Dell unveils scalable enterprise computing architecture

Direct computer systems company, Dell Computer Corporation, which is currently No.2 server provider in the U.S. and the No.3 server provider worldwide, reveals that large enterprise customers can now look forward to a standards-based computing architecture based on new clustering technology.

This approach, called the Dell Scalable Enterprise Computing (SEC) architecture, is designed to enable large enterprise customers to use clustered, standards-based server systems from Dell to gain system uptime and performance benefits most often associated with proprietary systems and technologies found in RISC/UNIX environments. "The Dell SEC architecture offers customers flexibility in adding computing resources, giving them control over how to grow their standards-based computing infrastructure, and the ability to add resources as required through Dell`s modular approach," explains Dell South Africa marketing manager Glenn Jones.

The Scalable Enterprise Computing architecture uses clustered Dell PowerEdge servers and Dell PowerVault storage products as the core building blocks to create a standards-based computing system that can run mission-critical applications such as web hosting, Intranet and Internet and e-commerce applications, online transaction processing, decision support, and parallel database applications.

Computing infrastructures built using the SEC architecture can deliver the system uptime, data integrity and system performance benefits required for mission-critical applications. These benefits are achieved through technology that automatically balances workloads between servers, creates hardware redundancy throughout the system, enables fast server-to-server communications for performance scalability across multiple servers within a cluster, and offers multi-node clustered systems management.

Customers who want to immediately deploy systems based on the SEC architecture, can do so initially by using the MicrosoftWindows NT 4.0 Enterprise Edition operating system, which includes Microsoft Server Cluster (MSCS) failover software. The Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system is expected to be supported when available, and Intel/UNIX operating systems are also expected to be supported in the future.

Future enterprise products from Dell, including eight-way PowerEdge servers and Dell systems based on Intel Corp.`s next-generation IA-64 architecture, will be supported within Dell`s SEC environment as those technologies and products are released into the market. The SEC environment supports Dell PowerEdge 4300, 4350, 6300 and 6350 servers as well as Dell`s current line of PowerVault SCSI, and Fibre-Channel based storage systems. Additional backup solutions are also supported within the SEC architecture, including Dell`s standards-based PowerVault Storage Area Network (SAN). The PowerVault SAN, which links up to four PowerEdge servers to a single PowerVault 650F storage subsystem and a PowerVault 130T digital linear tape library, can be included in a SEC architecture configuration within Oracle Parallel Server database environments.

"Customers clearly want the price/performance and other benefits of running their most mission critical applications on standards-based systems, without having to sacrifice system uptime and performance," says Jones. "Our SEC architecture offers our customers a clear way to do this; a way to have both. With today`s announcement, we`re taking another step toward serving the data center needs of our customers and we look forward to doing more and more high-end business with them over time."

Dell has also introduced several new products based on core technologies that enable its Scalable Enterprise Computing architecture. Among these, is a Giganet cLAN 5000 Switch and industry-leading cluster management software. The Giganet switch enables the system performance and uptime benefits offered by the SEC architecture and allows new computing clusters to be easily added to the computing system as the application requires. In addition, the Dell OpenManage Cluster Assistant with Cluster X systems management software enables network administrators to easily manage large clustered environments and multi-node computing systems. It also allows administrators to monitor, diagnose and configure PowerEdge server clusters.