System information

A Principled Technologies test report 4
Dell PowerEdge VRTX and M-series compute nodes configuration study
An added challenge of repurposing older hardware is that you are more likely to
experience issues with the hardware components from the very beginning. In our
testing, the time spent configuring the legacy hardware solution included approximately
1 hour allocated to troubleshooting hardware issues, which included memory errors,
boot drive errors, and installing an additional NIC into the legacy tower servers. Ongoing
reliability is a concern with older hardware. There is a risk that the aging hardware
components may fail under the load of modern operating systems and applications,
causing additional downtime and troubleshooting. New hardware, designed for a
modern workload, is less likely to fail.
Additionally, as Figure 3 shows, we found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX
solution took 150 fewer steps to configure and deploy out of the box compared to the
legacy hardware solution, which used four legacy tower servers, external network
switches, and an external SAN.
Figure 3: The Dell PowerEdge VRTX
solution took 28.0 percent fewer steps
than the legacy hardware solution.
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Dell PowerEdge VRTX
solution
Legacy hardware
solution
Number of steps
(lower numbers are better)
The Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution lets you save on administrative costs and
downtime costs to implement the solution. It does not have to be configured on site.
Traditional deployment using a legacy hardware solution would require an
administrator to travel to the remote office location and configure everything there. In
contrast, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX allows for a turnkey deployment approach—after an
IT administrator configures the solution at headquarters or a centralized location, it can
be delivered to a remote office ready to be plugged in by any on-site employee. For a
larger business considering deployments to multiple offices, the savings potential is
even greater.