages to our customers, built from more than tens of thousands of end-user deployments. Intel is proud to have SC//Fleet Manager with ZTP on the Intel NUC Enterprise Edge Computing product, which minimizes the disruption of installing new infrastructure for edge computing, allowing for the fastest time from pilot to production," said Brian McCarson, Vice President and General Manager, NUC Group at Intel Corporation.

ZTP comes in two versions, depending on user needs:

• ZTP - Managed from cloud-based SC//Fleet Manager
• ZTP is built into SC//Fleet Manager, making this the easiest solution to manage upgrades and other changes, with nothing new to install or update
• Unlike competing solutions that require complicated hosting/networking setup before they can support a "zero-touch provisioning" workflow, SC//Fleet Manager's ZTP truly works out of the box, anywhere in the world, to allow users to deploy at scale
• Expensive IT personnel no longer need to be physically present to install clusters when using the cloud-based option; 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, and the software serial number is auto-filled
• Time/productivity savings details:
• No need to physically plug into each node with keyboard/video/mouse and wait for steps to be manually completed while on-premises
• Intelligent auto-population of known data

• 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

• 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 any time between node purchase and site install, so that 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.