Lights, Camera, Action! The new OEM PowerEdge R740xd2 Makes its Debut

When we say that we listen to our customers, it’s not empty marketing hype. In fact, we generally do way more than listen – we follow through. Let me share a great example. A few months ago, a large OEM customer told the team that it needed a customized solution to bridge the gap between compute and storage. Unfortunately, none of our existing products fit the exact bill. We listened, got together all the right people within Dell EMC and effectively designed a brand-new product to meet the customer’s needs.

Responding to customer needs

And so, hot off the press, I’m delighted to present the PowerEdge R740xd2 (LINK), one of my favorite products of all time! What’s so special about the latest addition to our server range? How does it address that customer’s needs and what other customers is this product likely to appeal to?

Data never sleeps

Before I answer, look around! Data is everywhere. In the last few years, more data has been created than in the previous 5,000 years of humanity put together. It’s mind-blowing but apparently we now create more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every single day. Get this – every three days, the amount of data we produce is equivalent to the number of grains of sand on planet earth. By 2020, it’s estimated that for every person on earth, 1.7Mb of data will be produced every single second.

Our world continues to transform

We’re all witnesses and players in this dynamic. Just think of our own lives. You don’t have to be old to remember when photos were hard copy and stored in albums that sat on the shelf in your living room. That was the case less than 20 years ago. Compare that to the present. Just think of the huge volume of photos taken now, all day, every day, via mobile phones. Not only has the volume increased dramatically – so too has the resolution. We used to watch DVDs – now it’s HD TV on demand. Instead of being a content consumer, many of us now create our own videos to post on YouTube. Video surveillance used to feature analog cameras – increasingly, the world is using IP digital cameras with different, higher resolutions and various aspect ratios.

A continual loop

The list goes on but you get my point. The way that pictures and video are now being created, managed, distributed and viewed is causing a seismic shift in the industry. 3D rendering and video content creation, including acquisition, transcoding and distribution, are hungry and need huge amounts of server processing power. Multi-device consumption and ultra-high definition are driving increased demand and generating even more data, which, guess what, needs to be stored!

Customer expectations are high

Meanwhile, user experience has taken central stage – we expect delivery to be instantaneous, anywhere, anytime, on any device. The big take-away is these data-heavy workloads demand huge computing power plus vast, vast amounts of storage. Looking ahead, I believe that demand will ramp even higher with trends like AI, 5G networks, 8K, HDR,IPv6 protocols, virtual and augmented reality plus, of course, IoT.

The bridge between compute and storage

The good news is that the PowerEdge R740xd2 has been designed to deal with this data deluge. It’s all about bringing compute closer to storage in order to deliver high performance results. Let me give a flavor of what you can expect.

Up to 364TB of storage

Picture, flexible storage and performance resources in a space-saving 2U rack server. Capacity wise, the PowerEdge R740xd2 can accommodate 24 x 3.5 inch front-serviceable, hot-swappable drives, delivering an amazing 364TB of storage with fast connection and response times. Of course, you can also add flash and 2S performance as your workload requirements evolve.

Eliminate bottlenecks

In terms of power, this little beauty packs a punch, delivering two-socket performance with up to two Intel® Xeon® scalable processors and up to 44 cores. With fast networking options and up to 16 DIMMS of memory, you can kiss bottlenecks goodbye. And of course, a cyber-resilient architecture ensures your data stays safe and available.

Inspired by our OEM customers

To all our OEM partners and customers in the video surveillance and media and entertainment markets – the PowerEdge R740xd2 is for you! During the test phase, OEM customers in these vertical industries told us they loved this product, describing it as “perfect for purpose”, “flexible”, “reliable”, “high quality”, and “rock solid.”

And, of course, from our perspective, the PowerEdge 740xd2 rounds out our already extensive OEM server and storage portfolio, allowing us to address the needs of our video surveillance customers plus enter and disrupt new markets, like media and entertainment.

What’s your reaction? I would love to hear your comments and questions. Remember, we’re listening and will continue to expand our portfolio to allow you get to market faster!