Highest level

    Perhaps, startups are a landmark of modern business, a driving force not only in their “core” industries, but also in complementary markets. Commercial real estate owes them coworking - offices, dormitories, catering - hundreds of liters of “Americano” takeaway, and IT - new compact all-in-one solutions, inexpensive, efficient and quickly deployable at the same time. Startups suddenly have a growing pain: it seemed that yesterday a couple of more or less productive laptops were enough for enthusiasts, and today the task flow, data volume and number of users require serious thinking about the IT equipment of a young business.

    In this case, Dell goes from tasks. Is there a new market? Is there a need for small integrated solutions? Get and Sign - Dell PowerEdge VRTX, the first complete server solution for small and medium businesses. By the way, the developers got the idea of ​​creating the platform from the users themselves. At the IdeaStorm exchange site, one of them expressed the idea of ​​the need to create a new server rack form factor. It was rightly noted that startups do not always have a separate room for a server, and in a room shared with workplaces, a large server cabinet is simply superfluous. The idea of ​​the user was to create a new standard rack-mount platform for small and medium-sized businesses, which would suggest a more compact size, lower power consumption and lower levels of active cooling - the noise of the fans makes it difficult to concentrate. The user suggested modifying the rack-mount standard U into a kind of Mini U, which would be at least two times less in depth and height. Such a rack should ideally fit servers, switches, routers, UPSs, cables, etc. And, most importantly, the new standard must be open so that equipment manufacturers are guided by it. So, Dell PowerEdge VRTX is designed specifically for these requirements. What is this platform, what are its capabilities, key features and possible applications? cables, etc. And, most importantly, the new standard must be open so that equipment manufacturers are guided by it. So, Dell PowerEdge VRTX is designed specifically for these requirements. What is this platform, what are its capabilities, key features and possible applications? cables, etc. And, most importantly, the new standard must be open so that equipment manufacturers are guided by it. So, Dell PowerEdge VRTX is designed specifically for these requirements. What is this platform, what are its capabilities, key features and possible applications?


    The name Dell PowerEdge VRTX is pronounced "ver-tex" and translated from Latin means "higher level". The high-profile application is fully justified: such an authoritative magazine as ITPro does not give credits of trust and the first place in the nomination “Innovations” is awarded only in the case.
    Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a single complete unified platform for solving a wide range of IT problems. The company's engineers managed to connect the computing nodes, storage, switch, patch cables and remote monitoring and control system in one simple, effective and versatile solution. This convenient and practical option is suitable for both startups and remote branches with a good load, which now do not have to carve out space for countless racks in a separate office room. Yes, and to manage all this "economy" has become much easier, but more on that later ...

    Let's start with the look. Initially, the device is delivered in the “tower” version and provides for installation in a standard rack. For the installation of directly computing nodes, there are four “sockets” on the front side of the case with the ability to install Dell PowerEdge M520 or M620 blade servers with hot-plug support already on the market. Nearby are hot-swap bays (2.5 ”or 3.5” - depending on the choice of the customer) for filling the HDD disk subsystem of the platform. Immediately, on the front panel of the case, you can see the LCD panel for convenient monitoring of key components of the complex, two USB ports of the built-in KVM switch and a tray shared between all DVD drive servers. If necessary, the front side can be protected with a lid with a lock.

    On the back of the case there are four hot-swappable fan blocks, chassis control ports, four power supplies, an eight-port 1GB switch and eight external PCIe slots.

