22 July 2016 – Dell has announced updates to the systems management portfolio for the Dell PowerEdge FX2 modular infrastructure to help customers further maximise IT productivity and business continuity. The new features enhance provisioning and infrastructure visibility, plus add support for Nagios users and open source applications.
Dell’s overall blade server growth is bolstered by the PowerEdge FX2, which is significantly outpacing industry blade server growth. The PowerEdge FX2 has demonstrated triple-digit percentage growth year-over-year in unit and revenue over the previous four quarters, contributing substantially to PowerEdge blade server gains, since its launch in 20141. According to IDC, Dell PowerEdge blade servers experienced 34 percent year-over-year revenue growth and grew 17 percent faster than the industry in the first quarter of 2016.2
“Our customers are interested in making their IT infrastructure more flexible and efficient to address evolving business and workload demands in real-time,” said William Tan, head of Enterprise Solutions, Dell Malaysia. “With strong systems management capabilities, the PowerEdge FX2 can help customers meet their goals by supporting traditional applications and new workloads driven by social, mobile, analytics and cloud computing in a modular infrastructure. These attributes combined with recent customer successes is driving unprecedented growth.”
Improved Management and Industry Software Integration for Dell PowerEdge FX2
Dell has enhanced its systems management software to take advantage of the unique engineering of the Dell PowerEdge FX2 and is designed to simplify and automate critical hardware management tasks. New capabilities and updates enhance the user experience with improved ease of provisioning for virtualised workloads, plug-ins for Nagios users, and comprehensive infrastructure visibility and flexibility to run open source applications.
This includes:
- Dell OpenManage Essentials 2.2 enables fast provisioning of I/O aggregators with template-based processes that easily and uniformly replicate the assignment of vLANs during the blade port mapping process, which ensures simplicity and accuracy in network set-up. The new geographic view feature enables quick, easy location access to PowerEdge FX2 systems onsite or across the globe with manageability across 5500 devices. Additionally, seamless integration with SupportAssist3 provides proactive, predictive support and automated case creation to resolve hardware issues up to 90 percent faster with ProSupport Plus4
- The new OpenManage plug-in for Nagios XI 1.0 extracts detailed PowerEdge FX2 infrastructure information from the Dell Chassis Management Controller and server embedded intelligence, iDRAC with Lifecycle Controller, delivering a unified set of alerts and health monitoring details to Nagios XI administrators. As a result, customers can continue using their Nagios XI console to monitor Dell hardware without additional tools or training while achieving a higher return on their investment.
- New Active System Manager (ASM) 8.2 capabilities enable fast and easy on-boarding and deployment of IT services across multiple chassis, server, storage and networking devices. The port view provides a visual mapping of physical and virtual infrastructures and any connectivity issues to allow for quick troubleshooting to help IT teams maintain business continuity and deliver more consistent, reliable IT services. Additionally, a new software developer kit (SDK) simplifies creating and deploying complex applications using readily available open source modules.
Customers and Partners Choose PowerEdge FX2 to Revolutionise Data Centers
With the Dell PowerEdge FX2 and Dell system management software, customers across 70 countries, including China and Australia, are taking advantage of the integrated building blocks of servers, storage and networking that help them achieve data center flexibility and efficiency without having to overhaul their existing infrastructure. Examples include:
MEIZU, in China, is a smartphone manufacturer that was looking to switch from a traditional desktop environment to a virtualised desktop infrastructure to increase customer service productivity. MEIZU deployed six Dell PowerEdge FX2 chassis and 24 Dell PowerEdge FM120x4 micro servers to replace a disparate environment where previously applications and data were run locally across multiple desktops. With instant access to data, MEIZU enhanced customer service satisfaction while reducing the time needed for IT management at a cost-efficient rate.
“The converged infrastructure is a hit with the IT team as it helps them reduce the management burden, is simpler to scale, and supports growth,” said Li Kechen, R&D and IT Director at MEIZU. “With the FX2 solution, MEIZU expects developers will gain faster and more reliable access to their testing environments while delivering significant savings that can be reinvested in other areas of the organisation. The Dell ProSupport Plus agreement helps maximise reliability over the long term.”
Qbao.com, a micro commerce site in China, was looking for a highly scalable infrastructure to support the organisation’s rapid growth. At the center of its marketplace infrastructure, the company deployed the Dell PowerEdge FX2 converged architecture powered by Intel technology, as well as Dell Storage PS Series arrays, Dell Storage NAS technology and Dell Networking switches.
The company reduced total cost of ownership by 9 percent for its micro commerce online marketplace compared with other micro commerce sites that it controls. Compared with other sites, IT efficiency also improved by 30 times. Through the support of the Dell end-to-end solution, Qbao.com has guaranteed an environment for the micro commerce marketplace to continue to grow and flourish.
Liaocheng University, in China, wanted to improve desktop services to the China Smart City Research Institute, located in the university’s central lab building. Its goal was to devise Smart City solutions with commercial potential to export to the rest of the world as well as support China’s own development. To maximise the creative potential of the 120 institute staff and focus its attention on enhancing the desktop experience, the university implemented a converged VDI from Dell, featuring Dell PowerEdge FX architecture. It also deployed Dell Storage with Intel Xeon processors and Dell Networking at the back end, as well as a SonicWall next-generation firewall and Wyse endpoints.
As a result, there was enhanced innovation with 30 percent faster mathematical modelling, energy consumption was down by 40 percent, and IT management time was halved. “Because the design was based on the Dell FX2 converged architecture instead of rack servers, we increased the density of our IT by 300 percent. We estimate the savings to be RMB 1.6 million (US$245,000),” said Yu Bo, Information Center director, China Smart City Research Institute. “In essence, we have created a platform to really drive our Smart City research, so I think our relationship with Dell will be a long one.”
Rising Sun Pictures, in Australia, wanted to have a future-ready IT environment to stay at the forefront of the movie industry with cutting-edge movie visual effects. By teaming up with Dell partner Vlnet Solutions, Rising Sun Pictures deployed a compact, high-density and high-performance computing solution with 40 Dell PowerEdge FC630 servers across 10 Dell PowerEdge FX2 chassis with Dell ProSupport for Enterprise. These artists now have the tools they need to focus on visual effects innovation.
“The Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution was a great fit because the technology is modular and very flexible, which allowed us to protect our investment with the option of changing the server modules down the line as Dell brings new servers on stream,” said Mark Day, director of engineering at Rising Sun Pictures. “Now we can play a greater role in the storytelling process because our artists have reliable Dell technology that opens up new opportunities for movie visual effects.”
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