When repetitive and admin-intensive management tasks are quicker and easier to complete, that’s a win for your datacenter and IT administrators. We found that using Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration for SCVMM took 74.6 percent less time to complete four key server management use cases on a single server, compared to performing the same use cases with HP OneView for System Center. When managing many servers, data extrapolated to 100 servers from testing on a second server shows the Dell solution would take 95.8 percent fewer steps and 96.5 percent less time than the HP solution. Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager also enabled IT admins to perform all of the server management operations through a single console—and staged firmware updates without necessitating a server power-down. Easier to use and less time-intensive, the results of our testing showed that the DLCI for SCVMM and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager can be a more efficient and effective combination for your virtualized datacenter.
Nimboxx HCI AU-110x: A scalable, easy-to-use solution for hyperconverged infr...Principled Technologies
Hyperconvergence is a fresh way of looking at your data center. For small- and medium-sized businesses especially, it could be well worth your time to invest in a hyperconverged infrastructure. The MeshOS-operated Nimboxx HCI AU-110x offered scalability and great performance in our hands-on tests and was simple and straightforward to use, which could help your business meet user demands and potentially save money by avoiding things such as hiring expensive IT staff to maintain your data center.
The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX solution required 89.4 percent less admin time to deploy multiple server nodes and 15 fewer steps to update firmware on multiple systems
Administrators can spend a great deal of time deploying and managing computing resources, especially when dealing with ROBO environments. The Dell PowerEdge VRTX, powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 v2 product family and running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2, gives administrators centralized management tools to help them provide time saving benefits and integrated toolsets.
In our hands-on testing, we found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX greatly simplified deployment through an easy, wizard-based setup of Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clusters across server nodes with the Dell OpenManage Cluster Configurator. It also provided versatile hardware resource reassignment through a shared PCIe bus and efficient centralized management through CMC and scripting. Finally, we found that the Dell System Update Utility worked seamlessly with Microsoft Cluster-Aware Updating to update server nodes while keeping the failover cluster online and minimizing downtime. These advantages make the Dell PowerEdge VRTX an attractive choice for those who seek to reduce the management overhead of their ROBO environments.
Faster, easier deployment of Dell PowerEdge servers helps it and your businessPrincipled Technologies
Saving IT deployment time has a number of benefits, including reducing setup hassle and complexities, freeing up time of administrators, and reducing costs. By choosing Dell PowerEdge servers with pre-installed OEM software, specifically Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and Hyper-V, you’re saving time and effort compared to buying the server without the software. We found you could save over 3.5 hours by purchasing the server with pre-installed software. Deploying more servers can save time too, as our findings can scale up to meet IT resource needs of your business. What’s more, choosing the Dell server with pre-installed software can save you 24 percent of additional licensing costs per server.
IT admins can spend considerable time managing employee notebooks. The Dell Client Integration Pack 3.1 for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 can greatly streamline the management process and allow admins to remotely perform management tasks under a much broader range of conditions.
In our labs at Principled Technologies, we performed a series of remote management tasks on Dell Latitude 7240 notebooks managed with DCIP and on Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks managed only through SCCM. Executing these tasks on a single system with DCIP was quicker and simpler than doing so with only SCCM. The time savings was even more pronounced when we performed the scenarios on two systems because DCIP lets you apply the same changes to multiple systems without taking any additional time. For an organization with large numbers of notebook systems, the economies of scale that DCIP provides would translate to the greatest savings.
Systems management savings with Dell OpenManage on 13G Dell PowerEdge servers Principled Technologies
Administrators can spend their time doing routine tasks such as firmware updates, or they can spend their time on other initiatives to make your data center and your business more successful. Older servers keep admins focused on routine tasks instead of innovation because they just don’t have the capabilities to streamline management in a meaningful way to lessen the burden of routine management tasks.
In our hands-on tests, we found that Dell PowerEdge R730 servers with Dell OpenManage dramatically reduced the time it took to deploy, update, monitor, and maintain servers compared to completing the tasks manually on older systems. We estimate that you could save as much as 91.3 percent of administrator time—nearly 800 hours—over two years for a 200-server deployment.
Don’t let your older servers continue to be a time sink for administrators. By upgrading to new Dell PowerEdge R730 servers with new systems management features to handle routine tasks, you can potentially redirect those resources to innovation in other areas.
Database performance comparison of VMware vCloud Air, Amazon Web Services, an...Principled Technologies
Business computing is making its way to the cloud in a dramatic fashion. Selecting the correct cloud service provider is a pivotal decision that could have a significant effect on how much your company benefits from this move.
In our database testing, we found that our VMware vCloud Air instance performed dramatically better than the Azure instance, delivering more than 12 times as many orders per minute. The vCloud Air solution also delivered 3.9 percent greater performance than the AWS solution.
Choosing a cloud service that can deliver better database performance can allow you to make the most of your investment in the cloud platform.
Managing clients with Dell Client Integration Pack 3.0 and Microsoft System C...Principled Technologies
Client management is an important part of any enterprise. Employees have workstations in their offices or notebooks that travel with them around the globe, and efficient updates and remote management capabilities keep an organization’s IT assets ordered and secure. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 can provide a robust, efficient, management system for your IT infrastructure. Selecting clients that not only operate within your IT framework, but that have built-in software to integrate with it seamlessly to make client management tasks even easier is an intelligent strategy for your IT department.
In our tests, we found that Dell client management tools (Dell Client Integration Pack, Dell Client Configuration Toolkit, and Dell OpenManage Client Instrumentation) integrated in a typical SCCM 2012 environment reduced the steps it took to complete client management tasks by as much as 77 percent, and included a number of features that weren’t available with clients from HP and Lenovo.
Nimboxx HCI AU-110x: A scalable, easy-to-use solution for hyperconverged infr...Principled Technologies
Hyperconvergence is a fresh way of looking at your data center. For small- and medium-sized businesses especially, it could be well worth your time to invest in a hyperconverged infrastructure. The MeshOS-operated Nimboxx HCI AU-110x offered scalability and great performance in our hands-on tests and was simple and straightforward to use, which could help your business meet user demands and potentially save money by avoiding things such as hiring expensive IT staff to maintain your data center.
The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX solution required 89.4 percent less admin time to deploy multiple server nodes and 15 fewer steps to update firmware on multiple systems
Administrators can spend a great deal of time deploying and managing computing resources, especially when dealing with ROBO environments. The Dell PowerEdge VRTX, powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 v2 product family and running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2, gives administrators centralized management tools to help them provide time saving benefits and integrated toolsets.
In our hands-on testing, we found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX greatly simplified deployment through an easy, wizard-based setup of Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clusters across server nodes with the Dell OpenManage Cluster Configurator. It also provided versatile hardware resource reassignment through a shared PCIe bus and efficient centralized management through CMC and scripting. Finally, we found that the Dell System Update Utility worked seamlessly with Microsoft Cluster-Aware Updating to update server nodes while keeping the failover cluster online and minimizing downtime. These advantages make the Dell PowerEdge VRTX an attractive choice for those who seek to reduce the management overhead of their ROBO environments.
Faster, easier deployment of Dell PowerEdge servers helps it and your businessPrincipled Technologies
Saving IT deployment time has a number of benefits, including reducing setup hassle and complexities, freeing up time of administrators, and reducing costs. By choosing Dell PowerEdge servers with pre-installed OEM software, specifically Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and Hyper-V, you’re saving time and effort compared to buying the server without the software. We found you could save over 3.5 hours by purchasing the server with pre-installed software. Deploying more servers can save time too, as our findings can scale up to meet IT resource needs of your business. What’s more, choosing the Dell server with pre-installed software can save you 24 percent of additional licensing costs per server.
IT admins can spend considerable time managing employee notebooks. The Dell Client Integration Pack 3.1 for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 can greatly streamline the management process and allow admins to remotely perform management tasks under a much broader range of conditions.
In our labs at Principled Technologies, we performed a series of remote management tasks on Dell Latitude 7240 notebooks managed with DCIP and on Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks managed only through SCCM. Executing these tasks on a single system with DCIP was quicker and simpler than doing so with only SCCM. The time savings was even more pronounced when we performed the scenarios on two systems because DCIP lets you apply the same changes to multiple systems without taking any additional time. For an organization with large numbers of notebook systems, the economies of scale that DCIP provides would translate to the greatest savings.
Systems management savings with Dell OpenManage on 13G Dell PowerEdge servers Principled Technologies
Administrators can spend their time doing routine tasks such as firmware updates, or they can spend their time on other initiatives to make your data center and your business more successful. Older servers keep admins focused on routine tasks instead of innovation because they just don’t have the capabilities to streamline management in a meaningful way to lessen the burden of routine management tasks.
In our hands-on tests, we found that Dell PowerEdge R730 servers with Dell OpenManage dramatically reduced the time it took to deploy, update, monitor, and maintain servers compared to completing the tasks manually on older systems. We estimate that you could save as much as 91.3 percent of administrator time—nearly 800 hours—over two years for a 200-server deployment.
Don’t let your older servers continue to be a time sink for administrators. By upgrading to new Dell PowerEdge R730 servers with new systems management features to handle routine tasks, you can potentially redirect those resources to innovation in other areas.
Database performance comparison of VMware vCloud Air, Amazon Web Services, an...Principled Technologies
Business computing is making its way to the cloud in a dramatic fashion. Selecting the correct cloud service provider is a pivotal decision that could have a significant effect on how much your company benefits from this move.
In our database testing, we found that our VMware vCloud Air instance performed dramatically better than the Azure instance, delivering more than 12 times as many orders per minute. The vCloud Air solution also delivered 3.9 percent greater performance than the AWS solution.
Choosing a cloud service that can deliver better database performance can allow you to make the most of your investment in the cloud platform.
Managing clients with Dell Client Integration Pack 3.0 and Microsoft System C...Principled Technologies
Client management is an important part of any enterprise. Employees have workstations in their offices or notebooks that travel with them around the globe, and efficient updates and remote management capabilities keep an organization’s IT assets ordered and secure. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 can provide a robust, efficient, management system for your IT infrastructure. Selecting clients that not only operate within your IT framework, but that have built-in software to integrate with it seamlessly to make client management tasks even easier is an intelligent strategy for your IT department.
In our tests, we found that Dell client management tools (Dell Client Integration Pack, Dell Client Configuration Toolkit, and Dell OpenManage Client Instrumentation) integrated in a typical SCCM 2012 environment reduced the steps it took to complete client management tasks by as much as 77 percent, and included a number of features that weren’t available with clients from HP and Lenovo.
Dell PowerEdge R920 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Migration and Benefits GuidePrincipled Technologies
The latest Dell PowerEdge R920 server is designed to provide highly scalable performance for large enterprises, with greater memory capacity, improved and expanded attached storage options, and processor architectures designed for high availability. Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is the perfect companion software to take advantage of the Dell PowerEdge R920’s impressive specifications. Upgrading has never looked more attractive, and with hardware/software upgrades must come data migration.
Migrating legacy database applications to the latest database technologies on newer Dell server platforms is a common task for businesses upgrading their hardware/software stack. As this guide shows, the process is straightforward and the cost benefits can be enormous. We calculated the savings attainable from multiple consolidation ratios, as well as how long it would take to pay off the replacement server. We found that a consolidation ratio of 13 to 1 could yield $531,725 in software savings, many times the cost of the replacement hardware itself. So not only will the business benefit from the massively-scalable current-generation Dell server technology paired with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 running SQL Server 2014, but you can save money in the process.
VDI offers many advantages over server-based computing: greater user control over desktops; easier security, backup, and data restoration; and the ability for users to access their sessions offline. VDI can also be a much more cost-effective approach.
