Dell is rolling out new servers, storage systems and networking devices designed to help small and midsize businesses that company officials say are getting overrun by the rapidly rising tide of data.
In addition, many of these smaller businesses are trying to keep up older servers or desktop PCs that have been set up as servers, according to Tony Parkinson, director of Dell’s SMB unit.
“These server platforms just can’t keep up,” Parkinson said in an interview with eWEEK. Using PCs as servers “kind of works, but it’s just not scalable, and security is a problem.”
He estimated that about two-thirds of all SMBs are using a bulked-up desktop PC as a server.
Dell’s new offerings, unveiled April 14, are designed to bring the latest technologies—including Intel’s new 2nd Generation Core “Sandy Bridge” processors—to SMBs to help them consolidate and simplify their IT infrastructures. It addresses that change in demand that Dell is seeing from the business segment, Parkinson said. In the past, SMBs addressed their back-end technology architecture in a piece-meal fashion.
Now, with rapid data growth, the need for greater security and easier manageability, and the introduction of such technologies as virtualization, they’re taking a more holistic approach, he said.
“Now they’re saying, ‘Help us map out what we can put into place that can scale,’” Parkinson said. “Virtualization is a key even for smaller customers.”
Dell defines small companies as those with up to 100 users, and midsized companies with between 100 and 499 users.
Dell is rolling out the entry-level PowerEdge T110 II and mid-range R210 II servers. Both offer a choice of chips—depending on performance needs—including Intel’s new Xeon E3-1200 family, Core i3-2100 lineup and Pentium processors. The systems are powerful enough to run two or three virtual machines, and they double the storage capacity—from 16GB to 32GB—of their predecessors, Matt McGinnis, marketing director for Dell’s server platforms, said in an interview.
For more, read the eWEEK article: Dell Targets SMBs with New Servers, Storage Systems.