Dell releases new line of blade servers

BEIJING, Jan. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- Dell released its new line of blade servers Monday, which boasts a new balance of performance, ease of use, and more efficient energy consumption.

The new M-Series blade solution, M1000e, designed from the ground up uses Dell Energy Smart technologies that resulted in 30 patent applications.

The M1000e Modular Blade Enclosure is a 10U-sized enclosure that can support up to 16 dual-socket blades. Dell said it is aiming for flexibility by allowing I/O options that include Ethernet, 4GB Fibre Channel, and Infiniband options. The line also has features for easing remote managment.

"The PowerEdge M-Series delivers on those promises with unmatched energy efficiency, flexibility, performance and manageability," Brad Anderson, senior vice president of the Dell Business Product Group, said in a statement. "It enables customers to achieve the computing performance they need while lowering their overall power consumption and reducing data center complexity and server sprawl."

Dell said the new PowerEdge M-Series gear will be more energy-efficient than competing products from H-P and IBM.

"I wouldn't call this a breakthrough, but it is a nice set of products," said Gordon Haff, a server analyst at Illuminata. "The modularity of the switches is nice. What Dell is doing to compete with HP's Virtual Connect seems to be a reasonable approach."

(Agencies)