Our scale testing with the Login VSI 3.7 medium workload for a VMware Horizon View virtual desktop solution and for a Citrix XenApp 6.5 FP1 Hosted Shared Desktop farm revealed that both delivered a rich Microsoft Windows 7 desktop experience. However, Horizon View 5.2 could support 174 concurrent users while Citrix XenApp 6.5 FP1 with comparable lossless settings could support only 146 concurrent users.
Not only did Horizon View 5.2 support 174 concurrent users in our testing, it did so at a cost per user of $483. In contrast, the 146 users Citrix XenApp 6.5 FP1 supported had a cost per user of $950. VMware Horizon View 5.2 delivered 19.2 percent greater density and a 49.2 percent lower cost per user, making it an excellent choice for a company that wants to deliver a high quality experience that includes around-the-clock telephone support for users.
Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 vs. VMware View 5: User experience and bandwidth consum...Principled Technologies
The experience that virtual desktops provide for workers is critical. If a user’s desktop is sluggish, or worse, choppy and difficult to navigate, working becomes difficult. Choosing a virtual desktop solution that provides sluggish, choppy desktops to remote end-users in branch offices defeats the purpose of implementing such a solution in the first place.
In both the small and medium-sized branch office scenarios we tested, we found that Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 provided a better desktop experience for remote users than VMware View 5, and used as much as 37.1 percent less bandwidth delivering it. Using Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 with Citrix Branch Repeater provided an even better experience for remote users by optimizing bandwidth over the WAN and delivering local-like virtual desktop sessions in both our 10-and 100-user tests. When selecting a VDI solution to deploy virtual desktops over the WAN to users in remote offices, determining the type of user experience the solution provides is paramount.
Database performance: Dell PowerEdge R730xd vs. Lenovo ThinkServer RD650Principled Technologies
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 users, take note. In our datacenter, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R730xd server based on the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family with the Intel SSD DC S3610 Series handled up to 27.9 percent more orders per minute than the Lenovo ThinkServer RD650 did. With three times the SSDs, the PowerEdge R730xd delivered better response times—up to 24.6 percent for application latency and up to 93.1 percent for disk latency—than the ThinkServer RD650. Getting more performance per server and better response times means you can give customers a better, faster ecommerce experience. This can allow you to buy, store, and power fewer servers, helping stretch your IT budget further.
Speed up system deployment with Dell Connected Configuration servicesPrincipled Technologies
The days of administrators going through lengthy system provisioning procedures to update and patch client images on new employee systems are gone. With Dell Connected Configuration service, your organization can get any number of systems delivered to your door with the latest company image loaded and customized for your employees’ needs. Dell Connected Configuration Service lets customers using management software such as SCCM integrate existing software and processes securely into the Dell manufacturing process at the factory using a secure VPN with your own network/firewall standards, so you can change configurations from your location in real time, on your time. From your headquarters, you can complete a number of tasks on new systems, including imaging, updating BIOS settings, partitioning and encrypting hard drives, and installing user-specific software.
As we found, using Dell Connected Configuration Service could save significant time for a laptop deployment, allowing your administrative staff to focus on other ways to improve your business IT. Additionally, your employees can receive their new systems more quickly, potentially avoiding days of waiting for a system to be ready. These time saving advantages of Dell Connected Configuration services can mean a more efficient process for deploying new systems, and can boost productivity by putting the up-to-date tools employees need to do their jobs into their hands more quickly.
Upgrading to Windows Server 2019 on Dell EMC PowerEdge servers: A simple proc...Principled Technologies
Using Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers with Intel Xeon Scalable processors, we upgraded from Windows Server 2016 and saw data compression ratios of up to 9.8:1 thanks to new Storage Spaces Direct features
Compared to aging desktops, new Dell OptiPlex desktops can allow employees to be more productive with faster and more reliable hardware while providing significantly lower power costs. Improved management technology with the new desktops can support the efforts of your IT staff and can reduce costly deskside visits. Upgrading your aging desktops with the Dell OptiPlex 9030 All-in-One or the Dell OptiPlex 9020 Micro desktops brings important improvements to your business through both hardware and software.
Save IT admin time with the Dell EMC PowerEdge MX platform and OpenManage En...Principled Technologies
The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX solution required 86.8 percent less admin time to implement VMware vSAN and 19 fewer steps to update firmware on a single system versus a Cisco UCS solution
Dell OpenManage Essentials: Improve efficiency with fewer tools, more benefits Principled Technologies
Using a systems management solution that streamlines and automates common data center operations is vital to the efficient operation of your data center and the continuous availability of your infrastructure. The right servers and systems management solution can actually provide your IT organization with dramatic savings and enable greater efficiency and productivity.
We carried out three typical data center use cases using a Dell PowerEdge R630 managed with Dell OpenManage Essentials and an HP ProLiant DL380 Gen9 managed with HP OneView. We found that the Dell solution reduced IT administrator time by as much as 40 percent and provided incremental systems management benefits and features. It achieved this with the additional advantage that the cost of the Dell OpenManage Essentials systems management solution is 93 percent lower than the cost of the HP OneView systems management solution.
Our conclusion: Dell OpenManage Essentials and PowerEdge servers can be excellent investments for your data center if you are interested in ease of use, cost and time savings, accuracy, and infrastructure availability.
Laptop drive performance comparison: Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive vs. har...Principled Technologies
Across the three laptop systems we tested, the Seagate SSHD configuration outperformed both hard drive configurations. It booted and launched applications as much as 31.8 percent more quickly and delivered general performance increases of up to 503.3 percent.
By speeding up the tasks that users perform day in and day out, the Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive can boost productivity and let you spend more of your day working and less of it waiting.
Faster and more efficient Flex System management with Lenovo XClarity Adminis...Principled Technologies
When repetitive and complex management tasks become quicker and easier to complete, that’s a win for your datacenter and administrators. We found that using Lenovo XClarity Administrator took 48 percent less time and 37 percent fewer steps to complete four resource-management use cases on the Flex System, compared to using HP OneView. Easier to use and less time-intensive, XClarity Administrator and Flex System can be a more effective combination for your datacenter.
In our tests, we found that the HP Z8 tower with Intel Xeon Gold 6226R processors completed three sample media and entertainment tasks in up to 44 percent less time than the Apple Mac Pro with Intel Xeon W-3275M processor, while adding only 11 percent to the purchase price.
By: Marianne Eggett, Linux Emerging Technology Practice Mgr, Mainline Information Systems
Are you considering a migration to Linux on IBM System z? The first step is to develop a detailed plan that outlines the short term and long term benefits of your migration.
In this presentation you will learn:
- How to identify the business case to support consolidation with System z Linux
- Examples of cost savings other businesses have experienced
- How to build a Total Cost of Ownership report specific to your environment
To view this presentation with audio, visit: http://go.mainline.com/pages/start/knowledge-center-building-the-case-zlinux-webcast-june-2009/index.html?Campaign_Id=7071&Activity_Id=6131
For other topics, visit: www.mainline.com/kc
Migrating middleware applications using Red Hat Enterprise VirtualizationPrincipled Technologies
Consolidating to a virtualized environment that supports VMs running the original operating systems can help you save on datacenter costs and eliminate retuning and testing costs that can be necessary when porting applications. You can reinstall the operating systems--such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8--on VMs and copy the application software and configuration to them. Selecting a virtual environment that optimizes performance and improves price/performance can lead to significant savings in the datacenter. You can get better performance and greater efficiency by replacing several older servers with newer ones running Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, reducing the number of servers you need to run and maintain.
In our tests, we easily and successfully migrated a middleware application running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on a two- to three-year-old bare-metal server to virtual machines on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3 Hypervisor on a Dell PowerEdge R720 server.
Not only was there minimal disruption of the workload, but performance increased dramatically—by 95.7 percent when we ran one VM and by 117.0 percent when we ran two VMs.
These findings demonstrate that moving older servers to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization VMs on a new Dell PowerEdge R720 can provide all of the benefits of virtualization while significantly improving application performance.
Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations: Scalable performance and simplicity in s...Principled Technologies
Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations provide a range of virtualized infrastructure solutions to meet your business’s needs today and in the future. Easy to deploy, manage, and upgrade, these robust solutions can grow as your business does, all the while reducing the likelihood of extended downtime due to their highly available architecture.
Minimizing licensing costs for enterprise applications is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down. When your applications use per-core licensing, choosing higher-performance servers with fewer cores dramatically reduces your software-related spending. The Dell PowerEdge M820 blade solution with Compellent storage could deliver up to $96,236 in savings as compared to a single HP ProLiant BL680c G7 solution, and if consolidating multiple workloads, could deliver even more savings in licensing costs when running Microsoft SQL Server in a virtualized scenario – all while maintaining or exceeding previous performance levels.
Dell PowerEdge R920 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Migration and Benefits GuidePrincipled Technologies
The latest Dell PowerEdge R920 server is designed to provide highly scalable performance for large enterprises, with greater memory capacity, improved and expanded attached storage options, and processor architectures designed for high availability. Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is the perfect companion software to take advantage of the Dell PowerEdge R920’s impressive specifications. Upgrading has never looked more attractive, and with hardware/software upgrades must come data migration.
Migrating legacy database applications to the latest database technologies on newer Dell server platforms is a common task for businesses upgrading their hardware/software stack. As this guide shows, the process is straightforward and the cost benefits can be enormous. We calculated the savings attainable from multiple consolidation ratios, as well as how long it would take to pay off the replacement server. We found that a consolidation ratio of 13 to 1 could yield $531,725 in software savings, many times the cost of the replacement hardware itself. So not only will the business benefit from the massively-scalable current-generation Dell server technology paired with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 running SQL Server 2014, but you can save money in the process.
VDI offers many advantages over server-based computing: greater user control over desktops; easier security, backup, and data restoration; and the ability for users to access their sessions offline. VDI can also be a much more cost-effective approach.
Our scale testing with the Login VSI 3.7 medium workload for a VMware Horizon View virtual desktop solution and for a Citrix XenApp 6.5 FP1 Hosted Shared Desktop farm revealed that both delivered a rich Microsoft Windows 7 desktop experience. However, Horizon View 5.2 could support 174 concurrent users while Citrix XenApp 6.5 FP1 with comparable lossless settings could support only 146 concurrent users.
Not only did Horizon View 5.2 support 174 concurrent users in our testing, it did so at a cost per user of $483. In contrast, the 146 users Citrix XenApp 6.5 FP1 supported had a cost per user of $950. VMware Horizon View 5.2 delivered 19.2 percent greater density and a 49.2 percent lower cost per user, making it an excellent choice for a company that wants to deliver a high quality experience that includes around-the-clock telephone support for users.
Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 vs. VMware View 5: User experience and bandwidth consum...Principled Technologies
The experience that virtual desktops provide for workers is critical. If a user’s desktop is sluggish, or worse, choppy and difficult to navigate, working becomes difficult. Choosing a virtual desktop solution that provides sluggish, choppy desktops to remote end-users in branch offices defeats the purpose of implementing such a solution in the first place.
In both the small and medium-sized branch office scenarios we tested, we found that Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 provided a better desktop experience for remote users than VMware View 5, and used as much as 37.1 percent less bandwidth delivering it. Using Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 with Citrix Branch Repeater provided an even better experience for remote users by optimizing bandwidth over the WAN and delivering local-like virtual desktop sessions in both our 10-and 100-user tests. When selecting a VDI solution to deploy virtual desktops over the WAN to users in remote offices, determining the type of user experience the solution provides is paramount.
