Dell Unveils Four- and Two-Socket Servers

Dell today announced two PowerEdgeTM servers featuring AMD OpteronTM processors as part of Dell's commitment to leadership in price-performance, performance per watt and reducing complexity in customers’ server environments.

The company unveiled the PowerEdge 6950 and PowerEdge SC1435 along with the integration of Dell OpenManageTM and Oracle Enterprise Manager at a press conference at Oracle Open World.

The Dell PowerEdge 6950 is a four-socket server designed for demanding enterprise applications such as database, server consolidation, virtualization and migration from costly RISC-based systems. Featuring AMD Opteron processors, the PowerEdge 6950 can deliver industry leading performance1, eclipsing performance levels of conventional four-socket servers and consumes up to 20 percent less power than previous-generation four-socket PowerEdge servers2.

The PowerEdge SC1435 is a two-socket, rack-dense server optimized for high-performance compute clusters, distributed Web serving and small- to medium-sized businesses that require leading price-performance ratio and energy conservation features. The AMD Opteron processor-based PowerEdge SC1435 can deliver performance gains of up to 128 percent3 and performance-per-watt improvements of up to 138 percent4.

"The PowerEdge 6950 and PowerEdge SC1435 continue Dell’s unwavering commitment to meet customer needs and lead the industry in price-performance and performance per watt," said Brad Anderson, senior vice president, Dell Product Group. "These servers – combined with the integration of Dell OpenManage with Oracle applications to simplify the deployment, management and monitoring of Oracle applications – deliver the solutions our customers need to reduce complexity in enterprise environments."

Marty Seyer, senior vice president of AMD’s Commercial Segment noted Dell and AMD’s vision to deliver uncompromising performance-per-watt choices and complete solutions to Dell enterprise customers.

"AMD and Dell share a commitment to deliver system-wide innovation where it matters most to customers," said Seyer. "By combining Dell's world-class product design, service and support with the performance-per-watt benefits of AMD Opteron processors and open innovation platform enabled by the AMD Torrenza initiative, customers have the right tools for addressing specific workload needs and applications while reducing total cost of ownership."

Grid Management: Simplified
Dell and Oracle have integrated Dell OpenManage and Oracle Enterprise Manager to offer an industry-first solution for simplified management of the Oracle application infrastructure. The integration of these standards-based tools enables customers to natively manage Dell PowerEdge servers within a single management console familiar to Oracle database administrators.

By continuing its commitment to integrate its OpenManage product family with partner solutions, Dell is delivering standards-based, enhanced management for customers. This enables fast issue isolation and improved availability between application and hardware, helps minimize training and use of multiple tools and leverages existing IT investments for customers.

The integration of Dell OpenManage and Oracle Enterprise Manager includes support for lifecycle management of Dell PowerEdge servers with features such as:

• System discovery, reporting and configuration
  
• Managing server hardware health
  
• Cross-platform system event notification
  
• Event-driven policy execution

Dell PowerEdge – Excellence in Performance and Performance per Watt
The new servers complement Dell’s ninth-generation PowerEdge servers introduced earlier this year, delivering the most comprehensive technology and design enhancements ever to the widely installed product line. Enhancements include:

Industry-first programmable LCD that enables quick and easy visual diagnosis of server faults

• Individually labeled hard drives that provide quick identification of the technology, capacity and speed
  
• Standardized color coding and cabling that help make PowerEdge servers easier to manage and service today and with future generations
  
• Draw-latch design for tool-less access to server components
  
• ImageWatchTM , a Dell service that helps customers proactively manage the number of changes to system images, available in a block-release format further helping to reduce the number of image changes a customer has to manage.
  
• SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) hard drives for fast, reliable data transmission and minimized thermal output
  
• TCP/IP Offload Engine, which helps reduce traffic on a host processor to enhance system performance
  
• Enhanced virtualization technology for improved performance, management and utilization in virtualized workloads such as VMware ESX, Microsoft Virtual Server or Xen
  
• PCI-Express I/O, which delivers high-performance Ethernet, RAID, InfiniBand and Fibre Channel interconnect while providing investment protection for future technologies

Dell Platinum Plus Delivers Complete Enterprise Solutions, Enables Extended Uptime
Customers buying Dell’s newest PowerEdge servers can also benefit from Platinum Plus Enterprise Support, Dell’s highest level of enterprise support. Platinum Plus provides reliability and global consistency for customers with business-critical needs. It includes the industry’s first Operations Performance Benchmarking feature, a patent-pending methodology that allows customers to routinely compare critical IT performance metrics to historical results and similarly configured environments.

Platinum Plus also includes the Enterprise Command Center Real-Time Tracking Window, a Web-enabled feature to provide a virtual Enterprise Command Center to follow ongoing support activities.

Platinum Plus is the culmination of a more than $200 million investment in enterprise support over the past several years. In addition to Platinum Plus, Dell offers Gold, Silver and Basic levels of enterprise support. For more information, visit www.dell.com/services

Pricing and Availability
Available now worldwide, the PowerEdge 6950 and PowerEdge SC1435 with dual-core, next-generation AMD Opteron processors are priced from $6,499 and $1,299, respectively. Additional information is available at http://www.dell.com/poweredge Product photography is available at www.dell.com/photos