Dell Technologies has hit the ground running this year, insofar as catering to enterprise customers is concerned, announcing a major expansion to its server portfolio.

The company has added thirteen next-generation Dell PowerEdge servers to its range. These, according to the latest blog from Dell Technologies, are ‘’designed to accelerate performance and reliability for powerful computing across core data centres, large-scale public clouds and edge locations.’’

The company explained that the next-generation rack, tower and multi-node PowerEdge servers, which pack 4^th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, also include Dell software and engineering advancements, such as a new Smart Flow design, to improve energy and cost efficiency.

Both energy and cost efficiency are hot-button topics for South African businesses at present, given the current energy crisis, and the pressure that is placing on businesses to optimise their operations.

Speaking of optimisation, the new range also offers expanded Dell APEX capabilities, which, the company explains, will help organizations take an as-a-Service approach, allowing for more effective IT operations that make the most of compute resources while minimizing risk.

“Customers come to Dell for easily managed yet sophisticated and efficient servers with advanced capabilities to power their business-critical workloads,” explained Jeff Boudreau, president and general manager, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies.

“Our next-generation Dell PowerEdge servers offer unmatched innovation that raises the bar in power efficiency, performance and reliability while simplifying how customers can implement a Zero Trust approach for greater security throughout their IT environments,” he asserted.

The company enthused that the new Dell PowerEdge servers are designed to meet the needs of a range of demanding workloads from artificial intelligence and analytics to large-scale databases. The expanded portfolio announced in November 2022, including the PowerEdge XE family of servers with NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs and the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software suite for a full stack, production AI platform builds on advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Some of the more technical details are as follows:

New servers for cloud service providers

The introduction of Dell PowerEdge HS5610 and HS5620 servers delivers optimized solutions tailored for cloud service providers managing large-scale, multi-vendor data centres. Available in both 1U and 2U form factors, these new, two-socket servers include cold aisle serviceable configurations and are available with Dell Open Server Manager, an OpenBMC based systems management solution to simplify multi-vendor fleet management.

Greater performance and simpler management

Next-generation PowerEdge servers provide improved performance, including the Dell PowerEdge R760, which delivers up to 2.9x greater AI inferencing on 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors with Intel Deep Learning Boost and Intel Advanced Matrix Extensions. The PowerEdge R760 also offers up to a 20% increase in VDI users and over 50% more SAP Sales & Distribution users on one server, compared to the previous generation. PowerEdge systems may be ordered with NVIDIA Bluefield-2 data processing units to provide additional offload, acceleration and workload isolation capabilities idea for power efficiency for private, hybrid and multicloud deployments.

The company added that enhancements to Dell monitoring software and new services make server management even easier through the use of:

1. Dell CloudIQ — Dell software combines proactive monitoring, machine learning and predictive analytics while offering a comprehensive view of servers wherever they reside. Updates include advancements to server performance forecasting, select maintenance operations and new virtualization visualization.

2. Dell ProDeploy services — The Dell ProDeploy Factory Configuration service delivers PowerEdge servers ready to install and preconfigured with the customer’s preferred operating system, hypervisor software and settings for RAID, BIOS and iDRAC. The Dell ProDeploy Rack Integration service delivers and installs production-ready racked and networked PowerEdge servers, ideal for companies expanding their data center environments or undergoing an IT modernization.

3. Dell iDRAC9 — As customers seek increased server automation and intelligence, Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) makes Dell systems easier to deploy and diagnose, equipped with updated features such as Certificate Expiry Notice, Telemetry for Dell Consoles and GPU monitoring.

Why it matters

The question with every product announcement though, is what is the real-world impact? Why does better technology matter to people’s lives?

“With improvements in genomic sequencing technology and new methods in the lab driving data growth, data flows will continue to expand in the future. To ensure our continued innovation, we need to process data quickly and efficiently,” explained Dr. Pete Clapham, Informatics Support Group Leader, Wellcome Sanger Institute. “Dell PowerEdge servers are well-designed, have built-in security, and deliver the performance that allows us to accelerate scientific discovery and bring innovation to the world faster,” he elaborated

Along with enabling greater innovation in genomics (and thus healthcare), the new servers are also intended to address another key issue: sustainability.  

The company stressed that the new Dell PowerEdge servers are designed with sustainability in mind, offering customers a 3x performance improvement, compared to 14^th Generation PowerEdge servers with Intel Xeon Scalable processors launched in 2017, resulting in less floor space required and more powerful and efficient technology across all next-generation systems. More specifically, the new servers feature:

1. Dell Smart Flow design — A new feature within the Dell Smart Cooling suite increases airflow and reduces fan power by up to 52% compared to previous generation servers. The Smart Flow design supports greater server performance with less power required to cool systems for more efficient data centers.

2. Dell OpenManage Enterprise Power Manager 3.0 software — Customers can better manage efficiency and cooling goals, monitor carbon emissions and set power caps up to 82% faster to limit overall energy usage. With the enhanced sustainability target tool, customers can determine overall server use, virtual machine and facility energy consumption, leak detection for liquid cooling systems, and more.

3. Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) — Four next-generation Dell PowerEdge servers will be available with the EPEAT silver designation, and 46 systems will be designated EPEAT bronze. The EPEAT ecolabel is a leading global designation, covering products and services from the technology sector that demonstrate a responsible purchasing decision.

“Today’s modern data centre requires continuous performance improvements for complex workloads such as AI, ML and VDI,” said Kuba Stolarski, research vice president, IDC Enterprise Infrastructure Practice. “As data centre operators endeavour to keep up with the demand from these resource hungry workloads, they must also prioritize environmental and security goals.

“’With its new Smart Flow design, coupled with enhancements to its power and cooling management tools, Dell offers organizations significant improvements in efficient server operation alongside the raw performance gains in its newest generation of servers,” continued Stolarski.

The third note that the PowerEdge server’s release strike is on security. More particularly, the company stressed that reliability and security are at the core of the next-generation PowerEdge servers.

These are intended to help accelerate Zero Trust adoption within organizations’ IT environments. The devices constantly verify access, assuming every user and device is a potential threat. At the hardware level, silicon-based hardware root of trust, with elements including the Dell Secured Component Verification (SCV), helps verify supply chain security from design to delivery. Additionally, multifactor authentication and integrated iDRAC verifies users before granting access.

Not done yet

The company also hinted that there is more to come – we suspect, at Dell Technologies World in a few months time.

It confirmed that it will expand the Dell APEX portfolio to offer bare metal compute services on-premises, at the edge, or in colocation facilities. Services will be available through a predictable, monthly subscription and easily configured through the APEX Console, enabling customers to meet their workload and IT operational needs with scalable and secure compute resources.

“4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors have the most built-in accelerators of any CPU on the market to help maximize performance efficiency for real world applications, especially those powered by AI,” said Lisa Spelman, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Intel Xeon Products.

“With the latest generation of Dell PowerEdge servers, Intel and Dell continue our strong collaboration in delivering innovations that create real business value, while incorporating leading scalability and security that customers require,” she concluded.

Availability

1. Dell PowerEdge R760 is available globally in February 2023.
2. Dell PowerEdge HS5620, HS5610 are available globally in April 2023.
3. Additional next-generation Dell PowerEdge servers will be global availability throughout the first half of 2023.
4. ProDeploy Factory Configuration is globally available today, and ProDeploy Rack Integration is available today in the US.
5. Dell APEX compute services are planned for the second half of 2023.