INDUSTRY

Dell today announced it is now taking orders for ninth-generation PowerEdge servers, Dell Precision workstations and Dell PowerEdge Storage Servers equipped with the high performing Intel Xeon processor 5100 series (formerly codenamed Woodcrest). Customers now can order PowerEdge 1950, 2950, 2900 and 1955 blade servers with the Intel Xeon processor 5100 series that help lower power consumption and can deliver up to a 152 percent performance increase over the previous generation dual-socket Dell PowerEdge server. Dell's ninth-generation PowerEdge servers were introduced earlier this month and until today were available only with the high-performance Intel Xeon processor 5000 series. The new servers, which feature the most comprehensive enhancements ever to the widely installed product line, support the company's strategy to reduce complexity and drive more complete and cost-effective enterprise technologies across a variety of customer environments. "From one generation to the next, Dell is well-known for providing reliable servers. It was one of the primary reasons we chose them in the first place," said Brian Kucic, Senior Operations Manager for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). "We're really looking forward to rolling out Dell's 9th generation servers in a production environment and enjoying the combination of dependable uptime and increased performance." New Blade Servers Designed to Cut Complexity Dell continues its drive to deliver full-featured, high-density computing platforms at a cost and total cost of ownership advantage to traditional 1U rack servers. Dell's next-generation blade offering, the Dell PowerEdge 1955 was designed to meet data center needs by reducing complexity without burdening customers with the price premium or acquisition cost previously associated with the platform. Dell engineered the PowerEdge 1955 blades to deliver investment protection to customers, leveraging the current 7U chassis and enabling customers to deploy the new Dell PowerEdge 1955 side-by-side with existing PowerEdge 1855 blades. Dell's innovative chassis design and strategic placement of high performance cooling fans provides maximum airflow efficiencies and optimal cooling for customers. Dell PowerEdge 1955 blade servers boast a wide range of connectivity features, reducing overall solution cost and cable sprawl for customers' data centers. The balanced architecture of the PowerEdge Blade Server supports high performance Ethernet, Fibre Channel and InfiniBand connectivity options from Dell, Intel, Cisco, Topspin, Brocade, McDATA, and QLogic. The new server portfolio also can lower power consumption by up to 25 percent, providing an increase in performance per watt of electricity of up to 169 percent and addressing customer requirements to reduce the cost and environmental impact of data center power demands. Dell's PowerEdge servers anchor a broad initiative to drive commonality between server, storage and software technologies, making it easier and more cost-effective for customers to deploy enterprise technology in a variety of IT environments. This initiative will generate announcements throughout the year, furthering Dell's leadership in enterprise technologies and services for demanding workloads, such as database, with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Oracle Database 10g; virtualization, with VMware ESX Server and Microsoft Virtual Server; and Microsoft Exchange. Increased Performance Across Enterprise Product Lines Customers can also take advantage of the increased performance in the recently announced Dell Precision 690 and 490 workstations. Also featuring the Intel Xeon processor 5100 series, these workstations deliver performance gains over previous models of up to 45 percent on single-threaded applications and up to 155 percent on multithreaded applications. Dell's enhanced network-attached storage (NAS) portfolio also incorporates the processors with two new Dell Storage Servers based on Dell's PowerEdge 2900 and PowerEdge 2950 servers. Optimized for file sharing, both NAS products further Dell's efforts to simplify storing, managing and protecting data for enterprises of all sizes. Pricing and Availability The Dell PowerEdge 1950, 2900, 2950 and PowerEdge 1955 blade servers and Dell Precision 690 and 490 workstations featuring the dual-core Intel Xeon processor 5100 series are available for order today and are scheduled to ship July 17. Prices for the servers start at $1,898, $1,848, $1,948 and $1,848 respectively; prices for the workstations start at $1,779 and $1,529 respectively. Prices for the Dell PowerEdge 2900 and 2950 Storage Servers start at $2,847 and $2,547 respectively.