Dell Technologies rolls out new AMD Rome-powered PowerEdge servers

In addition to the five new servers, which combine the high performance of the new AMD chips with Dell’s own IP, Dell is also announcing related management integrations and new Ready Solutions for HPC on these servers.

Dell EMC PowerEdge R7515

Today, Dell Technologies is introducing five new Dell EMC PowerEdge servers which utilize the well-received new 2nd generation AMD EPYC processors, code named Rome. To complement the new server release, the company is also announcing new Ready Solutions for High-Performance Computing (HPC), and simplified management integrations with leading software and public cloud providers.

“We are very excited about this whole new set of servers we are launching based on the 2nd generation EPYC processors,” said Ravi Pendekanti, Senior Vice President, Server Solutions Product Management and Marketing at Dell EMC. “We are coming out with five new servers, based on a complete redesign to leverage the processors new functionality. We have redesigned our servers to get every bit of new feature functionality AMD built into the new processor set.”

The new servers include two single socket rack servers, the 1U R6515 and the 2U R7515, and two two-socket rack servers. The R6525 is a 1U balanced for dense compute, while the 2U R7525 is combines performance and flexible configuration. Finally, the C6525 is a compute-dense server sled, which accelerates data center performance to tackle HPC applications.

“We believe we cannot have a cookie cutter approach,” Pendekanti said. “Some of these are fine-tuned for specific workloads.”

“It’s about balancing the system design to take advantage of everything the 2nd generation EPYC brings,” said David Schmidt, Senior Director of PowerEdge Product Management at Dell EMC. “The R7515’s density for virtualization saw it post a TPCx-V benchmark score that is 280 per cent above the first generation R7515. This score was a world record.” They also announced a new world record for two-socket servers with SAP, supporting 62,500 users on an R6525.

Pendekanti emphasized that these servers are designed for modern environments, in which 93 per cent of customers are deployed across more than one cloud, and where 67 per cent of server workloads are now for emerging workloads, particularly in edge environments.

“As important as performance is, it’s also important to provide lower TCO,” he said. He also said that Dell, in contributing its own IP to the servers, is focused as well on ease of management, larger bandwidth capacity,  robust security, and dynamic workload-optimized scaling.

“These are the innovations we are bringing to the table beyond just putting the new processor out there,” he said.

For example, bandwidth is enhanced because the server design now features up to 26 per cent more PCIe lanes with 60 per cent faster interconnect fabric. The security improvements combine AMD’s Secure Encrypted Virtualization and Secure Memory Encryption with Dell’s own security and management capabilities.

“We also bring in the goodness of what iDRAC [systems management hardware] has to offer, as well as the benefits of our supply chain,” Pendekanti said. “That’s the way we look at security, in an end-to-end fashion.”

Dell is also emphasizing that their Dell EMC OpenManage systems management and monitoring application has been strengthened for this launch with the further rounding out of their strategic ISV ecosystem integrations.

“We are announcing that the ServiceNow integration is complete, and our Microsoft [Windows Admin Center] integration has also rolled out,” Pendekanti said. “Our VMware vCenter integration is also complete. This shows our commitment to bringing the whole ecosystem of partners together.”

Finally, the announcement also included new Dell EMC Ready Solutions for HPC around digital manufacturing, HPC research and life sciences.

“This will  take the guesswork out and give customers a roadmap to deploy their own infrastructure,” Pendekanti indicated.

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R6515 and R7515 servers are available worldwide now. The R6525 and C6525 servers have planned availability worldwide in October 2019, and the R7525 servers have planned availability in early 2020.

Dell EMC OpenManage advancements are now available worldwide.

Dell EMC Ready Solutions for HPC Digital Manufacturing, Research and Life Science on these servers will be available worldwide in October 2019.