After teasing the public at Dell Technologies World, Dell EMC has finally released details of its next generation modular architecture – the PowerEdge MX. This generation of modular has something that gives you investment protection for years to come. In this post, you’ll get a good overview of Dell EMC’s new blade server architecture, so grab a cup of coffee and enjoy this first look. Continue reading
Tag Archives: blade servers
Don’t Move to the Cloud Before You Read This
If you are looking at moving workloads to the cloud – you should stop and read this first. Deploying an on-premises private cloud built on blade servers could save some major time and offer cost savings. Of course, there are use cases where public cloud makes sense, and others where having an on-premise solution makes sense. Here is one of those cases.
Upgrading Your Blade Servers For Free
No, this isn’t click bait. You could possibly upgrade your blade servers and it could actually end up saving you money (and theoretically be free.) Let me explain. Continue reading
Dell EMC Introduces the PowerEdge MX
This week Dell EMC launched a teaser video of the PowerEdge MX. The video’s intent is to act as a “teaser” for more information that will be rolling out over the next few weeks when it will be announced at Dell EMC World Dell Technologies World in late April. Unfortunately I can’t reveal more than the video shows, however if you want to learn more, please reach out to your Dell EMC rep and schedule a meeting. Continue reading
Are Blade Servers Dead, or the Future of the DataCenter?
As I talk with customers, I often run into camps who either love blade servers or they absolutely hate them – and will never use them. I even hear some people think blade servers are dying off, but I think that is far from the case. In fact, I believe that blade servers could be the future of the datacenter and here’s why. Continue reading
Lenovo First to Announce Blades with New Intel CPUs
On June 20th, Lenovo released information about their upcoming blade servers built on the upcoming Intel Xeon processor: the two processor ThinkSystem SN550 and the four processor ThinkSystem SN850. Although there doesn’t appear to be any spec sheets yet on the products, there are a few things that can be extracted from the published 3D tour. Continue reading
Integrating Dell Blade Servers into Cisco Nexus Environments
I recently had some discussions with a customer looking to connect a Dell EMC PowerEdge M1000e to a Cisco Nexus and I was quite surprised at the number of resources available to assist in the project. Below you will find links to the documents I found with the hope it will help you out in the near future.
Blades vs Rack Mount -a podcast
In June of 2011, I had the pleasure of joining Nigel Poulton, Rick Vanover and Bob Plankers on the podcast, “InfoSmack Deep Dive” to talk about blade servers versus rack servers. In the 47 minute discussion we talked over the pros and cons of both types of server platform. I recently found a copy of the podcast in my Dropbox, so I listened to it and was shocked to hear that many of the same arguments and counter-points we reviewed almost 6 years ago still applies with servers today. If you are curious as to whether blade servers or rack servers are ideal for you, I encourage you to take some time and listen to this podcast.
Special thanks to:
Nigel Poulton (@NigelPoulton, http://blog.nigelpoulton.com/)
Rick Vanover (@RickVanover, rickvanover.com)
Bob Plankers (@Plankers, https://lonesysadmin.net/)
Podcast download: https://bladesmadesimple.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/infosmack_deep_dive_podcast_104.mp3
Listen here:
Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com. He has 20 years of experience in the x86 server marketplace. Since 1997 Kevin has worked at several resellers in the Atlanta area, and has a vast array of competitive x86 server knowledge and certifications as well as an in-depth understanding of VMware and Citrix virtualization. Kevin has worked at Dell EMC as a Server Sales Engineer covering the Global Enterprise market since August 2011 and currently works as a Technical Architect supporting the Central Region.
Disclaimer: The views presented in this blog are personal views and may or may not reflect any of the contributors’ employer’s positions. Furthermore, the content is not reviewed, approved or published by any employer.
Helpful Blade Server Links
Here is a list of blade-related websites that may help you find more information about blade servers. Since vendors tend to move their sites without notice if you find a dead link, please let me know. If you have other sites that you think are worthy to remember, email me at “kevin AT bladesmadesimple.com”.
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Vblocks Will Continue to Use UCS
As the new year kicks off, Dell EMC leadership has made it clear that the partnership with Cisco is as strong as always. Cisco’s UCS is the compute layer of the Dell EMC Vblock so many wondered if there would be a “Dblock” or something similar using the PowerEdge blade server product from the former VCE group and the answer is an astounding “NO!” (In case you missed it, check out Chad Sakac‘s blog post, “Vblock and VxBlock Use Cisco UCS. Got it?“) Continue reading