Database performance: Dell PowerEdge R730xd vs. Lenovo ThinkServer RD650Principled Technologies
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 users, take note. In our datacenter, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R730xd server based on the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family with the Intel SSD DC S3610 Series handled up to 27.9 percent more orders per minute than the Lenovo ThinkServer RD650 did. With three times the SSDs, the PowerEdge R730xd delivered better response times—up to 24.6 percent for application latency and up to 93.1 percent for disk latency—than the ThinkServer RD650. Getting more performance per server and better response times means you can give customers a better, faster ecommerce experience. This can allow you to buy, store, and power fewer servers, helping stretch your IT budget further.
Speed up system deployment with Dell Connected Configuration servicesPrincipled Technologies
The days of administrators going through lengthy system provisioning procedures to update and patch client images on new employee systems are gone. With Dell Connected Configuration service, your organization can get any number of systems delivered to your door with the latest company image loaded and customized for your employees’ needs. Dell Connected Configuration Service lets customers using management software such as SCCM integrate existing software and processes securely into the Dell manufacturing process at the factory using a secure VPN with your own network/firewall standards, so you can change configurations from your location in real time, on your time. From your headquarters, you can complete a number of tasks on new systems, including imaging, updating BIOS settings, partitioning and encrypting hard drives, and installing user-specific software.
As we found, using Dell Connected Configuration Service could save significant time for a laptop deployment, allowing your administrative staff to focus on other ways to improve your business IT. Additionally, your employees can receive their new systems more quickly, potentially avoiding days of waiting for a system to be ready. These time saving advantages of Dell Connected Configuration services can mean a more efficient process for deploying new systems, and can boost productivity by putting the up-to-date tools employees need to do their jobs into their hands more quickly.
Upgrading to Windows Server 2019 on Dell EMC PowerEdge servers: A simple proc...Principled Technologies
Using Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers with Intel Xeon Scalable processors, we upgraded from Windows Server 2016 and saw data compression ratios of up to 9.8:1 thanks to new Storage Spaces Direct features
Compared to aging desktops, new Dell OptiPlex desktops can allow employees to be more productive with faster and more reliable hardware while providing significantly lower power costs. Improved management technology with the new desktops can support the efforts of your IT staff and can reduce costly deskside visits. Upgrading your aging desktops with the Dell OptiPlex 9030 All-in-One or the Dell OptiPlex 9020 Micro desktops brings important improvements to your business through both hardware and software.
Save IT admin time with the Dell EMC PowerEdge MX platform and OpenManage En...Principled Technologies
The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX solution required 86.8 percent less admin time to implement VMware vSAN and 19 fewer steps to update firmware on a single system versus a Cisco UCS solution
Dell OpenManage Essentials: Improve efficiency with fewer tools, more benefits Principled Technologies
Using a systems management solution that streamlines and automates common data center operations is vital to the efficient operation of your data center and the continuous availability of your infrastructure. The right servers and systems management solution can actually provide your IT organization with dramatic savings and enable greater efficiency and productivity.
We carried out three typical data center use cases using a Dell PowerEdge R630 managed with Dell OpenManage Essentials and an HP ProLiant DL380 Gen9 managed with HP OneView. We found that the Dell solution reduced IT administrator time by as much as 40 percent and provided incremental systems management benefits and features. It achieved this with the additional advantage that the cost of the Dell OpenManage Essentials systems management solution is 93 percent lower than the cost of the HP OneView systems management solution.
Our conclusion: Dell OpenManage Essentials and PowerEdge servers can be excellent investments for your data center if you are interested in ease of use, cost and time savings, accuracy, and infrastructure availability.
Laptop drive performance comparison: Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive vs. har...Principled Technologies
Across the three laptop systems we tested, the Seagate SSHD configuration outperformed both hard drive configurations. It booted and launched applications as much as 31.8 percent more quickly and delivered general performance increases of up to 503.3 percent.
By speeding up the tasks that users perform day in and day out, the Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive can boost productivity and let you spend more of your day working and less of it waiting.
Faster and more efficient Flex System management with Lenovo XClarity Adminis...Principled Technologies
When repetitive and complex management tasks become quicker and easier to complete, that’s a win for your datacenter and administrators. We found that using Lenovo XClarity Administrator took 48 percent less time and 37 percent fewer steps to complete four resource-management use cases on the Flex System, compared to using HP OneView. Easier to use and less time-intensive, XClarity Administrator and Flex System can be a more effective combination for your datacenter.
In our tests, we found that the HP Z8 tower with Intel Xeon Gold 6226R processors completed three sample media and entertainment tasks in up to 44 percent less time than the Apple Mac Pro with Intel Xeon W-3275M processor, while adding only 11 percent to the purchase price.
By: Marianne Eggett, Linux Emerging Technology Practice Mgr, Mainline Information Systems
Are you considering a migration to Linux on IBM System z? The first step is to develop a detailed plan that outlines the short term and long term benefits of your migration.
In this presentation you will learn:
- How to identify the business case to support consolidation with System z Linux
- Examples of cost savings other businesses have experienced
- How to build a Total Cost of Ownership report specific to your environment
To view this presentation with audio, visit: http://go.mainline.com/pages/start/knowledge-center-building-the-case-zlinux-webcast-june-2009/index.html?Campaign_Id=7071&Activity_Id=6131
For other topics, visit: www.mainline.com/kc
Migrating middleware applications using Red Hat Enterprise VirtualizationPrincipled Technologies
Consolidating to a virtualized environment that supports VMs running the original operating systems can help you save on datacenter costs and eliminate retuning and testing costs that can be necessary when porting applications. You can reinstall the operating systems--such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8--on VMs and copy the application software and configuration to them. Selecting a virtual environment that optimizes performance and improves price/performance can lead to significant savings in the datacenter. You can get better performance and greater efficiency by replacing several older servers with newer ones running Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, reducing the number of servers you need to run and maintain.
In our tests, we easily and successfully migrated a middleware application running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on a two- to three-year-old bare-metal server to virtual machines on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3 Hypervisor on a Dell PowerEdge R720 server.
Not only was there minimal disruption of the workload, but performance increased dramatically—by 95.7 percent when we ran one VM and by 117.0 percent when we ran two VMs.
These findings demonstrate that moving older servers to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization VMs on a new Dell PowerEdge R720 can provide all of the benefits of virtualization while significantly improving application performance.
Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations: Scalable performance and simplicity in s...Principled Technologies
Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations provide a range of virtualized infrastructure solutions to meet your business’s needs today and in the future. Easy to deploy, manage, and upgrade, these robust solutions can grow as your business does, all the while reducing the likelihood of extended downtime due to their highly available architecture.
Minimizing licensing costs for enterprise applications is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down. When your applications use per-core licensing, choosing higher-performance servers with fewer cores dramatically reduces your software-related spending. The Dell PowerEdge M820 blade solution with Compellent storage could deliver up to $96,236 in savings as compared to a single HP ProLiant BL680c G7 solution, and if consolidating multiple workloads, could deliver even more savings in licensing costs when running Microsoft SQL Server in a virtualized scenario – all while maintaining or exceeding previous performance levels.
Implementing and managing large and distributed enterprise solutions presents unique administrative challenges. Anything that can streamline the process to minimize error and save administrator time and effort can have a strong, positive effect on your company’s bottom line. We found that the Dell Chassis Management Controller made deploying Dell PowerEdge M620 blades in a Dell PowerEdge M1000e chassis much quicker and easier by allowing you to import existing server profiles in just a few clicks. In our test case to configure for a common mission critical application, Citrix XenDesktop, manually deploying a full 16-blade chassis required 800 steps; but only 59 steps with Dell Chassis Management Controller, transforming a multi-hour task to one that took just minutes. Certain demanding applications can require even greater hardware configuration — these would benefit even more from the “all settings” profile capture and replication features of the Dell Chassis Management Controller.
The ability to pre-provision empty slots and export profiles for redeployment on other chassis further increases the value of the Dell Chassis Management Controller in bigger environments by largely eliminating tedious, redundant tasks and decreasing the opportunities for human error, while freeing administrators to perform other mission-critical or innovative activities. Choosing a solution that automates much of the deployment process is an asset to managing your infrastructure and your business.
Simplifying systems management with Dell OpenManage on 13G Dell PowerEdge ser...Principled Technologies
Automated systems management and additional connectivity solutions can reduce the number of administrators you need to run your datacenter or simply free up administrators to innovate rather than tying them up with routine management tasks. We found that the Dell OpenManage suite provides several new features for 13G Dell PowerEdge server solutions to streamline management tasks in both time and steps. Other new features let us easily connect to iDRAC right from the server. Updating firmware with Dell OpenManage features was also easier—eliminating 213 steps for updating a single server compared to updating manually.
The latest versions of the Dell OpenManage suite of system management tools and the power of iDRAC 8 contained within Dell 13G servers gives administrators increased flexibility and powerful new options for managing their data centers that translate to demonstrable savings in time and administrative effort. These automated enhancements and new technologies enable administrators to manage increasingly larger workloads while reducing the amount of hands-on work required for each system, bringing real value to systems management and datacenter operations.
With new automation tools, tying up your administrator’s time with repetitive processes can become a thing of the past. Our tests showed how Dell ASM, with the ability to build deployment templates, can save significant administrator time and steps compared to a solution that lacks these features. In an age where business IT demands grow rapidly, providing administrators with the right tools to manage their virtualized infrastructure is critical for keeping your datacenter running efficiently.
Simplify administrator tasks and improve security and health monitoring with ...Principled Technologies
Management tools that reduce hands-on time and effort for recurring tasks provide real benefits to administrators with demanding responsibilities. In our comparison of the management portfolios from Dell and HPE, we found that the Dell tools we tested offered better ease-of use than their HPE counterparts, with many additional features and views that can streamline administrator tasks. Plus, the Dell management portfolio offered features that increase data security and allow admins to make changes without infrastructure downtime. By reducing time and effort for tasks like monitoring system health or updating firmware, your admins can focus their time on supporting key business initiatives.
The evolution of Dell EMC PowerEdge server systems management - InfographicPrincipled Technologies
Technology that anticipates your infrastructure needs before you realize them may be closer than you think. Over 13 years of hands-on testing, we’ve found that the tools in the Dell EMC™ OpenManage™ Suite have steadily improved the speed and quality of systems management.
Virtualization-management comparison: Dell Foglight for Virtualization vs. So...Principled Technologies
As your infrastructure scales up to dozens, hundreds, or thousands of monitored VMs, the time and complexity of performing tasks such as the ones we used for our testing workflows increases dramatically. The time savings that are possible when using Dell Foglight for Virtualization have the potential to remove an enormous management burden from your IT staff.
Thanks to its easy-to-use, powerful user interface and greater functionality, the Dell Foglight for Virtualization solution gives your staff the opportunity to identify and respond more quickly to problems, preventing and resolving issues with the potential to minimize downtime or poor performance for your customers and employees.
In the Principled Technologies datacenter, we tested the Dell Foglight for Virtualization Enterprise Edition management tool and compared it to the features that SolarWinds Virtualization Manager publicizes.
Using the Dell Foglight solution to perform virtualization-management workflows was up to 96.3 times faster and required up to 97.7 percent fewer steps than the SolarWinds solution. Dell Foglight for Virtualization also offers greater functionality in optimization, environmental change tracking, and problem remediation.
When IT staff can spend less time on routine management tasks, they have a greater opportunity to innovate and your business benefits.
Reduce complexity and save money with Dell Engineered Solutions for VMware EV...Principled Technologies
Companies like ManuCorp have seemingly contradictory goals for their virtualized infrastructure: They want a solution that eases the deployment and management burden for generalized IT staff while simultaneously saving money over the long term. According to our analysis, ManuCorp would do well to choose Dell Engineered Solutions for VMware EVO:RAIL, saving up to 63.9 percent in costs over three years compared to a solution with Cisco UCS blades and NetApp storage.
