Dell’s data center group is keeping the pedal to the metal

Lately we’ve been pretty busy in the DCS team.  DCS, which stands for Data Center Solutions was formed over three years ago as a specialized group within Dell to act as a “custom tailor” to some of the world’s biggest internet, cloud and scaled out players.   We have been working with a very small subset of customers who deploy thousands, if not tens of thousands of servers at a time.

While we started out focusing on building custom servers the group soon branched out to entire data center infrastructure.  We further expanded back in March with the announcement that we would be leveraging the knowledge and experience gained working with the” biggest of the big” to create a portfolio of products and solutions targeted at the next 1,000 customers.

Recent activity

In the last week or two we’ve announced several cool new solutions, two on the custom side and one on the generally-available side of the house.

Dell Modular Data Center

Modular Data Center: On the custom side the big news, which we previewed at VMworld, is the Modular Data Center (MDC).  MDC was created as a custom solution addressing the specific needs of a few of our big strategic customers.  This structure packs up to 2,500 systems and features a single point for power, IT, and cooling.  If you check out the picture above you’ll notice that gone is the shipping container form factor and in its place, as the name implies, is a modular design that lets you mix and match components like Legos.  What MDC lets you do is get a brand new Data Center up and running right away while saving space and power.  It also allows you to easily add capacity when it’s time to grow.  More info on MDC.

Dell Viking

Viking:  Another custom offering, which we worked with Intel on and that we announced last week, goes by the code name “Viking.”  This system is the latest in our custom light weight server line.   This ultra-dense and ultra-efficient system packs up to 12 servers in a single 3U enclosure and is targeted at Web 2.0 businesses and hosters.   When operating at the scale that these organizations do, ultra-efficiency is not a nice to have; it’s one of the most important tools the organization has to drive and maintain profitability.  More info on Viking.  Learn why light weight servers have emerged.

Dell PowerEdge C410x

C401X:  And on the standard side of the house we recently debuted the PowerEdge C410x expansion chassis.  If you’re not familiar of with the concept of an expansion chassis, it’s basically a cabinet that you can fill with up to 16 graphics cards and is then connected to a server(s) to off load a lot of the intense processing.  Using a chassis like this can bring about great increases in performance helping to make HPC and scaled-out deployments extremely fast.  This works particularly well when you’re talking about modeling, simulation, imaging, signal processing, gaming etc.  In fact it is in response to a request by an oil and gas customer who was looking to deliver seismic results faster, that we created the C410x. More info on the C410x

What’s Next?

While I cant say exactly what we have planned you can be sure whatever it is, whether custom or standard, it will play off the themes of efficiency, density, TCO and lower power consumption.  And while these systems won’t be good candidates to run your SAP installation on, they will be fantastic in scaled out environments where space and power are at a premium.  Stay tuned.

Learn more about DCS.

About the Author: Roy Guillen