Dell launches Penryn PowerEdge servers

The servers are designed to consume less power and include system management tools to better manage IT tasks, said Sally Stevens, director of PowerEdge servers at Dell.
At the top of the new servers will be the PowerEdge R900 rack server, which includes Intel's Penryn-based 5400 processor and has tools to "simplify IT" by reducing the time, resources and money involved in maintaining IT environments, Stevens said. The server is targeted at enterprises and data centers.

The server includes OpenManage 5.3, a new version of the systems management software with new tools to better manage virtual environments and power consumption, said Kevin Libert, senior manager of software solutions at Dell. The company will further detail OpenManage 5.3 features later this week.

Dell also provides customisation features for R900 customers by tuning servers directly to maximize application performance, Libert said. Customers will be able to customise their systems based on reference architecture and specification sheets provided by Dell, said Libert.
The R900 is a database workhorse, Libert said, adding that Oracle, a leading database provider, hosts Dell servers in its Austin, Texas, data center, Libert said.

With the new server, Dell hopes to take away server market share from RISC-based servers.
Growth in the x86 server market was one reason global RISC-Itanium Unix servers shipments and revenue dropped in the second quarter of 2007, according to a Gartner survey. Shipments fell 18% year-on-year and revenue fell 1.5%, according to the survey.

Dell also announced new PowerEdge R200 and PowerEdge T105 servers. The R200, an Intel-based system, is designed to meet cluster and network computing needs, according to Dell. The T105 is an entry-level, Advanced Micro Devices-based server targeted at small businesses looking to host e-mail, file-sharing or Web applications.

The company will begin taking orders for the servers this week, a Dell spokesman said. Pricing information was not available.

Dell has also shifted its naming convention to easily identify servers. Server nomenclature will start with the server type, with T representing tower servers, M (modular), R (rack). Following that will be the number of sockets, generation number and whether a server uses an Intel or AMD platform (0 represents Intel and 5 represents AMD). The PowerEdge T105 for example, represents a 10th generation Dell tower server based on the AMD platform.

TechEd: Microsoft reveals Server 2008 pricing

Microsoft has given further details of server and virtualisation products due out next year that will set the tone for how well the company will compete in the enterprise software market.

It announced pricing and licensing details for Windows Server 2008, its long-awaited server product due for release in February, and revealed that the commercial name for its virtualisation product will be Hyper-V, formerly known as Viridian. The announcements came on the first day of the Teched IT Forum, in Barcelona, its largest customer conference in Europe.

On its Web site, Microsoft is billing the official launch of Windows Server 2008, which will take place in Los Angeles on 27 February, as "the most important enterprise launch in company history." That launch will also showcase Visual Studio 2008, the company's application development tools, and SQL Server 2008, its database.

Windows Server 2008, formerly known as Longhorn, has been delayed several times, but since September some customers have been testing the release candidate, the term for when software is in its final stage of refinement before release.

The company is vowing no more delays: Microsoft is "absolutely on schedule" for the launch of Windows Server 2008 in February, said Andrew Lees, corporate vice president for server tools and marketing, on Friday.

Microsoft will release five versions of Windows Server in February, Lees said: Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Web Server and a version for Itanium-based systems.
Within six months of the Windows Server 2008 launch, it will also release Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter versions incorporating its Hyper-V virtualisation software.

Virtualisation enables one physical server to host several operating systems, which can be assigned to run certain applications. It means one physical server can be worked harder, often reducing the need for more server hardware, which in turn bring benefits such as lower power bills for datacentres.

It's complicated technology, however, both for management and security, and only about 5 percent or less enterprises are now actively using virtualisation . However, the market for virtualisation products is expected to grow rapidly over the next few years, according to market analyst IDC.