Bladewatch.com

I first started server engineering in 2002, I was young, just out of university and had installed Windows on a server only once. I had hardly ever supported one server, let alone a room full of them, and when I joined a bank, I started working with Compaq servers.  I saw them evolve to HP, worked with Dell and IBM servers  as I moved around the city and I have been following their evolution ever since both personally and here at bladewatch.com. So it was with no small amount of excitement that I received a Dell R710 blade system on trial which I could play with, break and fix, tinker with until I understood how it all worked.

Dell has been making many significant improvements and innovations to their server product range, from the great blade enclosure that they released (the M1000e) to up to the PowerEdge 1950 III which I recently installed at a local small business as a file server.

The R710 is Dells 11th Generation 2u rackmount server, and they have made some smart updates to the range in response to user feedback, with a focus on customer driven design, energy efficiency and systems management. The metal handles on the new hard drives are an illustration of this. The 2u rackmount server is increasingly getting a lot of exposure because of the versatility of the platform. I can now have a 2u server with two quad core processors, a massive 144GB RAM and 6TB of local storage which strongly extends the use case possibilities.  For example, the R710 could be an excellent stand alone application server, a remote virtualization solution, or an easy way to deploy an ESX farm of servers in an enterprise, making the server a processor in a box and having everything hosted on SAN.

With this in mind there has been a lot of competition and innovation in the 2u/3u format as vendors try to extend the possibilities of their platform, for more memory, more storage, network cards and power supplies, to improve virtualization, storage or high availability offerings. The vendors have additionally continued to increase their management and support offerings, to make deploying and supporting their products that bit easier in line with customer needs.

The specifications then:

• 2x processors (either dual or quad socket)
• Support for 144GB of RAM
• Support for up to 6.0TB of local storage
• iDRAC lights out card
• 4x on-board 1GB network ports
• On board SCSI controller

The server comes with a new front cover, an improved LCD display which allows you to view system information like the DRAC configuration, and a new embedded system, the LifeCycle Controller (which is rather good). This allows you to boot straight into the tool and configure set options using their GUI. The amount of time I would save in the data centre with this kind of offering is hugely compelling.

With four on board network ports, impressive memory and storage support, the server will meet most application and virtualization requirements, particularly with the expansion slots to plug in your iSCSI or SAN storage or network cards.

The onboard lights out or iDRAC6 management controller furthers the ability to remotely manage and support the server, offering support for remote media and KVM over IP.

From a server guys perspective two thoughts come to mind.

1. Dell have certainly improved their design and attention to detail, the R710 seems generations ahead of their recent PowerEdge 2950 III.
2. The R710 also highlights how scalable the 2u rack server has become and makes me wonder about those four socket boxes, with multi core:  Am I better buying relatively disposable low cost 2u servers, replacing them every few years than investing in high performance higher cost 5u boxes? We will have to see, in the meantime, well done to Dell for their innovation on the R710, long may it continue.

Now, theres a final issue that I had to examine. A lot of the people I come into contact with around the city bleed blue blood. That is, they are HP through-and-through.  Offer them an alternative manufacturer and they simply wont give it any attention at all.  How does an engineer whos a total HP fan react to the Dell 710? Could it ever match or exceed an HP DL380 G6 in his eyes?

Well I thought we should find out  So I got hold of Barry (definitely an HP fanatic) and asked his viewpoint after showing him the demo unit.  Heres what I asked:

Barry, as a server guy raised on HP, does it match or exceed the HP DL380 G6?

Not quite, but I wonder if that is not more down to me as a result of my knowledge and experience with HP servers, coupled with their SmartStart product, their Proliant Support pack (which makes driver maintenance just that little bit easier).

That said a well put together package, manufactured to a high level, an effective server offering which would suit many a business or application requirement. Put bluntly, as my good friend Barry said many months ago when I asked for his views on the different server vendors, Dell? Almost there, just not HP, but on price, on value it’s just what the server CFO ordered.

Goodness me, thems fighting words. Nicely done Dell.

Finally, it is time for the Bladewatch rating:

Performance: 4/5
Build Quality:  4/5
Usability:  4/5

Summary: Excellent price, super 2u performance, fantastic stand-alone or networked workhorse, smart innovations (we particularly love the LifeCycle Controller function).

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