Dell R710 PowerEdge Review

Embedded Server Management

Dell has leveraged the UEFI with special hardware and embedded software. These aren’t your father’s tools, and server virtualisation is again the change driver.

The R710 has a Life-cycle controller, which is a physical component that hosts the embedded management features of the server. I accessed the Dell Unified Server Configurator from the boot menu to access the embedded management system.

IT managers will find investigating the capabilities offered by the Configurator time well-spent. These capabilities include drivers for installation of Windows, Red Hat and SUSE operating systems; system diagnostics; and hardware configuration utilities.

I was able to keep my system updated with the latest versions of system firmware by using the Configurator to directly connect to Dell support. I would like to see the ability to point this connection to an internal depot to keep protected workloads from accessing an external site until the security of the update system is more fully proven.

The diagnostic tools were helpful, especially for ensuring that the physical system was fully operational prior to deployment. I also like the idea of having a fairly simple test that can be run by a technician after a system arrives at a branch location to ensure that the internal physical components haven’t been damaged in shipment.

The embedded system management tools are a move in the right direction to enable that the R710 will be able to keep pace with the horsepower embodied in the processors and large RAM resource pool.

Conclusion

The Dell R710 PowerEdge 2U rack-mount server is a worthy combination of computational and performance power, and the first system I’ve seen that provides an alternative to BIOS for power-on system set-up and configuration. With physical servers increasingly playing host to virtual environments, many of the Dell R710 PowerEdge’s most compelling characteristics are driven by the need to optimise the data centre for virtualisation tasks.

Cameron Sturdevant is technical directorcan at eWeek