Dell Ships First EqualLogic Storage Blade Arrays

Dell said last week that it began shipping its first enterprise-class storage blade arrays, the Dell EqualLogic PS-M4110 Blade Arrays.

According to Dell, these blade arrays simplify and consolidate data centers by combining with Dell PowerEdge blade servers and Dell Force10 and PowerConnect networking switches inside a single blade chassis. This helps to streamline IT management and operations for customers.

"The scalable and easy-to-manage Dell EqualLogic PS-M4110 Blade Arrays provide customers all of the functionality and enterprise-class features of traditional EqualLogic arrays inside a Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade chassis," the company said. "The blade arrays combine with Dell 11th or 12th generation Dell PowerEdge blade servers and Dell Force10 or PowerConnect networking, enabling customers to run an entire data center within a single, compact blade enclosure that can help streamline IT management and operations."

Dell said the arrays are developed for highly virtualized environments with "ease of use" and advanced automation as core design principles. Their Fluid Data architecture and peer-scaling attributes allow for simultaneous scalability of performance and capacity within and outside the blade chassis for non-disruptive growth. In a single group, the blades can scale outside the blade chassis to more than two petabytes of storage – that's 96-percent more than what's provided by competing arrays inside the chassis.

Multiple EqualLogic Blade Arrays can be configured in less than 20 minutes thanks to EqualLogic set-up and deployment capabilities which are closely integrated with the blade chassis management console. Additional features that can ease deployment and management include centralized monitoring and reporting tools, flexibility with blade arrays that fit into any slot within the blade chassis, advanced data protection, and support for multi-generational EqualLogic SANs.

Dell also added that customers can support up to 48-percent more Microsoft SQL, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint users with this convergence, and up to 42 more users per watt of power compared to competing solutions. Dell’s converged solution is also easier to deploy, with up to 55-percent fewer major configuration steps, to set-up storage alone.

"The combination of Dell storage, server and networking technologies in a blade chassis provides customers a compact, shared footprint that can reduce the need for excessive licenses, space, cable configuration and power and cooling costs as well as an integrated approach to infrastructure management," Dell said.

For more information about the new Blade Array, head here.

Kevin Parrish is a contributing editor and writer for Tom's Hardware,Tom's Games and Tom's Guide. He's also a graphic artist, CAD operator and network administrator.

See here for all of Kevin's Tom's IT Pro articles.

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