Managing servers consumes a large part of any system administrator's day. Unfortunately, for the overwhelming majority of administrators, the challenge is not the hardware.
Redundancy, industry-standard components and enterprise-class quality have delivered higher uptime and lower management costs for hardware, but the software portion of the solution, the drivers, BIOS and other components account for the majority of the time spent managing systems. In fact, many administrators spend up to three quarters of their time focusing on change management throughout their data center. This is time that could be better spent focusing on projects that can drive higher productivity for the company.
Dell recognises the challenges that administrators face and has designed its latest generation of PowerEdge servers to help lower these costs by leveraging common components - both hardware and software.
Lowering TCO - By Design
The PowerEdge 1850, PowerEdge 2800 and 2850 were designed around a common system board, which means that they share all the same BIOS and drivers. Customers can develop a single system image that can be shared across all three of these systems, dramatically reducing the amount of time spent managing the changing software components - develop one image and deploy on the platform of your choice.
In addition, the PowerEdge 1800, while not identical to the other three, shares many of the same components and drivers, extending the commonality in many areas, helping lower the TCO for this system as well.
Managing the Updates
In addition to driving commonality in the systems, Dell is moving to a "block release" strategy where updates are scheduled on a regular basis and deployed together, where consolidation can aid the efficiency of the update.
Also, through the Dell ImageWatch program, customers can be kept abreast of changes that are likely to impact their system images as well as understand product and peripheral transitions.
All of these changes are designed to assist in the task of simplifying the complexity of systems management for customers by making the process more seamless and predictable.
Putting it all together
Together with the new manageability features of OpenManage 4, the standard Baseboard Management Controller in all of the latest PowerEdge servers and the optional manageability that is provided with the optional Dell Remote Assistant Card, these features make newest generation of PowerEdge servers the most manageable PowerEdge servers ever.
