Microserver line gets easier to afford and overall better at everything

May 8, 2012 19:21 GMT  ·  By

Since Intel is using its 22nm manufacturing process for chips besides the Ivy Bridge consumer series, Dell decided it was high time it actually put them to work.

Dell has a certain line of microservers going by the name of PowerEdge C5220, which is really just one system with customizable insides.

Enterprise customers can now choose to outfit said system with the newest Intel Xeon processors, specifically the Xeon E3-1200 v2.

ECC memory, 64-bit processing, Intel VT-x, full software compatibility and up to 50% density increase over previous-generation microservers are among the best assets.

Shared power and cooling resources can live off less energy now too, even as performance in data bandwidth sensitive applications is heightened, thanks to DDR3-1600 memory speeds.

There already are business-critical web 2.0, cloud and content delivery networks (CDN) that utilize Xeon-based microservers.

Switching old units for the new ones is a natural turn of events, hence Dell's apparent haste.

“We’re constantly inspired by the unique ways our customers are leveraging Dell microserver platforms to drive specialized web 2.0, HPC and cloud computing applications,” said Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager, Dell Server Solutions.

“As the microserver market and ecosystem have matured, customers like Vibrant Media have validated that microservers are a cost-effective, scalable platform in web 2.0 environments.”

Dell's PowerEdge C5220 is detailed on its product page, but iterations equipped with Xeon E3-1200v2 won't ship before May 22. The price is of $12,207.84, or 9,374.06 Euro, according to exchange rates.

“We’ve been innovating with Dell on breakthrough microserver solutions based on Intel Xeon processors since establishing the category at Intel Developer Forum in 2009. Today we are excited to see new customers using Dell systems and taking advantage of the most power efficient Xeon processors ever delivered across a broader variety of workloads,” said Jason Waxman, general manager of cloud computing, Intel.