Inspired by OEM Customers, Dell EMC is First to Market with 1U Rack Workstation

In my book, delivering a great customer experience is all about listening and responding. You’re never done and dusted – you have to keep your ears wide open and stay tuned as each customer’s needs keep evolving.

For example, some of our OEM customers told us that while they loved the power of our Precision 7920, a 2U rack, dual-socket platform was often more than they needed in terms of performance, scalability and price. Bottom line, they felt that they were paying for functionality they didn’t always need.

Size matters for OEM customers

Size also matters. Unlike Texas, where bigger is usually better, OEM customers need small form factor products without compromising on performance. Why? Well, they put these systems in seriously tight spots that an IT team in a data center would never dream of. And so, in direct response to OEM customer demand, we decided to design a 1U shorter-depth, rack workstation product.

Welcome the Dell Precision 3930

Fast forward to today and we’re delighted to welcome the brand new Dell Precision 3930 – the first 1U rack workstation available in the market from a tier one vendor, offering the reassurance of data center security and cloud access with affordable price/performance!

Inspired by our OEM customers, this now forms part of the standard Dell EMC workstation product portfolio. And we know from initial reactions, our OEM customers just love the Dell Precision 3930 as it has been designed with them in mind.

Ideal for tight rack environments

As the saying goes, the best of goods come in small packages. Powered by the 8th generation Intel Core and Xeon E3 processor, the Dell Precision 3930 comes in at 22” versus the standard 24”depth rack.

This is ideal for tight rack OEM environments. Picture a control workstation for failure analysis in an industrial automation setting, a robotics control station on a manufacturing floor or a sports stadium, running a video surveillance system. The Dell Precision 3930 fits all these use cases. And of course as it’s a 1U design, it’s perfect for small compute manufacturing solutions.

Some don’t mind it hot!

On selected configurations, the Precision 3930 can comfortably cope with extended operating temperatures of up to 45C. This means that the product can be put to work where the work is actually happening, say the hot factory floor versus needing to be set aside in a cooled data center. And of course, optional dust filters are available for extra tough environments.

Optional redundant power supply for failover

Typically, optional redundant 550W power supply units are provided on servers but not on client products. The Precision 3930 bucks that trend by offering an optional redundant power supply.

Each power supply unit is capable of powering the entire workstation. In the event of failure, you have the reassurance of knowing that the second power supply will automatically kick in to keep the workstation operating without any interruption. The switch over is completely seamless.

Important for the OEM customer experience

This reassurance is especially important for situations where failure is not an option. Think about it. You certainly don’t want a power failure in a situation where a doctor is performing a cancer diagnostics scan for a patient.

Support for double-wide, higher-end graphics & remote power switch

So, what else does this little beauty have up her sleeve? Despite its compact size, you can also enjoy higher-end graphics as the 3930 supports double-wide GPUs. Again, this is especially important for our Medical and Healthcare-focused OEMs. Meanwhile a remote power switch is ideal when the 3930 is embedded in an Industrial Automation or Medical Diagnostics solution or kiosk.

Client OS rack workstation

In the past, some of our OEM customers have purchased a 1U rack mount server and would then re-engineer it to support a non-Dell supported Client OS. If you’re in this category, the good news is that you now have a cost-effective workstation solution that perfectly fits your needs.

Long-life product cycles

Finally, we know from experience that our OEM customers value stable product platforms. With our OEM XL program, we guarantee that there will be no change to the processor, CPU or motherboard part number of the 3930 XL for the life of the platform. And because we understand that qualifying, testing and certifying your next generation solution takes time, we provide an extended transition period of 18 months from the launch of new, next generation platforms. You also get a minimum of three months’ notice on changes to secondary components, like graphics cards and hard drives.

Focus on innovation and not technology churn

This stability allows you the time and space to focus on new innovations versus dealing with certification and constant hardware churn. Thanks to this long-term product roadmap, you can also plan and allocate your budget more effectively.

Perfect solution for OEMs

In summary, I believe that the Dell Precision 3930 is the perfect product for OEMs that either require off-the-shelf, rack-based compute devices for solution integration, kiosks or space constrained designs or alternatively need small compute power with the support of a double wide graphics card, extended operating temperature and long life-cycles.

OEMs – this product is for you! Keep telling us what you need – we’re listening.