Less experienced administrators like ManuCorp already has in house would be able to plug in the Dell Engineered Solutions for VMware EVO:RAIL and use its single, easy-to-use interface to deploy end-to-end virtual infrastructure and complete updates without any additional training or instruction. The Cisco UCS and NetApp solution required extra tools and a wider skillset, which can mean adding a more experienced person and inviting the chance for human error. In addition, the hyper-converged Dell Engineered Solutions for VMware EVO:RAIL appliance reduced power consumption compared to the do-it-yourself environment with Cisco UCS blades and NetApp, which can contribute to big operating cost savings.
A growing business is something every part of your team should be excited about, including your datacenter administrators. By giving your admins the tools they need to complete routine tasks, you can save them time and effort that they can then spend innovating and championing initiatives that will fuel even more business growth.
We found that using HPE OneView to deploy and maintain HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 servers was significantly faster and easier than doing the same tasks manually. And, thanks to convenient server profile templates that make replicating settings on other servers quick and easy, HPE OneView can save time exponentially as the size of a deployment grows, freeing up valuable IT resources for other crucial projects.
Databases power your business, so the performance of the hardware behind your databases is crucial. In our datacenter, the Dell EMC VxRail P470F with VMware vSAN handled more orders per minute, delivered higher IOPS, responded more quickly, and utilized resources more efficiently than the HPE Hyper Converged 380 with HPE StoreVirtual VSA. Plus, scaling up and tuning performance for our specific workload was considerably easier with the Dell EMC VxRail solution than the HPE solution. These differences translate to real-world benefits. With the Dell EMC VxRail solution, you can achieve shorter wait times for customers and staff, which could increase sales and innovation at your company; reduce work for your IT staff, so they can spend more time on other critical tasks; and save space, potentially helping you delay capital expenditures. To find out more about the Dell EMC VxRail P470F, visit DellEMC.com/VxRail.
Manage infrastructure and deploy services with ease using Dell Active System ...Principled Technologies
There are better ways to use your time in the datacenter than going through the tedious process of deploying infrastructure and applications with a solution that requires unnecessary hands-on time. By automating many processes and using a friendly, intuitive wizard, we found that Dell ASM simplified the process of setting up a cluster to deliver IT services.
It took 80 percent less time and 71 percent fewer steps to get our services up and running, compared to doing the same thing with a Cisco solution including UCS Director and UCS Manager. Not only did Dell ASM have a VMware vSphere cluster up and running more easily and in less time, it cost less to license than the Cisco solution. With superior ease of use and 95 percent lower licensing costs, Dell ASM can make life easier for administrators while freeing them up for strategic tasks, saving you time and money for more efficient management of your datacenter.
Performance advantages of Hadoop ETL offload with the Intel processor-powered...Principled Technologies
High-level Hadoop analysis requires custom solutions to deliver the data that you need, and the faster these jobs run the better. What if ETL jobs created by an entry-level employee after only a few days of training could run even faster than the same jobs created by a Hadoop expert with 18 years of database experience?
This is exactly what we found in our testing with the Dell | Cloudera | Syncsort solution. Not only was this solution was faster, easier, and less expensive to implement, but the ETL use cases our beginner created with this solution ran up to 60.3 percent more quickly than those our expert created with open-source tools.
Using the Dell | Cloudera | Syncsort solution means that your organization can compensate a lower-level employee for half as much time as a senior engineer doing less-optimized work. That is a clear path to savings.
A Dell PowerEdge MX environment using OpenManage Enterprise and OpenManage En...Principled Technologies
Compared to a Cisco UCS-X environment using Intersight, the Dell environment streamlined making changes to VLANs and helped avoid interventions during scheduled firmware updates
Conclusion
We executed two management scenarios in a Dell PowerEdge MX environment with Dell OpenManage Enterprise and OpenManage Enterprise Modular and a Cisco UCS X-Series chassis environment with Cisco Intersight. We learned that the Dell solution’s single-part profile modification for performing VLAN updates was quicker and simpler than the Cisco solution’s two-part profile deployment, requiring 40 percent less time and two-thirds as many steps. We also compared the firmware updating process on the solutions. Being able to schedule these updates to occur automatically from the online Dell repository offered an advantage over having to manually execute the same tasks from the Cisco Intersight repositories. Namely, administrators do not need to take action during maintenance windows but can instead schedule them ahead of time. Saving time on routine tasks frees administrators to pursue innovation, and being able to avoid middle-of-the-night duties helps companies provide a better work experience for admins. Together, these advantages help make Dell PowerEdge MX servers a good candidate for companies considering upgrading the older Cisco UCS servers in their data centers.
When considering whether to upgrade to the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX or repurpose older hardware, the advantages of new hardware are clear. Not only do you get newer hardware that is faster and is better-equipped to handle the increasing demands of today’s business applications and workloads, but you also benefit from advances that make deployment and management easier than ever.
In our labs, we compared the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with four server nodes and shared storage and networking to a similar infrastructure using four legacy tower servers, external network switches, and an external SAN. Our testing revealed the following:
· PowerEdge VRTX took 78.5 percent less time and 150 fewer steps to configure and deploy out of the box compared to the legacy solution.
· PowerEdge VRTX It took less than 1 hour to unbox and configure into a highly available VMware vSphere cluster compared to over 4 hours on the legacy solution.
· Deploying the Dell PowerEdge VRTX used just a single management tool, the integrated Chassis Management Controller, whereas the tower solution required six separate management tools.
Choosing such a complete solution during your next server refresh can simplify infrastructure setup and configuration, boost performance through built-in high availability features, and potentially save your organization space and operating costs over the life of the hardware.
Spend less time, effort, and money by choosing a Dell EMC server with pre-ins...Principled Technologies
Deploying a Dell EMC PowerEdge R740 with pre-installed Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Standard took less time and fewer steps than deploying the same server without it
Dell OME advanced features deliver faster power monitoring capabilities plus ...Principled Technologies
Dell OpenManage Enterprise Power Manager 3.0 and OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter 1.0 saved time and effort on routine monitoring and management tasks vs. completing tasks manually
Dell Open Server Manager built on OpenBMC for security, lifecycle management,...Principled Technologies
A Principled Technologies research report based on publicly available information
Conclusion
With OpenBMC, it is possible to deploy BMC software that can work across a variety of vendors. Admins can create or purchase tools that use IPMI, Redfish, or SSH to perform industry-standard operations on hundreds or thousands of servers at once.
Dell Open Server Manager adds critical features to the OpenBMC firmware stack. The software providesthe safety of silicon-based root of trust, Dell lifecycle updates for easy firmware and BIOS management, and SupportAssist log bundles for expert Dell support.
Dell offers several Intel Xeon processor-powered server platforms with Open Server Manager capability, with a variety of configuration options to fit the needs of CSPs at any scale. The Dell PowerEdge HS5620 andPowerEdge HS5610 cloud scale servers build on the Dell and Intel commitment to working with other vendors to foster open standards.
Open Server Manager is a strong step towards allowing CSPs to manage hyperscale environments with products from many different vendors, especially as the adoption of OpenBMC and other open standards increases.
Continuing to run a legacy infrastructure may be possible, but it isn’t optimal—not when new technologies like the Dell and Nutanix solution are available. By upgrading to this new hyperconverged infrastructure, you could do eight times the work of a legacy solution in just 6U and scale for more work by simply adding another node. What’s more, eliminating the need for centralized SAN storage means more space to grow, less hardware to manage, and the potential for lower power and cooling bills.
Take the first step on the path to an upgraded environment. Run DPACK in your own datacenter, and discover your performance requirements and potential bottlenecks. Then consider how the increased mixed workload performance from the hyperconverged, Intel processor-powered Dell and Nutanix solution could help your business thrive.
with the Dell OpenManage Enterprise Services plug-in
In our OME + OMES versus SCG + OME comparison, we found that the OMES plug-in enabled us to do
everything through a single console instead of toggling between the OME and Services consoles through
an adapter. Reducing the number of virtual appliances you need to deploy and manage in your server
environment is an additional advantage. Another is streamlining credential management. These overarching advantages can help companies divert admin resources to other important initiatives.
Faster and easier server installation with Dell ProDeploy Factory Configurati...Principled Technologies
Saving any amount of time when configuring or deploying servers can help IT admins as well as your organization. Enterprise-grade organizations might feel the pressure of a large-scale Dell PowerEdge server rollout and want to save time with pre-configured servers or on-site installation. Smaller organizations might not have IT staff available to configure or deploy PowerEdge servers in a new data center. Dell ProDeploy can save you time in these scenarios and more.
Regardless of whether you’re rolling out a hundred servers at once into an established IT infrastructure or needing on-site services installing new servers in a regional data center, using ProDeploy Infrastructure Suite can help your organization achieve critical business priorities and save time for your IT admins.
Design advantages of Hadoop ETL offload with the Intel processor-powered Dell...Principled Technologies
High-level Hadoop analysis requires custom solutions to deliver the data that you need and the amount of time that even senior engineers require to create ETL jobs in a DIY hardware and software situation, can be substantial.
We found that the Dell | Cloudera | Syncsort solution was so easy to use that an entry-level employee could use it to create optimized ETL jobs after only a few days of training. And he could do it quickly—our technician, who had no previous experience using Hadoop, developed three optimized ETL jobs in 31 hours. That is less than half of the 68 hours our expert with years of Hadoop experience needed to create the same jobs using open source tools.
Using the Dell | Cloudera | Syncsort solution means that your organization can implement a Hadoop solution using employees already on your staff rather than trying to recruit expensive, difficult-to-find specialists. Not only that, but the projects can be completed in a fraction of the time. This makes the Dell | Cloudera | Syncsort solution a winning business proposition.
Similar to Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution (20)
Investing in GenAI: Cost‑benefit analysis of Dell on‑premises deployments vs....Principled Technologies
Conclusion
Diving into the world of GenAI has the potential to yield a great many benefits for your organization, but it first requires consideration for how best to implement those GenAI workloads. Whether your AI goals are to create a chatbot for online visitors, generate marketing materials, aid troubleshooting, or something else, implementing an AI solution requires careful planning and decision-making. A major decision is whether to host GenAI in the cloud or keep your data on premises. Traditional on-premises solutions can provide superior security and control, a substantial concern when dealing with large amounts of potentially sensitive data. But will supporting a GenAI solution on site be a drain on an organization’s IT budget?
In our research, we found that the value proposition is just the opposite: Hosting GenAI workloads on premises, either in a traditional Dell solution or using a managed Dell APEX pay-per-use solution, could significantly lower your GenAI costs over 3 years compared to hosting these workloads in the cloud. In fact, we found that a comparable AWS SageMaker solution would cost up to 3.8 times as much and an Azure ML solution would cost up to 3.6 times as much as GenAI on a Dell APEX pay-per-use solution. These results show that organizations looking to implement GenAI and reap the business benefits to come can find many advantages in an on-premises Dell solution, whether they opt to purchase and manage it themselves or choose a subscription-based Dell APEX pay-per-use solution. Choosing an on-premises Dell solution could save your organization significantly over hosting GenAI in the cloud, while giving you control over the security and privacy of your data as well as any updates and changes to the environment, and while ensuring your environment is managed consistently.
Workstations powered by Intel can play a vital role in CPU-intensive AI devel...Principled Technologies
In three AI development workflows, Intel processor-powered workstations delivered strong performance, without using their GPUs, making them a good choice for this part of the AI process
Conclusion
We executed three AI development workflows on tower workstations and mobile workstations from three vendors, with each workflow utilizing only the Intel CPU cores, and found that these platforms were suitable for carrying out various AI tasks. For two of the workflows, we learned that completing the tasks on the tower workstations took roughly half as much time as on the mobile workstations. This supports the idea that the tower workstations would be appropriate for a development environment for more complex models with a greater volume of data and that the mobile workstations would be well-suited for data scientists fine-tuning simpler models. In the third workflow, we explored tower workstation performance with different precision levels and learned that using 16-bit floating point precision allowed the workstations to execute the workflow in less time and also reduced memory usage dramatically. For all three AI workflows we executed, we consider the time the workstations needed to complete the tasks to be acceptable, and believe that these workstations can be appropriate, cost-effective choices for these kinds of activities.
