Dell Technologies World this year is a combination of the former Dell World and EMC World events that has come about from the joined companies. This year, I think one of the most important and exciting announcements to come out of the show is a sneak preview of the new blade chassis, the Poweredge MX 7000.
This new blade enclosure is the replacement for the aging M1000e chassis, which has served well for a long time. Its not aimed at the FX2 or VRTX markets, so the three products will continue to exist side by side and likely be refreshed on their own schedules. We can be sure that the MX enclosure has been designed to server for 4 or more generations of server refreshes, just like the M1000e was.
The MX7000 is a 7U enclosure that has room for 8 blades. Your standard dual socket server blade will be a full height, single width blade. A quad socket blade will be full height, but double width. There are 6 power supplies along the bottom of the chassis.
Of note here is that it is less dense than the FX2. This move to slightly less density is a trend we are seeing throughout the industry as CPU packaging becomes harder to accommodate in some of these form factors. With this platform targeted to last for multiple generations, some headroom needed to be built in for future CPU architectures.
One of the biggest differentiators in the MX is that its been designed without a mid-plane. The blades connect directly to the connectivity switches that slide into the rear of the chassis. This will hopefully allow for a longer useful life for the chassis, as it will allow the system to adopt new connectivity options as they become relevant in our data-centers.
The MX gear will launch this summer with 14G blades made specifically for this platform. The announcements made sure to highlight the onboard storage options for these new blades. The dual socket blades will have 6 internal drive bays in addition to an SD card or M.2 boot option.
From a networking perspective, we can expect to see 3 redundant fabrics which will likely be dual network fabrics at 25Gb according to the announcement, as well as a storage fabric.
Seems like a great replacement for the M1000e. I like the size and form factor, and I’m excited about the connectivity and storage capabilities that I’m sure we’ll see develop as the platform starts shipping. What do you think about the platform? Let me know in the comments section below.