From time to time I talk with customer’s who use Dell servers. As a former Dell customer I am fascinated with those who are still Dell customers so I typically (if given a chance) ask questions to see if I can determine how and why they use Dell. I can summarize these Dell situations into a few basic groups using basic observations and absolutely without malice. These groups are:

• purchased a Dell laptop and liked it, so once in a position to influence the business IT direction insisted on Dell
• attended school (high school, college, university) where Dell was a key player, became comfortable on the Dell equipment and do not have time or desire to learn of equipment from other vendors
• believe Dell web site offers easier purchasing experience
• received a Dell laptop as part of a university program for free (I’m not calling this indoctrination but it sure sounds familiar)
• started working in a organization where Dell is already entrenched and do not have the time to research other technologies or solutions
• I like Dell and I will not or can not tell you why (sort of the old Chevy vs Ford or BMW vs Mercedes thinking process)
• We have Dell and don’t want to mix in any other vendors because we are afraid they will cause issues
• Dell has great advertising and consistently beats IBM and HP (I’ll have a post coming up on this in the future!)

For these groups I decided to do a comparison of the new Intel Nehalem processor based servers from Dell and IBM. Hopefully you will see why Dell is being replaced in most data centers.  

This information was all obtained from the respective manufactures web sites (www.dell.com and www.ibm.com).

• On the Dell small and medium business section of their web site the Dell R710 starts out at $1,899 with a instant internet savings of $470 for starting price of $1,429

• On the IBM web site the IBM System X 3650 m2 starts out at $1,316

With a web page open to each manufactures site I configured these two systems as identical as possible to function as VMWare VI3 Servers running ESX Enterprise and using iSCSI for the VM Storage (many of the differences I point out below and are based on different decisions the manufactures have taken in either assembling parts or in their engineering).

• Coming in at $10,415 (after the instant internet rebate) the Dell R710 with two Intel® Xeon® Quad Core X5570, 2.93Ghz processors, 8M Cache, 32GB Memory (8×4GB), 1066MHz Dual Ranked RDIMMs (Note that I had to use the 4Gb RDIMMS because Dell’s design forces the smaller DIMMS to run at a much slower clock rate of 800Mhz), rack rails and cable management arms (I list that here because unlike with IBM these are extra), PERC 6/i SAS RAID Controller at RAID 5, 3 73GB 10K RPM SAS 2.5″ Hot Plug Hard Drive, Redundant 870W power supplies (note that the base 570watt power supplies had to be scrapped because of the faster processors and memory foot print), Bezel (IBM includes this in the base price), iDRAC6 Enterprise (IBM includes this in the base), Embedded NICS with TOE and iSCSI enabled (IBM includes this in the base), RW DVD ROM (IBM includes a RW optical drive in the base), 24/7/4 hour on site maintenance

• Coming in $863 less at $9,552 the IBM 3650 m2 with two Intel® Xeon® Quad Core X5570, 2.93Ghz processors, 8M Cache, 32GB Memory (8×4GB), 1333MHz Dual Ranked RDIMMs (Note that IBM uses faster 1333MHz memory than Dell), rack rails and cable management arms (I list that here because even though IBM includes these with the base Dell does not), ServeRAID-MR10i RAID Controller at RAID 5 (note that this RAID controller supports RAID 0, 1, 1E, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60 – the Dell iDRAC6 does not support all of these RAID levels), 3 73GB 10K RPM SAS 2.5″ Hot Plug Hard Drive, Redundant 675W power supplies (note that this is 195 watts less than the Dell per Power Supply), Bezel (IBM includes this in the base price), embedded remote management, Embedded NICS with TOE and iSCSI enabled (IBM includes this in the base), Ultra-slim CD-RW DVD ROM Combo, 24/7/4 hour on site maintenance  