Enable security features with no impact to OLTP performance with Dell PowerEd...Principled Technologies
Get comparable online transaction processing (OLTP) performance with or without enabling AMD Secure Memory Encryption and AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization - Encrypted State
Conclusion
You’ve likely already implemented many security measures for your servers, which may include physical security for the data center, hardware-level security, and software-level security. With the cost of data breaches high and still growing, however, wise IT teams will consider what additional security measures they may be able to implement.
AMD SME and SEV-ES are technologies that are already available within your AMD processor-powered 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers—and in our testing, we saw that they can offer extra layers of security without affecting performance. We compared the online transaction processing performance of a Dell PowerEdge R7625 server, powered by AMD EPYC 9274F processors, with and without these two security features enabled. We found that enabling AMD Secure Memory Encryption and Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Encrypted State did not impact performance at all.
If your team is assessing areas where you might be able to enhance security—without paying a large performance cost—consider enabling AME SME and AMD SEV-ES in your Dell PowerEdge servers.
Improving energy efficiency in the data center: Endure higher temperatures wi...Principled Technologies
In high-temperature test scenarios, a Dell PowerEdge HS5620 server continued running an intensive workload without component warnings or failures, while a Supermicro SYS‑621C-TN12R server failed
Conclusion: Remain resilient in high temperatures with the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 to help increase efficiency
Increasing your data center’s temperature can help your organization make strides in energy efficiency and cooling cost savings. With servers that can hold up to these higher everyday temperatures—as well as high temperatures due to unforeseen circumstances—your business can continue to deliver the performance your apps and clients require.
When we ran an intensive floating-point workload on a Dell PowerEdge HS5620 and a Supermicro SYS-621CTN12R in three scenario types simulating typical operations at 25°C, a fan failure, and an HVAC malfunction, the Dell server experienced no component warnings or failures. In contrast, the Supermicro server experienced warnings in all three scenario types and experienced component failures in the latter two tests, rendering the system unusable. When we inspected and analyzed each system, we found that the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 server’s motherboard layout, fans, and chassis offered cooling design advantages.
For businesses aiming to meet sustainability goals by running hotter data centers, as well as those concerned with server cooling design, the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 is a strong contender to take on higher temperatures during day-to-day operations and unexpected malfunctions.
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift: An easily deployable and powe...Principled Technologies
The 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor‑powered solution deployed in less than two hours and ran a Kubernetes container-based generative AI workload effectively
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift: An easily deployable and powe...Principled Technologies
The 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor‑powered solution deployed in less than two hours and ran a generative AI workload effectively
Conclusion
The appeal of incorporating GenAI into your organization’s operations is likely great. Getting started with an efficient solution for your next LLM workload or application can seem daunting because of the changing hardware and software landscape, but Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors could provide the solution you need. We started with a Dell Validated Design as a reference, and then went on to modify the deployment as necessary for our Llama 2 workload. The Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift solution worked well for our LLM, and by using this deployment guide in conjunction with numerous Dell documents and some flexibility, you could be well on your way to innovating your next GenAI breakthrough.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)
For organizations running clusters of moderately configured, older Dell PowerEdge servers with a previous version of VCF, upgrading to better-configured modern servers can provide a significant performance boost and more.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5
If your company is struggling with underperforming infrastructure, upgrading to 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers running VCF 5.1 could be just what you need to handle more database throughput and reduce vSAN latencies. As an additional benefit to IT admins, we also found that the embedded VMware Aria Operation adapter provided useful infrastructure insights.
Realize 2.1X the performance with 20% less power with AMD EPYC processor-back...Principled Technologies
Three AMD EPYC processor-based two-processor solutions outshined comparable Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based solutions by handling more Redis workload transactions and requests while consuming less power
Conclusion
Performance and energy efficiency are significant factors in processor selection for servers running data-intensive workloads, such as Redis. We compared the Redis performance and energy consumption of a server cluster in three AMD EPYC two-processor configurations against that of a server cluster in two Intel Xeon Scalable two-processor configurations. In each of our three test scenarios, the server cluster backed by AMD EPYC processors outperformed the server cluster backed by Intel Xeon Scalable processors. In addition, one of the AMD EPYC processor-based clusters consumed 20 percent less power than its Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based counterpart. Combining these measurements gave us power efficiency metrics that demonstrate how valuable AMD EPYC processor-based servers could be—you could see better performance per watt with these AMD EPYC processor-based server clusters and potentially get more from your Redis or other data intensive applications and workloads while reducing data center power costs.
Improve performance and gain room to grow by easily migrating to a modern Ope...Principled Technologies
We deployed this modern environment, then migrated database VMs from legacy servers and saw performance improvements that support consolidation
Conclusion
If your organization’s transactional databases are running on gear that is several years old, you have much to gain by upgrading to modern servers with new processors and networking components and an OpenShift environment. In our testing, a modern OpenShift environment with a cluster of three Dell PowerEdge R7615 servers with 4th Generation AMD EPYC processors and high-speed 100Gb Broadcom NICs outperformed a legacy environment with MySQL VMs running on a cluster of three Dell PowerEdge R7515 servers with 3rd Generation AMD EPYC processors and 25Gb Broadcom NICs. We also easily migrated a VM from the legacy environment to the modern environment, with only a few steps required to set up and less than ten minutes of hands-on time. The performance advantage of the modern servers would allow a company to reduce the number of servers necessary to perform a given amount of database work, thus lowering operational expenditures such as power and cooling and IT staff time for maintenance. The high-speed 100Gb Broadcom NICs in this solution also give companies better network performance and networking capacity to grow as they embrace emerging technologies such as AI that put great demands on networks.
Boost PC performance: How more available memory can improve productivityPrincipled Technologies
With more memory available, system performance of three Dell devices increased, which can translate to a better user experience
Conclusion
When your system has plenty of RAM to meet your needs, you can efficiently access the applications and data you need to finish projects and to-do lists without sacrificing time and focus. Our test results show that with more memory available, three Dell PCs delivered better performance and took less time to complete the Procyon Office Productivity benchmark. These advantages translate to users being able to complete workflows more quickly and multitask more easily. Whether you need the mobility of the Latitude 5440, the creative capabilities of the Precision 3470, or the high performance of the OptiPlex Tower Plus 7010, configuring your system with more RAM can help keep processes running smoothly, enabling you to do more without compromising performance.
Deploy with confidence: VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 on next gen Dell PowerEdg...Principled Technologies
A Principled Technologies deployment guide
Conclusion
Deploying VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 on next gen Dell PowerEdge servers brings together critical virtualization capabilities and high-performing hardware infrastructure. Relying on our hands-on experience, this deployment guide offers a comprehensive roadmap that can guide your organization through the seamless integration of advanced VMware cloud solutions with the performance and reliability of Dell PowerEdge servers. In addition to the deployment efficiency, the Cloud Foundation 5.1 and PowerEdge solution delivered strong performance while running a MySQL database workload. By leveraging VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 and PowerEdge servers, you could help your organization embrace cloud computing with confidence, potentially unlocking a new level of agility, scalability, and efficiency in your data center operations.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5
Conclusion
If your company is struggling with underperforming infrastructure, upgrading to 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers running VCF 5.1 could be just what you need to handle more database throughput and reduce vSAN latencies. We found that a Dell PowerEdge R760 server cluster running VCF 5.1 processed over 78 percent more TPM and 79 percent more NOPM than a Dell PowerEdge R750 server cluster running VCF 4.5. It’s also worth noting that the PowerEdge R750 cluster bottlenecked on vSAN storage, with max write latency at 8.9ms. For reference, the PowerEdge R760 cluster clocked in at 3.8ms max write latency. This higher latency is due in part to the single disk group per host on the moderately configured PowerEdge R750 cluster, while the better-configured PowerEdge R760 cluster supported four disk groups per host. As an additional benefit to IT admins, we also found that the embedded VMware Aria Operation adapter provided useful infrastructure insights.
Based on our research using publicly available materials, it appears that Dell supports nine of the ten PC security features we investigated, HP supports six of them, and Lenovo supports three features.
Increase security, sustainability, and efficiency with robust Dell server man...Principled Technologies
Compared to the Supermicro management portfolio
Conclusion
Choosing a vendor for server purchases is about more than just the hardware platform. Decision-makers must also consider more long-term concerns, including system/data security, energy efficiency, and ease of management. These concerns make the systems management tools a vendor offers as important as the hardware.
We investigated the features and capabilities of server management tools from Dell and Supermicro, comparing Dell iDRAC9 against Supermicro IPMI for embedded server management and Dell OpenManage Enterprise and CloudIQ against Supermicro Server Manager for one-to-many device and console management and monitoring. We found that the Dell management tools provided more comprehensive security, sustainability, and management/monitoring features and capabilities than Supermicro servers did. In addition, Dell tools automated more tasks to ease server management, resulting in significant time savings for administrators versus having to do the same tasks manually with Supermicro tools.
When making a server purchase, a vendor’s associated management products are critical to protect data, support a more sustainable environment, and to ease the maintenance of systems. Our tests and research showed that the Dell management portfolio for PowerEdge servers offered more features to help organizations meet these goals than the comparable Supermicro management products.
Increase security, sustainability, and efficiency with robust Dell server man...Principled Technologies
Compared to the Supermicro management portfolio
Conclusion
Choosing a vendor for server purchases is about more than just the hardware platform. Decision-makers must also consider more long-term concerns, including system/data security, energy efficiency, and ease of management. These concerns make the systems management tools a vendor offers as important as the hardware.
We investigated the features and capabilities of server management tools from Dell and Supermicro, comparing Dell iDRAC9 against Supermicro IPMI for embedded server management and Dell OpenManage Enterprise and CloudIQ against Supermicro Server Manager for one-to-many device and console management and monitoring. We found that the Dell management tools provided more comprehensive security, sustainability, and management/monitoring features and capabilities than Supermicro servers did. In addition, Dell tools automated more tasks to ease server management, resulting in significant time savings for administrators versus having to do the same tasks manually with Supermicro tools.
When making a server purchase, a vendor’s associated management products are critical to protect data, support a more sustainable environment, and to ease the maintenance of systems. Our tests and research showed that the Dell management portfolio for PowerEdge servers offered more features to help organizations meet these goals than the comparable Supermicro management products.
Scale up your storage with higher-performing Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS ...Principled Technologies
In our tests, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS outperformed similarly configured solutions from Vendor A, achieving more IOPS, better throughput, and more consistent performance on both NVMe-supported configurations and configurations backed by Elastic Block Store (EBS) alone.
Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS supports a full NVMe backed configuration, but Vendor A doesn’t—its solution uses EBS for storage capacity and NVMe as an extended read cache—which means APEX Block Storage for AWS can deliver faster storage performance.
Scale up your storage with higher-performing Dell APEX Block Storage for AWSPrincipled Technologies
Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered stronger and more consistent storage performance for better business agility than a Vendor A solution
Conclusion
Enterprises desiring the flexibility and convenience of the cloud for their block storage workloads can find fast-performing solutions with the enterprise storage features they’re used to in on-premises infrastructure by selecting Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS.