    More about platform components? The "blades" of the Dell PowerEdge M520 and M620 are two-socket half-format blade servers that combine high performance and extensive functionality. They are equipped with the latest Intel Xeon processors of the E5-2600 / 2400 family with support for up to eight cores, they allow you to install up to 768 GB of DDR3 RAM with a frequency of up to 1600 MHz (for the M620 model) and up to two SATA / SAS hot-swap drives (including solid state) . Both models work with the Intel C600 chipset and support a wide range of mezzanine I / O cards: 1 and 10 GB, FC and InfiniBand. They also support internal SD cards for the hypervisor and vFlash, which allow you to automate the server configuration, use scripts and images of operating systems. Of particular note

    Shared storage with PERC8 RAID can include up to 25 2.5 ”drives. It supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10, RAID 50 and RAID 60 arrays. In a configuration with twelve 3.5 ”hard drives, the total disk space can reach 48 TB with support for Live Migration technology in a virtual environment in the framework of one chassis. Interestingly, this volume is limited only by the models of the disks themselves available on the market, and in the future the maximum file storage size may be increased - it all depends on your needs. Further, since the entire system is a single unit, the cost of cables and power to the disk subsystem is very significantly reduced. All four installed blade servers have access to the storage system, with each server accessing its own disk pool.

    Built-in network ports and standard PCIe slots provide wide connectivity: the chassis allows you to use three full-format and five low-profile expansion cards, including professional graphics cards - for example, ATI FirePro W7000. For these purposes, additional power cables are provided. Importantly, the slots support the "hot swap" mode.

    The chassis comes standard with an eight-port 1 Gbps switch that supports Select Network Adapter technology and the ability to aggregate channels up to 8 Gbps, but it can be optionally replaced with a 1 Gbps transit module.

    1 100 W hot-swap power supplies operate automatically depending on the current load in 1 + 1, 2 + 1, 3 + 1 and 2 + 2 configurations over a wide voltage range from 100 to 240 V. Used standard cable means standard wiring is quite suitable for itself. What about cooling? The solution here is also very, very advanced: four hot-swappable fan units and Fresh Air technology known from previous Dell products. What is this talking about? It's simple: the acoustic characteristics of VRTX are “at the office level”, and even though it sounds too formal, it is.

    Hardware-level remote control of the Dell PowerEdge VRTX platform is provided by the PCC CMC Access mezzanine adapter with its own processor and Flash memory. This allows you to access the system with almost any malfunction of internal nodes and eliminate / localize the problem area remotely. The only requirement is the presence of power and a network cable in the adapter.

    Due to the fact that the management of servers, data storage, network equipment and power consumption are combined at one point, the complexity of maintenance in the case of the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is significantly reduced, and without exaggeration, the user-friendly interface minimizes possible errors. Dell Open Management Essentials software provides management of Dell PowerEdge M520 and M620 servers, supports iDRAC7 with Lifecycle Controller technology, deployment tools (such as making bootable images on a DVD (SBUU) or USB flash drive (USC), boot from PXE or virtual ISO, Dell detection Auto Discovery (D&H), license installation via RACADM or WSMAN), monitoring and updating tools. GeoView is a convenient geographic view of Dell PowerEdge VRTX systems distributed around the world, - allows you to quickly and clearly identify remotely distributed systems and tracks their status in the form of colored icons on the global map. CMC management enables simultaneous upgrades of up to 36 servers on nine Dell PowerEdge VRTX platforms with a single system reboot.

    As a result, we get a single platform that combines servers, storage, networks and monitoring and control systems and runs on familiar Dell technologies. Due to simple implementation, saving time and reducing possible errors with a single and simplified control system, a reduction in capital and operating costs is achieved. Efficiency of the cooling system and low noise and energy consumption also add compliments to the VRTX address - all this allows you to place the chassis in almost any office space, not necessarily isolated and ground under IT. If you add to this a wide selection of applications (virtualization, file server, print server, mail, security, backup, etc.), the scope of Dell PowerEdge VRTX is almost unlimited: from small and medium enterprises to the remote offices of large companies anywhere in the world. And, of course, the very extensive capabilities for customizing the platform allow it to cover, in principle, any areas of activity, be it government agencies, commercial enterprises, education, medicine, and trade.

    Estimated retail price of Dell PowerEdge VRTX - from 300 000 rubles. depending on configuration. If you want to know more about Dell PowerEdge VRTX or are interested in order conditions, you can write directly to Marat Rakayev at Dell .

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