Dell Ups the Performance Bar on Powerhouse Servers for Mission Critical Workloads and Applications

Dell today introduced refreshed PowerEdge systems with substantially increased performance, integrated security and resiliency to tackle the toughest computing environments while easing the migration from proprietary UNIX deployments.

"Dell's refresh of the higher-end of its PowerEdge portfolio is a solid strategy considering IDC research shows customers are looking to migrate more of their business critical applications to x86 servers," said Jed Scaramella, research manager for IDC's Enterprise Platforms and Datacenter Trends. "The increased capacity and performance of these systems enable users to do more at an economical price. The ability to tackle some of the higher-end workloads in the data center will entice IT managers to consider wider adoption of x86 within their environment."

In the fourth quarter last year, Dell picked up significant market share in the four socket x86 rack server space, according to IDC. In part, this can be attributed to Dell’s time to market with the latest technology. By providing IT platforms that can help accelerate virtualization, enable greater IT consolidation while supporting mission-critical business and database applications, Dell is driving x86 server customer adoption.

UNIX and RISC Killers — Dell’s Latest PowerEdge Servers

Dell’s latest generation of “powerhouse” servers gives customers the performance, reliability and memory scalability they need to run mission critical applications. The company has invested heavily in its four socket PowerEdge server portfolio in the past two years bringing the total to six systems, three of which are based on Intel’s latest “Westmere-EX” Xeon E7 series processors including:

• PowerEdge R910: An ideal platform for RISC/UNIX migrations, large database deployments and server virtualization implementations, this 4U rack server comes with four processors, up to 64 DIMM slots for memory, redundant power supplies and a failsafe embedded hypervisor.
• PowerEdge M910: A high-performance four-socket blade server, the PowerEdge M910 is best suited for customers looking to maximize the advantages of server virtualization and consolidation or for use as a medium or large database platform. This full-height blade can support up to 32 DIMM slots.
• PowerEdge R810: The PowerEdge R810 is best suited for customers looking to consolidate server hardware through virtualization and deploy email messaging and database applications. The 2U offering is available in high-density two- or four-socket varieties. Through an innovative approach to memory scalability up to 32 memory DIMM slots can be accessed by just two processors. This gives it the memory capacity of a four socket server, but with the software licensing costs of a two socket server to effectively run virtualized workloads.

Breakthrough Performance

In addition, these systems can offer customers substantial performance gains including:

• Dell PowerEdge R910 configured with a ten core Intel^® Xeon^® CPU E7-4780 “Westmere-EX” processor can provide up to 38 percent improvement in Oracle application server and database performance over previous generation eight core Intel^® Xeon^® X7560 “Nehalem-EX” processor².
• Up to 18:1 server consolidation ratio over four socket dual core processor based systems³.
• Up to 93 percent lower operation costs resulting in a one year return on investment⁴.
• Up to 34 percent improvement in SQL database virtualization performance and 49 percent higher performance per watt with the combination of Xeon E7 processors and new Low Voltage memory (LV RDIMM) offerings⁵.

New RISC Migration Services

Dell is also providing customers with a wide range of RISC migration services including workshops, readiness assessment, design, transition and implementation. These services can help customers obtain a better ROI by examining ways to reduce system maintenance, software licensing, staffing and energy usage costs with a migration from RISC/UNIX to Dell’s PowerEdge solutions.

“Over the past two years Dell has invested heavily in our four socket offerings resulting in data center workhorse systems that can provide the peace of mind that CIOs and IT directors are looking for,” said Sally Stevens, vice president, Server Platform Marketing, Dell. “We’ve established our credibility in the server market by putting the needs of our customer first. These latest offerings continue to put more computing power into the hands of our customers without limiting choice and flexibility.”

Additional Information

Dell PowerEdge Servers
RISC Migration Service
Dell Virtualization
Dell Benchmarks

About Dell

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.com.

Intel and Xeon are registered trademarks for Intel Corp. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.

¹ Source: Source: IDC Server Worldwide Server Tracker Q4 2010, released February 2011 (unit shipments)

² Based on comparison of published results of Dell and Oracle (Cisco UCS B440 M1 blade server) testing performed in March 2011 running an industry-standard SPEC Java Enterprise benchmark. SPEC® is a registered trademark of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.

³ Based on comparison between 4S MP Intel® Xeon® processor 7041 (dual-core with Intel® HyperThreading Technology, 4M cache, 3.00GHz, 800MHz FSB, formerly code named Paxville) and 4S Intel® Xeon® processor E7-4870 (30M cache, 2.40GHz, 6.4GT/s Intel® QPI, code named Westmere-EX) based servers.

⁴ Calculation includes analysis based on performance, power, cooling, electricity rates, operating system annual license costs and estimated server costs. This assumes 42U racks, $0.10 per kWh, cooling costs are 2x the server power consumption costs, operating system license cost of $900/year per server, per server cost of $36,000 based on estimated list prices, and estimated server utilization rates. All dollar figures are approximate.

⁵ Based on the DVD Store 2 benchmark testing performed by Dell Labs in March 2011. Actual performance and power draw will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.