Gen-14: Dell EMC launches next generation of PowerEdge server

Dell EMC has announced the availability of its new PowerEdge 14th generation servers.

Dell EMC PowerEdge R940, R740, R740xd, R640, and C6420 are now available worldwide, and the PowerEdge FC640 and M640 will be available later in 2017.

Dell EMC solutions based on new PowerEdge servers will be available worldwide throughout the second half of 2017.

The PowerEdge 14th generation server, which the subsidiary of Dell Technologies claims to be the world's best-selling server, was previewed at Dell EMC World 2017 in Las Vegas earlier in the year.

"The Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation servers improve upon the world's best-selling server portfolio, designed to drive our customers' IT transformations," comments Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, president, Server Solutions Division at Dell EMC.

"Our modern infrastructure solutions are a game changer in today's digital economy. With our cyber-resilient architecture and performance innovations, we will enable our customers to unleash their business potential.

"There is an evolution in the role applications and the data center play in the organization of today," explains Pang Yee Beng, senior vice president, APJ, Compute - Networking, Dell EMC.

"The demands on today's data center have changed – it has to deliver a modern infrastructure that can adapt and scale with business needs and ultimately enable faster IT transformation.

"The Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th Generation servers effectively modernize the core of the data center to meet these demands.

In a recent ESG 2017 IT Transformation Maturity Curve study commissioned by Dell EMC, organizations furthest along in their IT transformation initiatives are seven times more likely to view IT as a competitive differentiator.

To achieve this, Dell EMC says the priority for many IT transformation initiatives is a modern infrastructure that can securely deliver improved efficiencies while driving innovation that enables new business models.

The new Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation server portfolio aims to address these needs by offering scalable business architecture, intelligent automation and integrated security.

Built for traditional, virtualized and cloud-native workloads in a software-defined data center, the server's scalable business architecture aims to help customers meet their changing business needs and IT transformation goals.

According to Dell EMC, the new PowerEdge server portfolio, highly optimized for non-volatile memory express (NVMe), aims to help customers accelerate deployment of software-defined data storage and hyper-converged infrastructure stacks with:

• Accelerated database performance and lower latency with up to 12 times more database IOPS1 and up to 98 percent less database latency in a VMware vSAN cluster4
• Faster and seamless live migration of virtual machines now up to 58 percent faster with up to 75 percent less CPU usage when using 25GbE with Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA)5
• Faster storage performance in compute to maximize application performance with up to six times more NVMe drives, up to five times total flash storage, 30 percent more input/output slots and 25 percent density improvement6

Dell EMC believes that security is integral to compute and should not require extra licensing fees.

The multinational company claims their new server offers robust cyber-resilient architecture that helps customers protect, detect, recover and retire PowerEdge servers via:

• Cryptographically trusted booting that anchors end-to-end server safety and overall data center security. It includes features like silicon-based root of trust, Intel Boot Guard protection, signed firmware and automatic BIOS recovery and the new OpenManage Enterprise as a virtual console delivers enhanced server safety while offering customers operational flexibility
• System Lockdown, a capability unique to PowerEdge, helps secure any system configuration from malicious or unintended changes while alerting users to any attempted system changes
• System Erase, which allows users to easily retire or repurpose their 14th generation PowerEdge servers by securely and quickly wiping data from storage drives and other embedded non-volatile memory

Dell EMC is bringing Intel Xeon Scalable processors to Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation servers.

With the PowerEdge 14th generation servers, Dell EMC claims customers can accelerate performance of business-critical applications and workloads.

Lisa Spelman, vice president and general manager of Intel Xeon Products and Data Center Marketing, says Intel Xeon Scalable processors are reflective of the monumental leap that data centers have taken in the past decade.

"With uncompromising security, and a modern, multi-cloud-ready infrastructure built on industry-leading technologies from Intel, Dell EMC PowerEdge servers enable customers to move their IT Transformation forward faster.

Dell EMC's latest line-up of PowerEdge servers includes rack and blade form factors.

• PowerEdge R640 – Ideal combination for dense scale-out data center computing and storage in a 1U/2-socket platform
• PowerEdge R740 – Workhorse for demanding environments providing the ideal balance between storage, I/O and application acceleration and with superior configuration flexibility in a 2U/2S platform. R740 enables up to 50 percent more VDI users per server8 and up to 50 percent more GPU accelerator support for Hadoop analytics9
• PowerEdge R740XD – This 2U/2S platform is best-in-class storage performance and density for applications like software-defined storage and with the versatility demanded by cloud service providers, Hadoop/Big Data users and co-location hosting
• PowerEdge R940 – This 3U/ 4S platform handles extremely demanding, mission-critical workloads like enterprise resource planning (ERP), eCommerce and very large databases. The PowerEdge R940 can save up to US $600,000 in Oracle Licensing costs10 and performs up to 44% faster in a SAP SD Sybase Environment11
• PowerEdge M640 and FC640 – Unparalleled modular serves designed for high performance with best-in-class density for exceptional scalability in a Blade and Modular platform
• PowerEdge C6420 – Ideal for high-performance computing. Maximizes density, scalability and energy efficiency per unit in a 2U/8S Modular platform