Dell PowerEdge Servers and Data Center Solutions: Customer-driven success

2012 was a year of fantastic accomplishments for Dell and the enterprise server organization.  We got off to a quick and impressive start in February when we introduced the 12th generation of PowerEdge servers, once again proving our commitment to customer-driven innovation. With our 2nd generation of iDRAC with Lifecycle Controller we continue to trailblaze best-in-class systems management that delivers highly automated, available platforms for our customers. Furthermore, the entire lifecycle of the server can now be performed in an agent-free environment, putting us out in front of other vendors’ offerings. In September, we launched the PowerEdge C8000 series with a ground-breaking design that will no doubt create a new category of flexible scale-out solutions. Just this month we added a 4TB drive as an option. Now servers like the R720xd, our storage-optimized server, can have 33% more capacity, giving customers up to 50TB of internal storage.

Great products and innovations produce great results. The hard work that we invested in our servers and systems management solutions has really paid off. A strong signal from the market that we are on the right path is our gaining +1.9 worldwide unit share points at the expense of our chief competitors this past quarter. Our unit share performance brought us the #1 position in APJ, adding to our #1 in the Americas.  And this past year, Dell’s Data Center Solutions (DCS) group celebrated the shipment of its millionth server, and shows no signs of slowing down.

Some of those DCS servers are running right in our own backyard at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, where Project Stampede is now operational. The project, one of the largest computing systems in the world for open science research , consists of several thousand Dell PowerEdge C8000 series servers, offering almost 2 petaflops of peak performance. Farther to the west, in the Arizona heat, eBay turned to Dell’s Modular Data Center (MDC) solution when it needed to deploy an additional 1,920 servers at its downtown Phoenix data center facility. The MDC is an innovative and energy-efficient solution that reduces expenses while rapidly expanding performance. Responding to customer challenges like the above examples shows why Dell server solutions earned TBR’s Number 1 customer satisfaction ranking.

Dell PowerEdge servers led the pack in awards and reviews this year as well. We received over 50 “excellent” rankings across the entire PowerEdge 12th generation product line. We were pleased to receive CRN’s Server Product of the Year for 2012 for our PowerEdge R720, and the Tech Innovator Award in the Server category for the PowerEdge R720xd. One of the things I’m most proud of is the progress we’ve made in systems management, resulting in huge benefits in cost and time savings for our customers. Dell OpenManage systems management won a Windows IT Pro Community Choice Award for Best System Utility, where community members voted Dell a Gold recognition and declared, “Dell OpenManage makes the impossible easy!” Capping off a year of accolades, our outstanding blade chassis, the M1000e, and the PowerEdge C6220 cloud server won InfoWorld’s Technology of the Year awards.

As much as I like what I see looking back on 2012, I am even more excited about what is to come. Awards are great to receive, but the real reward is in solving our customers problems. We will continue to listen closely to our customers and to provide innovative solutions that solve the challenges facing our customers in 2013.

About the Author: Forrest Norrod