Can Dell’s VRTX systems meet the typical data center requirements? In addition to failure protection, high performance for applications, data integrity, and data security, the ideal server platform should also have the flexibility and scalability offered by cloud services. With these requirements, which are quite legitimate from the point of view of IT, however, small businesses have a problem: they can seldom make the investments themselves in order to operate a complete data center with servers, network components and the necessary storage as a central data storage facility Br>
Application area
So then often only the solution, more badly than right a single server together with one or even several NAS systems to set up. With its VRTX systems, the manufacturer Dell offers a platform that fills exactly this gap: up to four blade servers fit in the Tower case, which is about the size of an older PowerEdge 2900 tower. The system also provides space for further mass storage devices in the housing. PCI Express (PCI-e) plug-in cards can also be installed and assigned to individual blades. Modules such as power supply units, fans and network interfaces of the system are redundant and thus lead to a high failure safety. The administrator configures and monitors the entire system by means of a control unit, accessed through a web interface.
Features and performance at a glance
The application area of the mini-data center is the office space of small and medium-sized companies. The low noise level - in our test runs, hardly a difference to a conventional XPS workstation - underscores the use of the VRTX system in office rooms. This makes the system interesting for small to medium-sized businesses as well as for remote locations and branches of large companies.
Connections and Interfaces
The manufacturer also advertises the validated configuration Fresh Air. This means that the user can dispense with a separate cooling system for these systems. The VRTX system also proves to be problem-free when it comes to the power supply: no particularly high-security sockets are required for the supply of the four redundant power supplies.
IT hardware
Further clear concessions to the normal office day: The connections for KVM and USB as well as the optionally offered DVD / RW drive are accessible from the front. In addition to status LED indicators, the front of the case also has an on-screen display (OSD) and some buttons for operating the OSD menu. For example, the system attendant will map the integrated keyboard video mouse switch (KVM switch) to the respective blades.
The display is also suitable for initial setup of the IP addresses for the chassis management controller (CMC) integrated into the chassis. For further configuration steps, the administrator changes to the clear web interface. We investigated how such a system works in the test lab using a VRTX system equipped with two M520 blades.
The equipment of the two blades consisted of 96 GBytes main memory (6 modules each with 16 GB capacity) and two Intel E5-2450 Xeon processors. With the M520 systems, up to 384 GB of RAM in a complete version (12 modules with 32 GB each) are possible. A CPU includes a total of 16 logical processors with a total of 20 MByte of L3 cache thanks to its eight physical kernels through the use of hyperthreading technology. With the Turbo-Boost technology, these processors clock between 1.2 GHz and 1 percent load, up to a maximum of 2.9 GHz at full load.
The Intel Quickpath Interconnect technology (QPI) delivers up to 8.0 gigatransfer per second (GT / s) for the internal communication of the individual processors in the chassis. The Intel-based chipset of the M520 blades comes from the C600 series. The graphics card comes with a Matrox chip called G200eR.
The blades do not have separate connectors for monitors, but there are two USB 2.0 ports on the front of each blade, such as external media such as USB sticks or DVD drives (for example, for installation tasks). The range of supported operating systems ranges from Red Hat Enterprise Linux through Windows Server 2008 R2 to the current Windows Server 2012 R2. Furthermore, a redundant flash memory based on SD memory cards is also integrated in the blades. As a result, embedded hypervisor technologies such as VMware ESXI or vSphere can be additionally secured.
The server operating system was accommodated in our equipment variant on two SAS hard disks in 2.5 inch format (each with 146 GB capacity). The maximum configuration with two hard disks (per blade) is currently limited to 2.4 TB (each 1.2 TB per disk, drive at 10000 rpm). The drives are configured to increase failure security in the RAID-1 (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) mode.
The two hard disks are addressed via a RAID controller with the designation PERC (PowerEdge RAID Controller) version H310 and can be removed directly from the blade. This approach is also supported by a corresponding hot-plug function of the controller: it allows the user to change drives during operation. In addition, the PERC 8 controller of the chassis can be controlled via a separate driver, which provides additional possibilities for addressing the hard disk arrays in the server housing.
The enclosure provides all the blades with power, with the power consumption of the modules according to the manufacturer up to 340 watts. The four power supply units on the rear of the housing are specified with a maximum of 1100 watts of maximum power consumption with an efficiency of at least 80 percent (80 plus). Depending on the setting, up to two power supply units (PSU) are kept ready for any failures. They should jump in, if one or in the worst case two power supplies fail. The PSU modules can also be changed during operation, so there should be no downtime caused by a power supply failure.
Power supply
No comments:
Post a Comment