Our hands-on tests showed that compared to the Vendor A solution, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered stronger, more consistent storage performance in both NVMe-supported and EBS-backed configurations. Using NVMe-supported configurations, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS achieved 4.7x the random read IOPS and 5.1x the throughput on sequential read operations per node vs. Vendor A. In our EBS-backed comparison, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered 2.2x the throughput per node on sequential read operations vs. Vendor A.
Plus, the ability to scale beyond three nodes—up to 512 storage nodes with capacity of up to 8 PBs—enables Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS to help ensure performance and capacity as your team plans for the future.
Get in and stay in the productivity zone with the HP Z2 G9 Tower WorkstationPrincipled Technologies
We compared CPU performance and noise output of an HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation in High Performance Mode to Dell Precision 3660 and 5860 tower workstations in optimized performance modes
Conclusion
HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation users can change the BIOS settings to dial in the performance mode that best suits their needs: High Performance Mode, Performance Mode, or Quiet Mode. In good
news for both creative and technical professionals, we found that an Intel Core i9-13900 processor-powered HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation set to High Performance mode received higher CPU-based benchmark scores than both a similarly configured Dell Precision 3660 and a Dell Precision 5860 equipped with an Intel Xeon w5-2455x processor. Plus, the HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation was quieter while running CPU-intensive Cinebench 2024 and SPECapc for Solidworks 2022 workloads than both Dell Precision tower workstations. This means HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation users who prize performance over everything else can do so without sacrificing a quiet workspace.
Open up new possibilities with higher transactional database performance from...Principled Technologies
In our PostgreSQL tests, R7i instances boosted performance over R6i instances with previous-gen processors
If you use the open-source PostgreSQL database to run your critical business operations, you have many cloud options from which to choose. While many of these instances can do the job, some can deliver stronger performance, which can mean getting a greater return on your cloud investment.
We conducted hands-on testing with the HammerDB TPROC-C benchmark to see how the PostgreSQL performance of Amazon EC2 R7i instances, enabled by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, stacked up to that of R6i instances with previous-generation processors. We learned that small, medium-sized, and large R7i instances with the newer processors delivered better OLTP performance, with improvements as high as 13.8 percent. By choosing the R7i instances, your organization has the potential to support more users, deliver a better experience to those users, and even lower your cloud operating expenditures by requiring fewer instances to get the job done.
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
"Impact of front-end architecture on development cost", Viktor TurskyiFwdays
I have heard many times that architecture is not important for the front-end. Also, many times I have seen how developers implement features on the front-end just following the standard rules for a framework and think that this is enough to successfully launch the project, and then the project fails. How to prevent this and what approach to choose? I have launched dozens of complex projects and during the talk we will analyze which approaches have worked for me and which have not.
Search and Society: Reimagining Information Access for Radical FuturesBhaskar Mitra
The field of Information retrieval (IR) is currently undergoing a transformative shift, at least partly due to the emerging applications of generative AI to information access. In this talk, we will deliberate on the sociotechnical implications of generative AI for information access. We will argue that there is both a critical necessity and an exciting opportunity for the IR community to re-center our research agendas on societal needs while dismantling the artificial separation between the work on fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics in IR and the rest of IR research. Instead of adopting a reactionary strategy of trying to mitigate potential social harms from emerging technologies, the community should aim to proactively set the research agenda for the kinds of systems we should build inspired by diverse explicitly stated sociotechnical imaginaries. The sociotechnical imaginaries that underpin the design and development of information access technologies needs to be explicitly articulated, and we need to develop theories of change in context of these diverse perspectives. Our guiding future imaginaries must be informed by other academic fields, such as democratic theory and critical theory, and should be co-developed with social science scholars, legal scholars, civil rights and social justice activists, and artists, among others.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
1. OCTOBER 2015
A PRINCIPLED TECHNOLOGIES REPORT
Commissioned by Dell
MICROSOFT SYSTEM CENTER VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT COMPARISON: DELL
POWEREDGE SERVERS AND LIFECYCLE CONTROLLER INTEGRATION VS. HP SOLUTION
For IT staff, managing large numbers of virtualization hosts has the potential to
require large amounts of time and effort. Using a systems management solution that
automates tasks can allow IT staff to save time and steps, help reduce the possibility of
human error, and free staff to work on other operations.
In the Principled Technologies datacenter, we compared the time and steps
necessary to perform fundamental infrastructure management tasks within a Microsoft
System Center environment utilizing two solutions designed for use with Microsoft
System Center Virtual Machine Manager. One solution was Dell PowerEdge™ servers
and Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine
Manager and the other was HP ProLiant servers and OneView for Microsoft System
Center. Because of its use of templates and automated processes, using the Dell
solution to discover inventory, deploy and configure hardware, deploy Microsoft Hyper-
V® to bare-metal servers, and update firmware on multiple servers required
dramatically less time and fewer steps than performing the same tasks with the HP
solution.
The greater the number of servers in your datacenter, the more time you could
save by using PowerEdge servers and Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration for Microsoft
System Center Virtual Machine Manager compared to the HP solution.
2. A Principled Technologies report 2Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
FASTER, EASIER TEMPLATE-DRIVEN MANAGEMENT WITH DELL
LIFECYCLE CONTROLLER INTEGRATION FOR MICROSOFT SYSTEM
CENTER VIRTUAL MACHINE MANAGER
In addition to saving IT administrator time by automating repetitive tasks, a
high-quality management solution should provide consistency, reliability, and accuracy.
To reduce time-to-productivity, solutions that integrate seamlessly with customers’
existing solutions, skill sets, and processes assist in eliminating the many steps required
to learn a new tool. It is also important to keep management topology simple by
reducing, for example, the need for more networks or virtual machine infrastructure.
Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration (DLCI) for System Center Virtual Machine
Manager is available as a Hyper-V virtual appliance that provides Virtual Machine
Manager (VMM) with access to features and functionality embedded within Dell
PowerEdge servers. The Dell solution is designed to reduce complexity in the datacenter
with automated processes that easily provision bare-metal servers and ensure servers
are configured and updated consistently and securely. According to Dell, DLCI for
SCVMM provides hardware management for Dell PowerEdge rack servers and
converged platforms including VRTX, M1000e blade servers, and FX2 systems. In this
report, we tested the solutions on 1U rack servers.
The Dell Hyper-V virtual appliance enables Dell features within Virtual Machine
Manager. While Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager provides Hyper-V
management, the Dell solution’s agent-free architecture means Dell systems
management capabilities are available independent of the operating system or
hypervisor deployed on the server, which can greatly simplify management hardware
within multi-vendor OS, hypervisor, and workload environments. For more information
on DLCI for SCVMM, see Appendix A.
In our datacenter, we tested four resource-management use cases:
Automated server discovery
Server hardware configuration
Deployment of Microsoft Windows Server® and Hyper-V to bare-metal
compute nodes
Updates of system firmware
We recorded the time and steps to complete each of the four use cases for Dell
Lifecycle Controller Integration for SCVMM on two Dell PowerEdge R630 rack servers
and the same four use cases for HP OneView for Microsoft System Center on two HP
ProLiant DL360 Gen9 rack servers. We configured both solutions using the methods and
best practices described in relevant, publically available documentation. For detailed
configuration information on the test systems, see Appendix B. For detailed steps on
how we tested, see Appendix C.
3. A Principled Technologies report 3Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
OVERVIEW OF OUR FINDINGS
Performing the four use cases on a single server
Altogether, completing all the tasks in the four use cases using Dell Lifecycle
Controller Integration for SCVMM on a single PowerEdge server took 74.6 percent less
time than performing the same four use cases using HP OneView for System Center on a
single HP ProLiant server—a little over 5 minutes versus more than 20 minutes. Figure 1
shows the time and number of steps needed to perform each use case on a single
server.
Use case
DLCI for SCVMM HP OneView for System Center
Time
(mm:ss)
Steps
Time
(mm:ss)
Steps
Discover bare-metal server 00:31 2 00:23 4
Apply/create Hardware Profiles 03:33 25 00:44 3
Deploy Hyper-V 00:43 7 06:21 8
Update firmware 00:26 4 12:55 17
Total for all use cases 05:13 38 20:23 32
Figure 1: Time and steps the two hardware management tools needed to complete the four use cases on a single server. Lower
numbers are better.
The Dell solution required less time even though it required six more total steps
than the HP solution. Additionally, the HP solution required the use of two separate
tools and interfaces—we were able to perform three of the four use cases using HP
OneView, but we needed SCVMM to deploy Microsoft Hyper-V.
Performing the four use cases on 100 servers
While the time that the Dell solution saved in our single-server scenario is
certainly an advantage, datacenter administrators are typically responsible for managing
dozens, if not hundreds of servers. Thanks to their use of templates and automation, the
management tools available with the Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration (DLCI) for
SCVMM solution deliver a great economy of scale that the HP OneView for System
Center does not.
After we used each solution to carry out our four use cases on a single server,
we repeated the processes on a second server, noting the time and number of steps
necessary for the additional server.1
Based on these findings, we calculated the time and
steps that would be necessary to perform the use cases on 100 servers using each
solution.
1
The configuration for the second server was identical to the one we used on the first server. We base all of our time and steps
projections for 100 servers on the configurations being the same.
4. A Principled Technologies report 4Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
As Figure 2 illustrates, because the DLCI for SCVMM solution uses templates and
automated processes that execute tasks on multiple servers simultaneously, performing
our four management use cases on 100 Dell PowerEdge servers would take a total of 38
steps—the same number of steps needed for a single server. Even if we doubled or
tripled the number of servers to 200 or 300, the DLCI for SCVMM solution would require
the same 38 steps to complete the four use cases.
Figure 2: Performing the use cases on
100 servers using the Dell solution
would take a tiny fraction of the
steps compared to doing so using the
HP management solution. Fewer
steps are better.
Note: The Dell solution applies the
Hardware Profile as a part of
deploying Hyper-V, so it requires no
additional steps.
Because the HP solution does not use templates and lacks automated processes,
using its management tools to carry out the four use cases on 100 HP ProLiant servers
would take a whopping 924 steps. The many additional manual steps involved with the
HP solution could introduce human error during the configuration of multiple servers.
With the Dell solution, applying a single template to many servers reduces the potential
for errors.
As the number of steps increases, so does the amount of time an IT
administrator must spend carrying them out. Figure 3 shows the almost inconsequential
time an administrator would need to perform our four management use cases on 100
servers using the Dell solution—less than 6 minutes total. Because the HP solution
requires an IT administrator to repeat tasks for every one of the 100 servers, the time
needed to do the jobs would grow to 2 hours and 32 minutes.
5. A Principled Technologies report 5Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
Figure 3: Performing the use cases on
100 servers using the Dell solution
would take a fraction of the time
compared to doing so using the HP
management solution. Less time is
better.
In the sections that follow, we present more detail about our four systems
management use cases. In Appendix D, we present detailed test results.
OUR FINDINGS IN DETAIL
Faster server discovery
When new hardware arrives, it needs to move quickly to production in order to
avoid any idle resources. Automated discovery allows IT staff to save time and simplifies
the process of moving servers to production. Figure 4 shows the DLCI Discovery Wizard.
Figure 4: DLCI Discovery
Wizard.
6. A Principled Technologies report 6Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
The initial discovery of two Dell PowerEdge rack server components with Dell
Lifecycle Controller Integration was a fast, simple process compared to discovery with
the HP OneView for System Center solution.
Using DCLI, performing this use case would take two steps and 31 seconds of IT
admin time whether we were working on a single Dell server or 100 of them. In
contrast, the four steps and 23 seconds necessary to carry out this use case on a single
HP server would balloon to 202 steps and more than 52 minutes if we were to perform
the tasks on 100 servers because of the lack of automation in the HP solution.
