Eco-blades
Dell is claiming leadership in the data centre market with the launch of its PowerEdge M-Series blade solution, which apparently consumes up to 19 per cent less energy than HP and up to 28 per cent better performance per watt than IBM.
Note the “up to”, as in “download speeds of up to 8Mbps”. For the record, the comparisons were made against the HP BladeSystem c-Class1 and IBM BladeCenter H. The M-Series also provides lead-free configurations, which Dell is using to attach as much ‘green’ kudos as possible to the new product.
“Blade offerings have been long on promises and short on helping customers address the growing costs and complexity in their data centers,” said Brad Anderson, senior vice president, Dell Business Product Group. “The PowerEdge M-Series delivers on those promises with unmatched energy efficiency, flexibility, performance and manageability. It enables customers to achieve the compute performance they need while lowering their overall power consumption and reducing data center complexity and server sprawl.”
The PowerEdge M1000e, a 10U-sized enclosure, supports 16 blade servers. It is optimized for Dell’s PowerEdge M600 and M605 blade servers and supports up to two quad-core Intel Xeon and quad-core AMD Opteron processors, respectively. The M600 and M605 blade servers are apparently 60 per cent more dense than standard 1U servers.
Dell claims the M1000e blade enclosure is now available worldwide for ordering with a starting price of $5,999, along with blades starting at $1,849. It’s not clear how that will translate into pounds or if there is a channel interest in the launch. It’s currently unavailable to buy on the Dell website but it does provide a phone number for anyone who wants some hot call centre action.
