Dell EMC Launches PowerEdge MX

by Adam Armstrong August 21, 2018

written by Adam Armstrong August 21, 2018

Today Dell EMC announced that it is set to launch its new high-performance, modular infrastructure, PowerEdge MX. The company states that this new type of infrastructure supports both traditional as well as emerging technologies, with future-proofing being built into the design. Using what Dell EMC calls kinetic infrastructure, PowerEdge MX is free from certain bounds allowing for a true composable infrastructure.

Dell EMC hinted at this new technology during its Dell Technologies World earlier this year. PowerEdge MX was little more than a name and the promise of a new modular technology for the modern data center. With the release right around the corner, the company is getting more into the nitty-gritty. The company has labeled the MX as “kinetic infrastructure,” going on to explain that it is designed with no mid-plane that leads to support for multiple future generations of processor technologies, storage types, and connectivity options. Removing the mid-plane results in a direct compute to I/O module connections, this means that the PowerEdge MX should be ready for new innovations on day one.

Aside from future-proofing, the Dell EMC PowerEdge MX is aimed at software-defined data centers. The MX can support combinations of virtualizations, software-defined storage, software-defined networking, AI, and Big Data. As stated, kinetic infrastructure can support new technologies, as of now it supports technologies such as NVMe storage and 25GbE connectivity. Because of its composable nature, customers can tailor features such as compute or storage to match their needs and the benefits that come with disaggregated recourses to draw on when needed.

Available components for customization include:

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX7000 chassis – Offers an efficient hardware foundation with support for multiple server processor generations, in a scalable system with end-to-end lifecycle management and a single interface for all components, enabling organizations to focus more on their business priorities than IT maintenance. This 7U chassis includes eight bays to accommodate a variety of full- and double-width compute and storage combinations.
Dell EMC PowerEdge MX740c and MX840c compute sleds – Two- and four-socket blade sleds deliver full-featured, no compromise compute, with exceptional performance and a rich set of storage options including NVMe drives. The full width MX740c and double-width MX840c support the full Intel Xeon Scalable Processor family with up to six terabytes of memory. The MX740c can house up to six 2.5” NVMe, SAS or SATA drive bays, and the MX840c can hold up to eight.
Dell EMC PowerEdge MX5016s storage sled – Dense, full-width, scale-out storage sleds complement MX servers, holding up to 16 hot-pluggable SAS storage hard disk drives, with a maximum of seven MX5016s sleds in the MX chassis for up to 112 drives of direct-attached storage. These drives can be individually mapped to one or more servers, offering the ideal storage ratio needed for specific use cases.
Dell EMC PowerEdge MX Ethernet and Fibre Channel switching modules – These new low latency, high-bandwidth switching modules for multi-chassis environments include automated processes for topology compliance, quality of service and autonomous healing for peak network performance with the PowerEdge MX single management interface. PowerEdge MX is the industry’s first modular infrastructure to deliver end-to-end 25GbE and 32Gbps fibre channel host connectivity. Combined with 100GbE and 32G fibre channel uplinks, customers can expect up to a 55% reduction in switching latency for highly-scalable, multi-chassis fabric architectures.

Availability

The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX is expected to be globally available on September 12.

Dell EMC

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