Travel Efficiently with PowerEdge Servers and Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory

I spent part of the weekend being an amateur travel agent for my family. It reminded me that the logistical details of travel are like the complexities of data-centric workloads. Data may be our most precious resource, but the speed at which we can access and use it is equally important. Look at it this way: say you were going on a trip, but your luggage was delayed at your connection. All your carefully-packed items are not useful to you until you have them. Data works the same way.

We have more data points now from our smartphone to the Edge. And more reasons to hold data, whether it is for analysis or regulatory reasons. Even virtualized database infrastructures have become overburdened. Response times can lag during critical peak periods. And that can lead to lower employee productivity and less customer satisfaction. If you were booking on a travel site and there was a long delay or slowed response times, you might decide to use another site. Your customers would also consider an alternative if your response times are too long.

PowerEdge servers with Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory can offer up to 15.36TB of memory to support large databases. Having significant memory so close to the processors helps eliminate bottlenecks and can provide better response times and faster transactions. This is akin to opening multiple runways at a busy airport. It provides ways for planes — or in this case data — to travel in and out quickly. Adding more memory to virtualization environments allows you to improve CPU utilization to make better use of server resources.

Just like economy seats can be more cost-effective versus roomier first class seats, consolidating databases can offer space and cost savings in your data center. The Dell EMC PowerEdge R940 with Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory can support up to 2.6x the number of database virtual machines (up to 10 more transactional database virtual machines per server) with a large memory footprint.[1] Plus, you can easily configure and update Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory with iDRAC out-of-band management.

How fast is data able to travel in your data center? Please join our conversation @DellEMCServers, we can’t wait to hear about the ways you are using data to drive better results.

[1] *Based on Principled Technologies Report commissioned by Dell EMC, “Support more VMs with large databases and memory footprints by adding Intel Optane DC persistent memory to your Dell EMC PowerEdge R940 server”, November 2019, comparing the capabilities of a PowerEdge R940 running VMWare ESXi using Microsoft SQL Databases and Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory vs. the same server with only DRAM. Actual result will vary.

About the Author: Nicole Werts Williams

Nicole Werts Williams is a Sr. Advisor supporting Server Solution Marketing at Dell, Inc with a focus on tower servers, modular infrastructure and storage components. Nicole has also served in the Storage Marketing Group at Dell covering the PS and SC Series lines. With over 15 years of experience in IT marketing spanning hardware software and services, Nicole has also held positions at IBM. She holds a MBA and a BA in English.