PowerEdge VRTX: Delivering convergence without compromise through customer-inspired design

When customers at small and midsize businesses told us they were fed up trying to beat complex IT infrastructures into submission, we set out to redefine office IT. No small task.

Committed to customer-inspired design, we got some of our best engineers on the job. And in June, we introduced the industry’s first shared infrastructure solution designed specifically for remote and small office environments—the Dell PowerEdge VRTX.

Built with office-optimized dimensions, acoustics and manageability, the PowerEdge VRTX brings new simplicity and efficiency to office IT. Servers, storage and networking converge in one chassis, allowing you to deploy data-center-in-a-box performance anywhere—and manage it all remotely through a single console.

We’re always intrigued by what others see in—and say about—our solutions, especially when it’s something we hadn’t considered. Third-party validation is sending a message that we are onto something big here.

IT pros, the press and analysts alike are giving PowerEdge VRTX high marks. Earlier this fall, PC Pro named VRTX Server of the Year. And just recently, InfoWorld gave it an Editor’s Choice award. It defies convention while excelling at reinvention.

“Dell PowerEdge VRTX hits the high notes,” writes InfoWorld’s Paul Ferrill. “It’s an ideal hardware setup for virtualizing a branch office or even certain small to medium-size enterprise workloads.” The secret sauce, he says, is in the RAID controller, which allows sharing of storage across all blades in the chassis.

Ferrill also applauds the server-based solution for its ease of use, flexibility and office-ready acoustics. “Overall, the PowerEdge VRTX system is a highly configurable and flexible compute platform. The quiet nature of the system lends itself well to operating in an office environment or in a data center.”

There’s also buzz about VRTX in the channel. Edward Correia, managing editor of CRN, writes: “For the small and medium-sized business, branch office or campus, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a powerful, remotely manageable, reasonably priced system that can expand along with need.”

Correia refers to VRTX as “a desktop data center” and points to its ease of use, scalability and performance. “The M620 [blade option] turned performance scores good enough to make it into sixth place on CRN’s Top 10 all-time fastest servers,” he says.

That’s just the latest, hot off the press. Back in June, IT Pro gave VRTX an innovation award. It goes without saying that we’re proud of (and humbled by) the attention.

But this is only the beginning. The integrated, full-featured and cost-advantaged approach of VRTX speaks to the type of customer-inspired innovations we will be unveiling across our entire server portfolio in the months to come. We continue to deliver convergence without compromise for companies of all sizes, and you’ll be even more excited by what comes next. Stay tuned.

About the Author: Brian Payne

Brian Payne leads a team responsible for defining the portfolio strategy as well as the detailed definitions for each offer in the portfolio. In his role, Brian collaborates across the Dell Technologies portfolio inclusive of the full line of Dell EMC infrastructure products as well as the software products such as the VMware Virtual Cloud Foundation portfolio.  Brian and members of his organization regularly engage with customers around the world to better understand their challenges and help them better understand how Dell can help them achieve their goals.  The insights gathered from our customers through these engagements coupled with primary research fuel the innovation engine for new offer development. Brian has over twenty years of product development experience at Dell.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.