Category Archives: Dell – Dell EMC

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).

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.

Continue reading

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

Behind the Scenes of the PowerEdge MX Plexiglass Chassis

If you’ve been to a trade show in the past year, you likely saw the Dell EMC PowerEdge MX blade chassis with a see-through, plexiglass design.  One of the designers, Max Abelardo, recently published a video showing how they made the plexiglass chassis, and it’s quite impressive.

Continue reading

UCS vs PowerEdge MX – Comparison of Admin Tasks

Principled Technologies released a report earlier this month that compared certain administrative tasks between a Cisco UCS blade server solution and a Dell EMC PowerEdge MX solution and the results were quite surprising. Continue reading

Managing Server Hardware and VMs – You Need This Tool

If your organization has teams that are responsible for managing both the physical server hardware (rack or blade server) lifecycle and the virtual environment, there is a tool that is ideal for you.  Continue reading

Blade Server Comparison – September 2018

With the recent release of the Dell EMC PowerEdge MX blade servers, I realized it’s been a year since I’ve updated my blade server comparison chart.  Below is an updated chart to help guide you to the best blade server for your project.  (REVISED December 2018 – fixed drive count on Dell EMC PowerEdge MX servers.  Thanks to Mike Browning for catching it after this many months!)

Continue reading

New Study Compares Networking Capabilities of Blade Server Solutions

An independent testing company, Principled Technologies, recently released a study that compared the networking capabilities of Dell EMC PowerEdge MX, HPE Synergy and Cisco UCS using VMware vMotion.  Their findings:

Continue reading

A Look Under the Covers of the PowerEdge MX7000 Chassis

VMworld 2018 opened with Dell EMC revealing the PowerEdge MX architecture to the public.  The show floor included the full chassis along with a plexiglass version providing a behind the scenes view into the guts of the MX7000 chassis.  I was able to grab a few pictures, but they don’t do it justice.  I encourage you to stop by the Dell EMC booth (next to AMD and in front of the basketball court) and see it if you are attending VMworld. Continue reading