Dell has revealed the next iteration of PowerEdge servers, aiming to improve performance of computing for data centres, public clouds, and the edge.
There are 13 new servers in total: HS5610, HS5620, R660, R760, R660xs, R760xs, R760xa, R760xd, R960, R860, MX760c, C660, and T560. The servers are powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors and have been designed for demanding workloads such as artificial intelligence, analytics, and managing large-scale databases.
The Dell PowerEdge HS5610 and HS5620 servers are aimed at cloud service providers (CSPs) that manage large-scale data centres. They’re available in 1U and 2U, and are two-socket servers.
The company also claims that the new servers provide improved performance. For example, the Dell PowerEdge R760 provides up to 2.9x greater AI inferencing, according to Dell.
It also offers up to a 20% increase in virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) users and over 50% more SAP sales and distribution users on one server. Customers are also able to order the new servers with Nvidia Bluefield-2 data processing units.
“Customers come to Dell for easily managed yet sophisticated and efficient servers with advanced capabilities to power their business-critical workloads,” said Jeff Boudreau, president and general manager of Dell's infrastructure solutions group.
“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.”
The Dell PowerEdge R760 is expected to be available globally in February 2023, while the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 and HS5610 will be available by April 2023. For the rest of the servers, Dell expects there to be global availability during the first half of 2023.
"Customers rely on Dell to deliver powerful yet efficient servers that are easy to manage," said Tim Loake, vice president of Dell's infrastructure solutions group in the UK, to IT Pro. "This next generation of servers combines Dell’s consistent innovation and reliable performance, delivering increased power, security and sustainability that customers need to run their organisations. With the addition of the HS-series of servers, we’re also reaching a new customer group, delivering custom solutions for CSPs.
"For this generation of servers, we have doubled down on the tenants of PowerEdge. As we expand into new product categories, we are also optimising our products for core, edge, telco, scale, and CSPs," he added.
"This next generation of PowerEdge servers are purpose-built for the environments in which they will be deployed, for the needs of our customers built upon the common foundation of intelligent systems management, including cyber resilient security frameworks that are also sustainable."
Dell claimed that its new servers provide a 3x performance improvement when compared against the 14th generation PowerEdge servers launched in 2017. The Dell Smart Flow feature, which increases airflow and reduces the server’s fan power up to 52%, contributed to this increase.
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“With its new Smart Flow design, coupled with enhancements to its power and cooling management tools, Dell offers organisations significant improvements in efficient server operation alongside the raw performance gains in its newest generation of servers,” said Kuba Stolarski, research vice president at IDC's enterprise infrastructure practice.
Dell has made updates to its monitoring software and introduced new services to make it easier for customers to manage their servers:
- Dell CloudIQ: The company’s cloud-based app that monitors storage system health has now been updated to include better server performance forecasting as well as virtualisation visualisation
- Dell ProDeploy services: Customers can now choose to have the new servers arrive preconfigured with their preferred operating system and hypervisor software through the Dell ProDeploy Factory Configuration. This feature is globally available from today. Additionally, Dell is targeting companies expanding their data centres through its Dell ProDeploy Rack Integration which delivers and installs the new servers. This feature is available today in the US, although it’s unclear whether it will be offered or deployed to the rest of the world.
Dell unveiled the previous generation of its PowerEdge servers in November 2022, which had 4th Generation AMD EPYC processors and were designed for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads.
The servers unveiled were the PowerEdge R7625, R7615, R662, and R6615. They’re known as the PowerEdge XE family of servers that have Nvidia H100 Tensor Core GPUs.
