How to Select a Dell Server

Datamation content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.

Dell makes an extensive line of servers — which box is right for your needs? Drew Robb overviews the choices.

A few months ago, Dell made some major changed to its PowerEdge server line. As usual, these changes are intended to make the machines more reliable, able to handle tougher workloads and improve performance.

The changes were implemented in three stages. In March, Dell refreshed its 2-socket PowerEdge models, which include the M610 and M710 blade servers; the R410, R510, R610 and R710 racks; and the T410, T610 and T710 towers. All contain the Intel Xeon 5600 processor.

That was soon followed up with three more — the R810, R910 and M910 — which took advantage of Intel’s latest “Nehalem-EX” — the Xeon 7500 and 6500 processors. Not to show too much favoritism, Dell released the R815 rack based on AMD Opteron’s 6100 series processor.

The latest development is three new servers released in June.

“Dell bolstered its PowerEdge portfolio again by introducing the M710HD and M610x blades as well as an AMD-based rack server known as the R715,” said Armando Acosta, a senior product line consultant for Dell’s 4-socket rack products. “These new servers come with unique features and design advancements.”

What he’s talking about are basically bells and whistles in the areas of flexibility, virtualization and management. FlexMemory Bridge Technology gives users the ability to select 2-socket PowerEdge blade and rack servers while accessing up to 32 DIMM slots for memory scalability. That aim here is to make it possible to reach an expanded memory capacity without paying a premium price.

“Fail-safe” virtualization is an embedded hypervisor to help speed the deployment and operation of virtualization. The company offers dual embedded hypervisors to provide customers with the added security of a redundant hypervisor.

Last is Dell’s Lifecycle Controller, which provides IT administrators with a single console view of their IT infrastructure. It also supplies provisioning functions, such as system deployment, system updates, hardware configuration and diagnostics.

Model Selection

With Dell’s new upgrades, there are many attractive models from which to choose. Which should you choose? Let’s take a look at the various categories.

Read the rest about Dell servers at ServerWatch.