Dell unveils Nehalem systems in broad new portfolio

Dell's Nehalem-based servers have an embedded management controller

Dell has unveiled a new portfolio of enterprise computing products, including servers and workstations based on Intel's upcoming Nehalem-based Xeon chips, storage arrays, an open-standards management console, and additional consultancy services.

The new line-up is part of a strategy to help customers drive down costs through efficiency and power management savings, according to Dell.

"Customers are struggling to take costs out of the datacentre. Today, with this announcement, we are enabling customers to take efficiency to the next level and help them out in this current economic situation," said Rick Becker, vice president of software solutions at Dell.

A major part of the announcement is the new 11th generation (11G) PowerEdge server line-up. These consist of twin-socket tower, rack and blade formats running Intel's Xeon 5500 chips, which give a significant boost in performance while also cutting back on energy consumption, according to Dell.

The 11G servers and three new tower-format Precision workstations will be available immediately following Intel's official launch of the Nehalem-based Xeon chips next week.

A key differentiator is that Dell's servers have an embedded lifecycle controller that reduces costs by simplifying management, the company said.

"We are the first to deliver embedded management through this, which can take deployment of new servers from hours down to minutes," said Becker, claiming that the new blade servers can deliver a 40 per cent cut in total cost of ownership over three years.

Dell also said that customers will be able to save time by pre-configuring servers through the ImageDirect web site when ordering hardware.

"Customers can configure the image from the operating system all the way up to the application level. What finally shows up at the datacentre is a server that is already 90 per cent configured," said Raj Kushawa, vice president of global services at Dell.

Also intended to simplify management is the Dell Management Console, based on technology from Symantec's Altiris division. This provides a "single pane of glass to manage all Dell products", according to Kushawa, and will be included as standard with all new PowerEdge servers.

Dell said that by partnering with Symantec, it has been able to ensure that the Management Console will manage heterogeneous environments where Dell hardware is used alongside HP or IBM kit. The company claimed that this approach could reduce the number of consoles an IT department needs to just one.

In the storage arena, Dell announced the immediate availability of the EMC NX4 network-attached storage product, and the EqualLogic PS6000 family of storage arrays.

Praveen Asthana, Dell's enterprise storage director, said that the PS6000 is "moving more into the enterprise customer space" with performance twice that of the PS5000 range. The new arrays integrate better with virtual servers, he said, providing snapshot support for Microsoft's Hyper-V as well as VMware infrastructure.

Finally, Dell announced new ProConsulting and enhanced ProSupport services for customers in the EMEA region. The ProConsulting services are designed to help customers optimise their environment, while with ProSupport, customers can choose to outsource support for just hardware, or everything on the servers right up to applications, Dell said.