Dell brings PowerEdge C8000 4U servers to market

Dell has refreshed its server line up, offering up the PowerEdge C8000 series, which offers small and mid-sized businesses a highly scalable 4U server system.

The 4U chassis comes with three main "sled" options - Compute, GPU and Storage, which are similar to the traditional blades.

Using the Compute sled, firms can leverage the power of 16 next-generation Intel processors in 4U of rack space. The C8220X compute/GPU sled is designed to boost performance and memory density as it facilitate the use of GPUs. Meanwhile, memory density can be enhanced via the storage sled.

It is possible to mix and match sleds and Dell claims double digit power savings can be made when PowerEdge C chassis are daisy chained together. On average the system will also deliver 3x the performance when compared to a standard 2 socket 2U server, the firm claimed.

Dell is in discussions with major telcos in Europe and federal governments as well as hosting firms. However, the setup is also suitable for startups, according to Ed English, head of EMEA enterprise marketing at Dell.

"High Performance Computing (HPC) is probably the largest market for all the verticals we are looking at. The hosting market is also a potential as firms usually have different tiers of offerings and need to set up a dedicated platforms," he said.

"You can order one chassis with couple of sleds to cater to your needs and then add to it as you grow."

To demonstrate the scalability of the system Dell has supplied the C8000 range to the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), which is building a best-in-class HPC environment based on its "Stampede" supercomputer.

The TACC has scaled up from a single chassis to achieve peak performance of 10 Petaflops, using 272,000GB of memory and over 14 million GB of storage, English added.

Price is to be confirmed, and will vary depending on the configuration.