Faster hardware configuration
Configuring many servers manually can be time-consuming, so it is extremely
useful when a management solution allows admins to perform these repeatable tasks in
an automated fashion.
The Dell solution is template-driven, and uses a reference server to create a new
template that supports application to any number of servers at once during
deployment. Settings in the template also support robust editing, as Figure 5 shows. Dell
has named their hardware configuration templates “Hardware Profiles.”
Figure 5: DLCI Hardware Profile Editing.
7. A Principled Technologies report 7Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
During the configuration of HP servers, HP OneView allows the user to create or
copy Server Profiles to each individual server. Server Profiles contain settings on the
firmware baselines and BIOS and boot order settings. While Server Profiles allow
creation without a physical server, unassigned profiles must be assigned at a later time
in a separate process to each server.
Using DCLI, performing this use case would take 25 steps and 3 minutes 33
seconds of IT admin time whether we were working on a single Dell server or 100 of
them. In contrast, the three steps and 44 seconds necessary to carry out this use case on
a single HP server would balloon to 201 steps and more than 47 minutes if we were to
perform the tasks on 100 servers because of the lack of automation in the HP solution.
Faster deployment of Hyper-V to a bare-metal node
When running a virtualized datacenter, bare-metal hosts are provisioned in a
repeatable pattern—starting with the installation of a hypervisor. In this case, hosts are
provisioned with Microsoft Hyper-V, included with Microsoft Windows Server® 2012 R2.
Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration for Microsoft System Center Virtual
Machine Manager helps to automate the installation of Microsoft Windows Server,
including Hyper-V, to bare-metal servers. Using the DLCI plug-in and Virtual Machine
Manager, IT administrators can deploy the Hyper-V hypervisor onto a single node or
onto multiple nodes simultaneously (see Figure 6).
8. A Principled Technologies report 8Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
Figure 6: DLCI bare-metal deployment.
The HP OneView licensing includes rights to use the HP ProLiant SCVMM
Integration Kit, which helps to create a Microsoft Windows® PE image that contains
necessary HP drivers for the greatest compatibility with HP hardware. Using Microsoft
SCVMM 2012 R2, users can deploy a prepared image of Microsoft Windows Server and
the customized HP image.
Applying the hardware profile and deploying Microsoft Hyper-V utilizing Dell
Lifecycle Controller Integration would take only seven steps and 43 seconds of IT admin
time regardless of the number of servers administered, whereas the HP solution would
require nine steps and more than 6 minutes of IT admin time to deploy Hyper-V to the
same number of servers. Combined with template creation/application, deploying
Hyper-V on the first server using the Dell solution took 39 percent less time than the HP
solution (see Figure 7).
9. A Principled Technologies report 9Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
Figure 7 : Creating and applying
a template and deploying
Hyper-V on a single server took
less time with the Dell solution.
Faster updates and firmware management
Firmware updates for servers can patch critical flaws, enable more features, and
increase security. By ensuring servers use up-to-date firmware, manufacturers can
better support and maintain compatibility with new software, hardware add-ons, or
other features.
Dell provides a feature in DLCI for SCVMM called Update Center, which allows
users to view update compliance per server and push individual updates to components
(see Figure 8). Updates can be scheduled or applied immediately, to reduce the need for
reboots during critical business hours. The Dell solution also downloads firmware
updates automatically from Dell, although users also have the option to maintain an
internal firmware repository. Additionally, the Dell solution can also update system
firmware during Hyper-V deployment, while the HP solution must do so in a separate
process.
10. A Principled Technologies report 10Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
Figure 8: DLCI Firmware Update Center.
11. A Principled Technologies report 11Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
HP OneView requires monolithic update packages uploaded to the OneView
appliance. These are available from HP’s website. The latest updates are applied to the
server upon the creation or edit of a server profile, and the server must be powered off
to apply server profile changes. Figure 9 shows a screenshot of HP Firmware Bundles.
Figure 9: HP Firmware Bundles.
Using Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration (DLCI), performing this use case would
take 4 steps and 26 seconds of IT admin time whether working on a single Dell server or
100 of them. In contrast, the 17 steps and 12 minutes 55 seconds necessary to carry out
this use case on a single HP server would balloon to 512 steps and more than 40
minutes if we were to perform the same tasks on 100 servers due to the lack of
automation in the HP solution.
CONCLUSION
When repetitive and admin-intensive management tasks are quicker and easier
to complete, that’s a win for your datacenter and IT administrators. We found that using
Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration for SCVMM took 74.6 percent less time to complete
four key server management use cases on a single server, compared to performing the
same use cases with HP OneView for System Center. When managing many servers,
data extrapolated to 100 servers from testing on a second server shows the Dell solution
12. A Principled Technologies report 12Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
would take 95.8 percent fewer steps and 96.5 percent less time than the HP solution.
Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine
Manager also enabled IT admins to perform all of the server management operations
through a single console—and staged firmware updates without necessitating a server
power-down. Easier to use and less time-intensive, the results of our testing showed
that the DLCI for SCVMM and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager can be
a more efficient and effective combination for your virtualized datacenter.
13. A Principled Technologies report 13Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
APPENDIX A – ABOUT THE COMPONENTS
About Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager
Part of the larger collection of Microsoft System Center consoles, Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine
Manger 2012 R2 enables the management of many facets of virtualized computing, such as host management and
deployment. Additional features include deploying software updates from Microsoft to hosts, virtual networking
components, and support for a number of third-party add-ins. SCVMM 2012 R2 includes many features for virtual
workload management, such as template-driven deployments, robust support for multiple hypervisors, and support for
storage management. The latest version used in this study, Microsoft SCVMM 2012 R2, was released in 2013. For more
information on Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2, see technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/gg610610.aspx.
About Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration for System Center Virtual Machine Manager
DLCI for SCVMM is available as a virtual hard drive (VHD) from Dell, ready for import into Hyper-V or Virtual
Machine Manager. Upon deployment, the main DLCI appliance provides a web interface that provides installation
wizards to deploy the other components of DLCI and to manage the appliance itself. The DLCI appliance is built on the
popular Linux® distribution CentOS. Using the Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration for SCVMM plug-in , the Dell solution
enables IT admins to use a single console to perform server firmware updates, deployment and discovery, and also view
firmware compliance information. For more information, see en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systems-
management/dlci-vmm/.
About HP OneView and HP OneView for Microsoft System Center
HP OneView is a virtual appliance available for deployment on a Hyper-V or VMware® vSphere®-based platform.
It includes features such as storage management, server utilization and health status, and monolithic firmware updates.
Additional features include per-server profiles, the ability to manage HP Virtual Connect modules, and simple
configuration. While the HP OneView appliance does not include OS or hypervisor deployment tools, the licensing
structure of HP OneView includes the right to use all HP OneView Partner Integrations such as the HP OneView for
Microsoft System Center used in this study to enable features such as OS deployment. For more information, see
www8.hp.com/us/en/business-solutions/converged-systems/oneview.html.
14. A Principled Technologies report 14Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
APPENDIX B – SYSTEM CONFIGURATION INFORMATION
Figure 10 provides detailed information about the systems we used in our hands-on tests.
System Dell PowerEdge R630 (×2) HP ProLiant DL360 Gen9 (×2)
Power supplies
Total number 2 2
Vendor and model number Dell 09338DX03 HP 720479-B21
Wattage of each (W) 495 800
General
Number of processor packages 2 2
Number of cores per processor 6 18
Number of hardware threads per
core
2 2
System power management policy Default Default
CPU
Vendor Intel® Intel
Name Xeon® Xeon
Model number E5-2609 v3 E5-2699 v3
Stepping M1 2
Socket type LGA 2011-3 LGA 2011-3
Core frequency (GHz) 1.90 2.30
Bus frequency 6.4 GT/s QPI (3200 MHz) 9.6 GT/s QPI
L1 cache 32 KB + 32 KB (per core) 32 KB + 32 KB (per core)
L2 cache 256 KB (per core) 256 KB (per core)
L3 cache 15 MB 45 MB
Platform
Vendor and model number Dell PowerEdge R630 HP ProLiant DL360 Gen9
Motherboard model number 0CNCJW 775400-001
BIOS Version 1.3.6 P89 v1.50 (07/20/2015)
iDRAC/iLO Version 2.15.10.10 2.30 Aug 19 2015
Memory module(s)
Total RAM in system (GB) 16 16
Vendor and model number Samsung® M393A1G43DB0-CPB Samsung M393A1G43DB0-CPB
Type DDR4-2133 ECC DDR4-2133 ECC
Speed (MHz) 2,133 2,133
Speed running in the system (MHz) 1,066 1,066
Timing/Latency (tCL-tRCD-tRP-
tRASmin)
15-15-15-36 15-15-15-36
Size (GB) 8 8
Number of RAM module(s) 2 2
Chip organization 512Mb × 8 512Mb × 8
Rank Dual Dual
15. A Principled Technologies report 15Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
System Dell PowerEdge R630 (×2) HP ProLiant DL360 Gen9 (×2)
Disks
Vendor and model number Seagate® ST300MM0006 HP EG0300FCSPH
Number of disks in system 2 2
Size (GB) 300 300
Type HDD HDD
Firmware LS08 HPD0
Disk controller
Vendor and model Dell PERC H730P Mini HP Smart HBA H240ar
Controller firmware 25.3.0.0016 3.00
Figure 10: Detailed configuration information for the test systems.
16. A Principled Technologies report 16Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
APPENDIX C – HOW WE TESTED
Installing Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager
First, install the prerequisites for System Center Virtual Machine Manager. This includes a Microsoft SQL Server
and an available Domain Server. A breakdown of system requirements and prerequisites is available at
technet.microsoft.com/library/dn771747.aspx. Two components from the Windows ADK are necessary for the
installation of Virtual Machine Manager. Both the Deployment Tools and Windows Preinstallation Environment must be
installed. In the below guide for Windows ADK, the package has been previously downloaded for an offline installation
according to technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn621908.aspx.
1. Launch the ADK installer, and click Next.
2. Select the default installation directory or change it, and click Next.
3. Choose either option for the CEIP. Click Next.
4. Accept the License Agreement.
5. Select both the Deployment Tools and the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE). Click Install.
6. Wait for the install to finish, and click Close.
7. Launch the Virtual Machine Manager installer.
8. Click Install.
9. Select VMM management server, and click Next.
10. Enter all correct registration information, and click Next.
11. At the next screen, accept the license agreement, and click Next.
12. Select either option for the Customer Experience Improvement Program, and click Next.
13. Select either option for Microsoft Update, and click Next.
14. Select the installation directory. The default directory is fine. Click Next.
15. Enter the database information. Enter the SQL server name for server name, and the correct SQL credentials (if
using Windows authentication, don’t check the box). Select New database.
16. Create a VMMUser domain account in the Active Directory server. Ensure the VMMUser account has local
administrator rights on both VMM01 and VMM01, and sysadmin rights on the SQL server or SQL cluster. Create a
container for distributed key management in the AD DC Server. Instructions are available at
technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg697604.aspx.
See technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc739265(v=ws.10).aspx to ensure the user is a local administrator.
Enter the credentials and information into this screen, and click Next.
17. If the default settings for port configuration are correct, proceed to the next screen by clicking Next.
18. Wait for installation to complete, and click Close.
17. A Principled Technologies report 17Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
HP ONEVIEW
Step counts for the HP solution assume the user is already at the HP OneView home screen, or starting after the
steps Navigating to the HP OneView web console. Step counts for using the built-in SCVMM 2012 R2 Hyper-V
deployment assume the user has already launched and signed into the SCVMM console.
