Earlier this month Dell EMC unveiled their newest solution of products that combines all of their core products into one system known as PowerOne. This new system will be fully-engineered and highly-automated with autonomous operations and flexible consumption options and is being positioned as “Autonomous Infrastructure” – but don’t call it AI. If you haven’t heard of Autonomous Infrastructure before, it’s because it’s a new category for products that are beyond Converged Infrastructure. The Dell EMC PowerOne combines PowerEdge MX blade servers with PowerMax storage and connects it via Dell EMC Networking while protecting it with Dell EMC Data Protection. I’ll go more into the components at the end of this post, but first I want to focus on what makes PowerOne unique – the automation. Continue reading
Author Archives: Kevin Houston
GPU Options for Today’s Blade Servers
In the past, a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) was equated to a workload that was designing something, like building automobiles. However, over the past two or three years, organizations have realized that GPUs have more value than utilization in Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Machine Learning (ML). In fact, a large majority of GPU adoption revolves around utilization of GPUs with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Organizations have realized that VDI running Windows 10 can benefit from GPUs, so GPUs are now becoming a requirement for VDI. As we look at a “modular infrastructure” (aka blade server) environment, having multiple servers within a small footprint is ideal for VDI. Therefore, in today’s blog post, I’m going to review what each blade server vendor offers for GPU options. Continue reading
BladesMadeSimple Turns 10
Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of BladesMadeSimple.com and it’s been a great decade. Let me walk you back through time and give you some insights as to why this blog was created and what it has accomplished. Continue reading
A Little Known Secret About Dell EMC Servers That You Should Know
There is a little known secret about Dell EMC servers that you should know. It’s something that is been available on every server since day one yet most people, even Dell EMC employees, don’t know… Continue reading
Blade Server Comparison – August 2019
Below is an updated chart to help guide you to the best blade server for your project. This version includes Intel DC Persistent Memory (Optane).
Overview of the Cisco UCS 6454 Fabric Interconnect
Earlier this year Cisco announced and has begun shipping the Cisco UCS 6454 Fabric Interconnect (FI). The Cisco UCS 6454 offers line-rate, low-latency, lossless 10/25/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and Fibre Channel functions. In this blog post I provide an overview of what you can expect in this fourth generation FI and provide some things you need to be aware of before migrating. Continue reading
Top 5 Reasons Why You Need Intel’s 2nd Generation Xeon SP Processor
A few weeks ago, Intel launched their 2nd generation of Intel Xeon SP (formerly known as “Cascade Lake”.) There are some very important reasons you need to purchase your next blade servers with this CPU. Continue reading
Why Blade Servers Could Be the Data Center of the Future
One of my tasks as Chief Technology Architect at Dell is to talk with customers about future technologies. When I reflect on my past vision of where the blade server is heading (“The Blade Server of the Future“) I’m surprised at how close we are to that vision becoming a reality. Based upon where we are heading, the blade server format could be the perfect model for the future datacenter, so let me explain why. Continue reading
Overview of the Industry Top Blade Chassis
It occurred to me that I created a reference chart for showing what blade server options are available in the market (“Blade Server Comparison – 2018“) but I’ve never listed the options for blade server chassis. In this post, I’ll provide you with overviews of blade chassis from Cisco, Dell EMC, HPE and Lenovo. One of the things I’m not going to do is try and give Pro’s and Con’s for each chassis. The reason is quite obvious if you have read this blog before, but in a nutshell, I work for Dell EMC, so I’m not going to promote or bash any vendor. My goal is to simplify each vendor’s offerings and give you one place to get an overview of each blade chassis in the market.
What You May Not Know About PowerEdge VRTX
We just learned this week that the PowerEdge VRTX, which was announced in June of 2013, will remain in the Dell EMC portfolio into 2021. This is great news for customers who have invested into the “datacenter in a box” platform and opens up an opportunity for those who aren’t using it. It’s been a while since I’ve talked about the PowerEdge VRTX platform, so here are a few things you may not know. Continue reading