Listening to Customers is Where it all Begins

Before Dell begins planning and developing a new product, we
do one important thing first. We talk to our customers and we listen.  Dell begins every new product planning cycle
by hitting the road, listening and learning from thousand of customer
conversations. 

Here's what our customers told Dell:

  • A server has to be easy to deploy, manage, and
    maintain.
  • Servers need to be reliable, so they are
    confident in their decision.
  • They need to maximize data center space, without
    breaking the power budget.
  • Build systems optimized to handle certain workloads and cost models with virtualization
  • 2 socket servers need more processing power and
    memory scalability within the same amount of rack space
  • 4 socket servers need to increase performance
    density, yet also maximize data center real estate

Incorporating this feedback, the Dell PowerEdge R815 built
with AMD Opteron 6100 Series processors is designed to exceed our customer
needs and expectations.

The PowerEdge R815 is designed for long-term value. Built
with durable materials, emphasis on component redundancy and ease of servicing,
the PowerEdge R815 endures rigorous testing and validation prior to leaving to
factory to help minimize downtime and ensure reliability.

 The Dell PowerEdge
R815 also incorporates innovative technology such as intelligent, embedded
management features designed to simplify administration, deployment, and reduce
operating costs right out of the box. The Lifecycle Controller is an embedded
chip installed directly on the motherboard that makes common provisioning
functions such as deployment, configuration, and updating available to
administrators without requiring media such as a CD or DVD. Lifecycle
Controller also includes embedded diagnostics for quick diagnosis and recovery.

Another platform innovation includes the Internal Dual SD
module, which provides built-in reliability at the hypervisor level by offering
customers fail-safe virtualization.

In addition to building the robust feature set of the R815,
we listened to how customers were planning on implementing new platforms in
their environments. In the past, customers utilizing 2 socket servers for
virtualization with the need for more processing power and memory scalability
were forced to move to a traditional 4 socket, 4U server. In this scenario,
customers lost half their rack density by moving from 2U to 4U and had to plan
for more power with this platform. This caused a lot of churn to the
environment.

On the flip side, 4 socket customers looking to consolidate
via virtualization to gain rack density and data center real estate efficiency
had to give up processing power and memory scalability to get to a 2U form
factor.

This is the beauty of the PowerEdge R815, it solves both of
these customer pains. 2 socket customers can grow processing power and memory
in the same form factor without giving up rack density, 4 socket customers no
longer have to sacrifice processing power and memory scalability to help data
center real estate constraints. That's the value of this system.

Combine this with AMD
Opteron 6100
series high core count and memory scalability, the R815 is the
perfect building block for a virtualized environment. A 42U rack filled with
Dell PowerEdge R815 servers can house up to 1,008 total processor cores-a 320
percent increase in compute density over legacy 4U servers. This formula leads
to a more efficient workload with leading price per performance compared to the
competition. No one in the industry has anything like it.

Listening and learning that's what it's all about. Please share your PowerEdge R815 customer success stories here,
because we want to hear all about it!

About the Author: Armando Acosta

Armando Acosta has been involved in the IT Industry over the last 15 years with experience in architecting IT solutions and product-marketing, management, planning, and strategy. Armando’s latest role has been focused on Big Data|Hadoop solutions, addressing solutions that build new capabilities for emerging customer needs, and assists with the roadmap for new products and features. Armando is a graduate of University of Texas at Austin and resides in Austin, TX.