Navigating to the HP OneView web console
1. Launch a web browser. For this test, we used Mozilla® Firefox® 41.0.1.
2. Navigate to the hostname or IP address of the HP OneView appliance.
3. Enter the correct credentials for the appliance, and click Login.
Creating iLO Run-As Account in SCVMM 2012 R2
This assumes the SCVMM 2012 R2 Console is already running.
1. From the left-hand VMM menu, click Settings.
2. Click Create Run-As Account.
3. Provide a credential name and description. Provide the correct iLO credentials, and unselect the Validate
domain credentials. Click Finish.
Discovering a bare-metal server with HP One View
Discovering a server
1. Click the HP OneView dropdown in the upper-left, and click Server Hardware.
2. Click Add server hardware.
3. Provide the iLO IP address of the server, and select Managed.
4. Provide the iLO credentials on the menu that appears, and select the radio button for HP OneView w/o iLO. Click
Add.
Discovering an additional server (additional steps when deploying more than one server at once)
If more than one server is to be discovered, follow the steps for Discovering the server, but in step 4, click Add+
instead of Add.
1. Provide the iLO IP address of the server, and select Managed.
2. Provide the iLO credentials on the menu that appears, and select the radio button for HP OneView w/o iLO. Click
Add.
Applying/creating Hardware Profiles with HP OneView
Creating the server profile
1. Click the HP OneView dropdown in the upper left, and click Server Profiles.
2. Click Create profile.
3. Enter a name, description, and select a previously added server. Select a firmware baseline from the drop-down,
and select the box for Manage boot mode. Select Legacy BIOS from the drop-down, and ensure PXE boot is the
first option. Select the Manage BIOS checkbox. Click Create.
Creating the profile for an additional server (additional steps when deploying more than one server at once)
If more than one server is to be configured, follow the steps for Creating the server profile, and then follow
these steps.
1. Click the Actions drop-down, and select Copy.
18. A Principled Technologies report 18Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
2. Provide a new profile name, and select another previously discovered server. Select Create.
Deploying Hyper-V with HP OneView
Deploying Hyper-V (one server)
This assumes the SCVMM 2012 R2 Console is already running.
1. In SCVMM, navigate to either the Fabric or VMs and Services tabs.
2. Right-click on All Hosts. Click Add Hyper-V Hosts and Clusters.
3. Select the radio button for Physical Computers to be provisioned as virtual machine hosts. Click Next.
4. Click browse. Choose the iLO Run-As account, and click OK. Click Next.
5. Provide the IP address of the iLO and click Next.
6. Ensure the correct Host group and Physical computer profile are selected, and click Next.
7. After deep discovery completes, provide a computer Name, and configure the NICs and networking options.
Click Next.
8. Review all the information, and click Finish.
Deploying Hyper-V (two or more servers)
1. In SCVMM, navigate to either the Fabric or VMs and Services tabs.
2. Right-click on All Hosts. Click Add Hyper-V Hosts and Clusters.
3. Select the radio button for Physical Computers to be provisioned as virtual machine hosts. Click Next.
4. Click browse. Choose the iLO Run-As account, and click OK. Click Next.
5. Click the radio button for IP range. Enter in the correct IP range. Click Next.
6. Wait for initial IPMI discovery to finish. Select the checkboxes next to the desired servers, and uncheck the Skip
deep discovery for selected computers checkbox. Click Next.
7. Ensure the correct Host group and Physical computer profile are selected, and click Next.
8. After deep discovery completes, provide a computer Name and configure the NICs and networking options for
each discovered physical computer. Click Next.
9. Review all the information, and click Finish.
Updating firmware with HP OneView
Updating firmware (one server)
1. Navigate to h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/products/service_pack/spp/index.aspx in a web
browser.
2. Under Full ISO Image, select the link to download the HP Service Pack for ProLiant. The file is roughly 5GB.
3. On the next page, select Obtain Software.
4. Select Sign-in Now on the prompt that appears.
5. Sign in with an HP account that has rights to download the HP SPP.
6. Select Obtain Software.
7. Click Select.
8. Fill out the form, and click Next.
9. Choose either the HP Download Manager or Standard download, and select Download.
10. Once the file download completes, navigate to the web portal for HP OneView.
19. A Principled Technologies report 19Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
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11. From the top left drop down menu, select Firmware Bundles.
12. Select Add Firmware Bundle.
13. Select Choose file and navigate to the HP Service Pack for ProLiant ISO.
14. Select Start Upload. When the upload completes, click OK.
15. Click the HP OneView main drop-down and click Server Profiles.
16. Select the profile that needs the update, and select the Actions drop-down. Click Edit.
17. Change the firmware baseline to the previously uploaded image. Click OK.
Editing the profile – Change firmware baseline (additional steps when deploying more than one server at once)
1. Click the HP OneView dropdown in the upper left, and click Server Profiles.
2. Select the server profile to edit from the left menu.
3. Click the Actions drop-down menu and click Edit.
4. From the firmware baseline drop-down, select a new firmware baseline.
5. Click OK.
DELL LIFECYCLE CONTROLLER INTEGRATION FOR SCVMM
Step counts for DLCI assume the user has already launched the SCVMM console and is at the DLCI console within
SCVMM (see the steps Navigating to the DLCI Console in SCVMM).
Navigating to the DLCI Console in SCVMM
1. Launch the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2 console.
2. Provide the correct server name, and click Connect.
3. Navigate to the Fabric tab on the left-hand menu.
4. Click the All Hosts folder.
5. In the ribbon menu, click DLCI Console.
6. Click Continue to this website.
Discovering a server by IP range with Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration
1. From the Home menu of the DLCI console, click Discover Unassigned Servers.
2. Click the radio button for Discover Using an IP Range, select the correct credentials for the iDRACs, and enter
both the start IP Range and Ending Range. Optionally, provide a job name you can use to identify the task. Click
Finish.
Applying/creating Hardware Profiles with Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration
Creating credentials
1. From the Home menu of the DLCI console, click Profiles & Templates from the left-hand menu. A menu will then
expand.
2. Click Credential Profile.
3. Click Create.
4. Select a Credential Profile Type (Device Credential Profile) and provide a useful name and description. Enter the
username, password, and select iDRAC. Click Finish.
Creating Hypervisor Profile
1. From the Home menu of the DLCI Console, select Create Hypervisor Profile.
20. A Principled Technologies report 20Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
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2. Click Next.
3. Provide the profile with a name and description. Click Next.
4. Select All Hosts & a preexisting SCVMM Physical Computer Profile. Click Next.
5. Provide the WinPE ISO name. Click Next.
6. Click the box to enable Dell Lifecycle Controller Drivers Injection. Select WS2012R2. Click Next.
7. Click Finish.
Creating Deployment Template
1. From the Home menu of the DLCI Console, select Profiles and Templates from the left-hand menu. A menu will
then expand.
2. Click Deployment Template.
3. Click Create.
4. Provide the template with a useful name and description. Select the previously created hardware profile,
hypervisor profile, and use the update source DELL ONLINE CATALOG. Check the box Continue OSD even if
firmware deployment fails. Click Finish.
Configuring server – Hardware profile creation from a reference server
1. From the Home menu of the DLCI Console, click Profiles & Templates from the left-hand menu. A menu will
expand.
2. Click Hardware Profile.
3. Click Create.
4. Click Next.
5. Provide a hardware profile name, description, and a reference server. Click Next.
6. Leave Dedicated Hot Spare at the Default setting, and leave all checkboxes at their default setting. Click Next.
7. Wait for the profile to be created and review all BIOS settings when they appear. Click Next.
8. Verify Boot settings. Click Next.
9. Verify RAID configuration. Click Next.
10. Check that the summary is correct, and select Finish.
Deploying Hyper-V with Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration
Note: This step also applies the hardware profile.
1. From the left menu of the DLCI Console, select Deployment Wizard.
2. Click Next.
3. Check boxes for the servers to deploy. Click Next.
4. Select the Deployment Template, and select the iDRAC credentials. Click Next.
5. Provide the server(s) with a hostname and leave the other settings at their default. Click Next.
6. Provide a Job name and description. Click Next.
7. Verify all settings, and click Finish to deploy all hardware settings, updates, and install Hyper-V.
Updating firmware with Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration
1. From the Home menu of the DLCI Console, select Update Center.
2. Check the server(s) to be updated – individual updates can be deselected or selected as desired.
21. A Principled Technologies report 21Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
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3. Click Run Update.
4. Provide a Firmware Update Job Name and Description. Select Agent-free Update to push updates immediately.
The option to schedule updates is also available. Click Finish.
22. A Principled Technologies report 22Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
APPENDIX D – DETAILED TEST RESULTS AND EXTRAPOLATION
Figure 11 presents detailed test results. For both the one-server and two-server sections, we include the one-
time setup cost of profile creation (Dell) and firmware downloads (HP).
In Figure 12, we take our results from Figure 11 and extrapolate them to 100 servers. For all Dell processes,
there is no difference in the amount of time required to perform the use cases on one or multiple servers. For HP,
deploying Hyper-V requires the same time and steps for two or more servers, but discovery, hardware profile
application, and firmware updates require additional time and steps for each additional server. To extrapolate 100
servers for the HP data, we multiplied the time and steps required for an additional server by 99, and then added the
time and steps required for the first server.
Dell Lifecycle Controller
Integration (DLCI)
HP OneView
DLCI percentage
decrease
Time
(h:mm:ss)
Steps
Time
(h:mm:ss)
Steps Time Steps
Deploying the first server (One-time setup tasks included)
Discover bare-metal server 0:00:31 2 0:00:23 4 -34.78% 50.00%
Apply/create Hardware Profiles 0:03:33 25 0:00:44 3 -384.09% -733.33%
Deploy Hyper-V 0:00:43 7 0:06:21 8 88.71% 12.50%
Subtotal of Hardware Profiles and Hyper-V
deployment
0:04:16 32 0:07:05 11 39.76% -190.1%
Update firmware 0:00:26 4 0:12:55 17 96.65% 76.47%
Total for all steps 0:05:13 38 0:20:23 32 74.59% -18.75%
Deploying two servers at once (One-time setup tasks included)
Discover bare-metal server 0:00:31 2 0:00:55 6 43.64% 66.67%
Apply/create Hardware Profiles 0:03:33 25 0:01:12 5 -196.77% -400.00%
Deploy Hyper-V 0:00:43 7 0:06:33 9 89.06% 22.22%
Subtotal of Hardware Profiles and Hyper-V
deployment
0:04:16 32 0:07:45 14 44.95% -128.57%
Update firmware 0:00:26 4 0:13:16 22 96.73% 81.82%
Total 0:05:13 38 0:21:56 42 76.16% 9.52%
Figure 11: Time and steps required to perform four management use cases in our datacenter using the two management tools.
Fewer steps and less time is better.
23. A Principled Technologies report 23Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
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DLCI HP OneView
DLCI percentage
decrease
Time
(h:mm:ss)
Steps
Time
(h:mm:ss)
Steps Time Steps
100 servers (includes setup)
Discover bare-metal server 0:00:31 2 0:52:24 202 99.01% 99.01%
Apply/create Hardware Profiles 0:03:33 25 0:47:26 201 92.52% 87.56%
Deploy Hyper-V 0:00:43 7 0:06:25 9 88.76% 22.22%
Subtotal of Hardware Profiles and Hyper-V
deployment
0:04:16 32 0:53:51 210 92.08% 84.76%
Update firmware 0:00:26 4 0:46:09 512 99.06% 99.22%
Total 0:05:13 38 2:32:24 924 96.57% 95.89%
Figure 12: Projected time and steps that would be required to perform four management use cases using the two management
tools, based on the results in Figure 11. Fewer steps and less time is better.
24. A Principled Technologies report 24Microsoft System Center virtual environment comparison: Dell
PowerEdge servers and Lifecycle Controller Integration vs. HP solution
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