The absolute strangest thing I found during this comparison was that of the power supplies. I know that there is a big push out there to go GREEN….but it seems that Dell is having a hard time at it so they are changing the rules and the unsuspecting customer will be paying the price! The base IBM 3650 M2 server comes standard all the power it needs unless the customer wishes to have redundant power. The server uses 1 675 watt power supply and the customer can a redundant power supply for $299. This power supply is designed to provide this chassis all the power it needs for years into the future and through all the speed and core bumps that Intel will be throwing at it. In Dells case, especially with the power hogging 3.5″ drives, they offer their base unit with a 570 watt power supply. A untrained technology buyer will do that simple math and deduce that the Dell is more power efficient. THAT IS NOT TRUE! Dell is offering these power supplies in hopes that you will do that simple math and not dig any further. The processor in Dell base unit is an Intel E5502. This is a 45nm DUAL CORE processor. In the Dell unit as you add more features into the server you are forced to upgrade to the 870 watt power supplies which use nearly 200 watts more per server than the IBM 3650 M2. In a comparably equipped system, like for like, apples to apples, the R710 will NOT be more energy efficient than the 3650 M2. But you mark my words….Dell will be moving to advertise that way because of the “teaser” power supply they put in this units standard model. Image if you will your server room storage closet with 100 extra power supplies stored because you had to upgrade your 50 servers to run more memory or more hard drives. IBM doesn’t force customers into that situation! I cant find exactly what the magic number of components is for the Dell server to require the upgrade but when I created a balanced server on their web site with 2 quad core processors and anything over 24 gigs of ram requires the upgrade of the power supply. Seems to me this is absolutely a bait and switch play for Dell and they are trying to hook customers with the lower rated power supplies only to have them find out later that they need to upgrade.

Both systems have the same Intel Xeon E5502 processor BUT the base Dell system is using unbuffered Dimms while IBM is using registered and buffered Dimms. This is a performance and availability issue here. Dell should be using the more expensive memory for their customer’s sake. The Dell offering also doesn’t include Rack Rails or cable management arms which are included with the IBM 3650 M2 standard. The Dell offers only raid 0 or 1 standard where the IBM 3650 M2 offers those plus RAID 1E. In Dell’s document “Cabling the Dell PowerEdge R710″ we read

• “The CMA (Cable Management Arm) on the Dell PowerEdge R710 is optional. Without the CMA installed, the system must be powered down and all cables disconnected before it can be removed from the rack.”

While they say removed from the rack…what they actually mean also includes the pulling of it forward so they can do maintenance on an internal failed component. Now tell me why would a manufacture offer a SERVER that has to be un-cabled before it can be pulled out for maintenance? Desktops I can understand…but a SERVER?

I did notice that in this NEW server model Dell seems to be offering old style 3.5″ disk drives. This is very bad news for their customers as the industry is absolutely moving away from these drives. Dell will buy up loads of them and dump them on their unsuspecting customers. I am sure that Dell is doing this because they are pushing internal storage and the 3.5″ drives go up to 1 Terabyte vs trying to assist their customers with a move to a SAN or NAS solution.

IBM normally includes the DVD drive in their price but in this specific model it wasn’t included on line. A CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo can be added for $129. On the Dell web site it indicates their DVD ROM is included in price. It is not the RW model most people are wanting and has these words in small print next to it “May delay your PowerEdge R710 ship date”. Dell offers the ability to upgrade to a RW model for an additional $69.

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If you are doing VMWare on these chassis IBM absolutely has the coolest support offering. IT is call VMWare RTS plus Base. What this does is give you one throat to choke! You call IBM for hardware support, VMware support, and virtual machine support whether the VM operating system is MS, RedHat, Susie, etc! You can dump your other support contracts and deal directly with IBMs support engineers in Atlanta and Raleigh….vs India with Dell…but wait…Dell doesn’t have anything like this offering! Its price is right on track to being only a couple of $100 more than the standard RTS support. Ask your Business Partner about it….or contact me and I can hook you up.

