Let’s be honest, PowerEdge what? Indeed PowerEdge VeR-TeX. Vertex is a corner or a point where lines meet. That is exactly what this solution offers: the point where storage, server, switching and I/O come together, in one 5U box. No more cabling crisscross, multiple management tools, different support contracts from multiple vendors…
Datasheets, marketing websites etc. are saying that you can easily put this baby under your desk and you will hardly notice any noise. My first idea, I have to be honest, was … Yeah right… A small datacenter of 4 servers, 12 or 25 disks of storage, switching and you will not hear a thing… I had to find out for myself and went to a Dell workshop about this solution. And indeed, the coffee machine in the room was making more noise than the VRTX.
Did I mention that all components are hot-plugable and hot-swappable? You can configure the solution as you want, starting small and growing as your business grows. You can mix and match SAS and SATA drives. The storage is shared between the different server modules. Is everything exactly the same as with all the different components separately? No, for instance, you don’t have the snapshot functionality of an EqualLogic box, but that is not the purpose of VRTX.
In my opinion, this is a perfect solution for remote branch offices and the SMB market. As a partner, we can help our customers to configure the solution, help them make the right choices and also monitor the environment on a 24/7 basis via management and monitoring software. As said before, you can easily put the VRTX in an office environment. Wait a minute. What about the cooling? This solution doesn’t need specific cooling. It really is a great job from Dell!
I tried to look through the traditional marketing stuff and looked at this solution, with an open, although critical mind and my conclusion is that this is a perfect solution for specific cases and customers. It is not “the” solution for every problem or every customer. That is where we come into play: helping our customers in finding the right answers to their problems, acting as a truly trusted advisor, implementation and support partner.
Contact us if you want to find out more about this new solution from Dell.