IBM Active Energy Manager available on the 3650 M2 enables power usage to be managed, monitored, and alerted via IBM Systems Director EVEN when the server is turned off. This feature allows customers to see power trends with power and heat over time. It also allows customers to place a cap on how much energy the IBM 3650 M2 power supplies are allowed to draw. If capped, the system will throttle performance to the new power window that has been selected. I see customers using this to cap power during none peak usage times periods, evenings, and or weekends to lower their total power bill through lowered power draw and lower HVAC requirements. Dell does not have anything remotely close to this capability….thus they do the head fake shenanigan of offering a incomplete power supply. The IBM System X 3650 M2 supports the ServeRAID-MR10is VAULT encryption adapter card to encrypt data on the hard drive. This feature allows customers to do hardware based encryption without regard to software or to whether the drive is lost or stolen. The data is secure regardless. Since the encryption is hardware based it does not cause performance issues like software based solutions do.

IBM has chosen to go with the next generation BIOS which as of now Dell and HP are scoffing at. I am sure when the feature hits their servers their marketing machines will go in reverse to let everyone know how awesome it is. But for now as they try to get it running they are slamming it. This new next generation BIOS is Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a common management interface that reaches across all of IBMs new System X servers. It is a replacement to the old BIOS technology that is still available on both HP and Dell servers. UEFI provides enhanced functionality, a easier user interface, and much easier management. I will do a post on it in the future.

In terms of PCI slots, the 3650 M2 comes with 4 PCI Express x8 slots which can be converged to 2 x16 slots. The R710 comes with 2 x8 slots and 2 x4 slots.

In terms of PFA IBM monitors Power Supplies, Processors, Memory, Hard Drives, Voltage Regulator Modules, Power Supplies and Fans where Dell only has PFA on hard drives and memory. This is BAD especially in a VMware environment where a failed processor can down a server. You need this PFA and IBM Systems Director to tie into VMware to enhance the HA features of VMWare HA. The PFA feature provides additional functionality when the servers are unplugged in the case of a failed component by the usage of light path diagnostics. Light path diagnostics is a feature where small on board LEDs illuminate when a mother board based button is pressed. The LED illuminates on any failed component to allow fail proof identification of fault components. These LEDs function with or without power being applied to the servers \ blades. Dell does not have this feature.

Dell is pushing their customers to use UDIMMS vs RDIMMS in their memory slots. The less expensive UDIMMS that Dell is offering do not support the memory capacities which is again absolutely needed for server consolidations using products like VMware or Xen. These two sentences were taken from Dell’s technical white paper titled Dell PowerEdge Servers 2009 – Memory:

• UDIMMs should be purchased by customers who need a limited amount of memory
• RDIMMs should be purchased by customers who need large amounts of memory (up to 8 GB DIMMs), a broader future memory expansion roadmap (due to the ability to achieve three DIMMs per channel), and the latest RAS features (address parity)

If customers are virtualizing and concerned about power, the larger RDIMMS from IBM offer performance and power gains not available in the UDIMMS. IBMs memory, depending on configuration runs either at 1066 or 1333 Mhz while dells UDIMMS start at 800 Mhz. In the models where customers can upgrade to RDIMMS in the Dell they only run at 1066 Mhz thereby causing performance degradation in the same memory components in the IBM server. IBM also offers Memory Mirroring while Dell only offers Spare Bank Memory. Again it looks like Dell has gone down the wrong path at least for now on the UDIMMs being used in Servers. I find that they are mainly used for Desktops since the largest udimm available right now is a 2G DIMM where the RDIMMs go up to 16G.

The network controllers are the same on both servers with the 3650M2 offering dual gigabit ethernet ports with TOE (TCPIP over Ethernet) and the option of 2 additional ports. Dell charges $276 to activate the TOE and iSCSI features.

The IBM 3650 M2 has 12 2.5″ sas/sata/SSD (Solid State Disk – i.e. disks made from memory chips) drive bays as well as an option for a internal tape drive while Dell offers up to 6 3.5″ drives or 8 2.5″ drives. Dell has no option for a internal tape drive.

IBM offers Hot Swap fans. Dell does not.

Well hopefully you see some of the differences in these two models. If performance is your thing your probably not looking at Dell anyway but I will post performance numbers in the future.

Stay Informed!