Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a computer hardware product line from Dell . It is a mini-blade chassis with built-in storage system. The VRTX comes in two models: a 19" rack version that is 5 rack units high or as a stand-alone tower system.
99-617: The VRTX system is partially based on the Dell M1000e blade-enclosure and shares some technologies and components. There are also some differences with that system. The M1000e can support an EqualLogic storage area network that connects the servers to the storage via iSCSI , while the VRTX uses a shared PowerEdge RAID Controller (6Gbit PERC8). A second difference is the option to add certain PCIe cards (Gen2 support) and assign them to any of
198-420: A 19-inch rack and is 10 rack units high (44 cm), 17.6" (44.7 cm) wide and 29.7" (75.4 cm) deep. The empty blade enclosure weighs 44.5 kg while a fully loaded system can weigh up to 178.8 kg. On the front the servers are inserted while at the backside the power-supplies, fans and I/O modules are inserted together with the management modules(s) (CMC or chassis management controller) and
297-473: A 40 Gbit/s switch to switch (stack) uplink or, with a break-out cable, 4 x 10 Gbit/s links. Dell offers direct attach cables with on one side the QSFP+ interface and 4 x SFP+ on the other end or a QSFP+ transceiver on one end and 4 fibre-optic pairs to be connected to SFP+ transceivers on the other side. Up to six MXL blade-switch can be stacked into one logical switch. Besides the above 2x40 QSFP module
396-562: A 5 button navigation system, similar to the system used on the M1000e. Serial: A single RS-232 serial communication port is provided at the back of the system. This connector is only used for local configuration to the CMC: it doesn't allow you to use this connector as serial port of a server in the system. Expansion slots: The system provides space for five PCIe Gen2 (2.0) expansion cards and 3 'full height' PCIe Gen2 (2.0) expansion cards. Via
495-484: A choice of 3 different on-board converged Ethernet adaptors for 10 Gbit/s Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) from Broadcom, Brocade or QLogic and up to two additional Mezzanine for Ethernet, Fibre Channel or InfiniBand I/O A full-height server of the 11th generation with up to 4x 10-core Intel XEON E7 CPU or 4 x 8 core XEON 7500 series or 2 x 8 core XEON 6500 series, 512 Gb or 1 Tb DDR3 RAM and two hot-swappable 2,5" hard-drives (spinning or SSD). It uses
594-534: A codebase. A workaround using the Microsoft Update Catalog allowed the installation of updates for Windows Server 2008 on Windows Vista, adding nearly 3 years of security updates to that operating system (Support for Windows Vista ended on April 11, 2017, while support for Windows Server 2008 ended on January 14, 2020). The RTM release of Windows Server 2008 already includes the updates and fixes of Windows Vista Service Pack 1. Service Pack 2
693-430: A front-side and a back-side and thus all communication between the inserted blades and modules goes via the midplane, which has the same function as a backplane but has connectors at both sides where the front side is dedicated for server-blades and the back for I/O modules. The midplane is completely passive. The server-blades are inserted in the front side of the enclosure while all other components can be reached via
792-674: A full-size "sleeve" that holds up to four M420 blades. It also has consequences for the "normal" I/O NIC assignment: most (half-size) blades have two LOMs (LAN On Motherboard): one connecting to the switch in the A1 fabric, the other to the A2 fabric. And the same applies to the Mezzanine cards B and C. All available I/O modules (except for the PCM6348 , MXL an MIOA ) have 16 internal ports: one for each half-size blade. As an M420 has two 10 Gb LOM NICs,
891-468: A full-size sleeve to install. The current list are the currently available 11G blades and the latest generation 12 models. There are also older blades like the M605, M805 and M905 series. Released in 2012, PE M420 is a "quarter-size" blade: where most servers are 'half-size', allowing 16 blades per M1000e enclosure, with the new M420 up to 32 blade servers can be installed in a single chassis. Implementing
990-468: A fully loaded chassis would require 2 × 32 internal switch ports for LOM and the same for Mezzanine. An M420 server only supports a single Mezzanine card (Mezzanine B OR Mezzanine C depending on their location) whereas all half-height and full-height systems support two Mezzanine cards. To support all on-board NICs one would need to deploy a 32-slot Ethernet switch such as the MXL or Force10 I/O Aggregator. But for
1089-479: A given configuration. This feature is only available in Enterprise and Datacenter editions of Windows Server. Hyper-V is hypervisor -based virtualization software, forming a core part of Microsoft's virtualization strategy. It virtualizes servers on an operating system's kernel layer. It can be thought of as partitioning a single physical server into multiple small computational partitions. Hyper-V includes
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#17327934606451188-489: A per-machine basis. If a user purchases an Extended Security Updates license in a later year of the program, they must pay for any previous years of Extended Security Updates as well. Prior to the ESU program becoming available, Windows Server 2008 was eligible for the now discontinued, paid Premium Assurance program (an add-on to Microsoft Software Assurance ) available to volume license customers. Microsoft will, however, honor
1287-461: A problem of some kind. This LCD display can also be used for the initial configuration wizard in a newly delivered (unconfigured) system, allowing the operator to configure the CMC IP address. All other parts and modules are placed at the rear of the M1000e. The rear-side is divided in 3 sections: top: here one insert the 3 management-modules: one or two CMC modules and an optional i KVM module. At
1386-551: A program manager on the Windows Server team, noted that a primary motivation for producing a Server Core variant of Windows Server 2008 was to reduce the attack surface of the operating system, and that about 70% of the security vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows from the prior five years would not have affected Server Core. The Active Directory domain functionality that was retained from Windows Server 2003
1485-537: A quad-core or six-core Intel 5500 or 5600 Xeon CPU and Intel 5520 chipset. RAM memory options via 12 DIMM slots for up to 192 Gb RAM DDR3. A maximum of two on-blade hot-pluggable 2.5-inch hard-disks or SSDs and a choice of built-in NICs for Ethernet or converged network adapter (CNA), Fibre Channel or InfiniBand. The server has the Intel 5520 chipset and a Matrox G200 video card A full-height blade server that has
1584-499: A quad-core or six-core Intel 5500 or 5600 Xeon CPU and up to 192 Gb RAM. A maximum of four on-blade hot-pluggable 2.5" hard-disks or SSD 's and a choice of built-in NICs for Ethernet or converged network adapter, Fibre Channel or InfiniBand. The video card is a Matrox G200.The server has the Intel 5520 chipset A two-socket version of the M710 but now in a half-height blade. CPU can be two quad-core or 6-core Xeon 5500 or 5600 with
1683-441: A range of RAID controller options. Two external and one internal USB ports and two SD card slots. The blades can come pre-installed with Windows 2008 R2 SP1, Windows 2012 R2, SuSE Linux Enterprise or RHEL. It can also be ordered with Citrix XenServer or VMWare vSphere ESXi or using Hyper-V which comes with W2K8 R2. According to the vendor all Generation 12 servers are optimized to run as virtualisation platform. Out-of-band management
1782-585: A range of switches for blade-systems from the main vendors. Besides the Dell M1000e enclosure Cisco offers similar switches also for HP, FSC and IBM blade-enclosures. Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 , codenamed "Longhorn Server", is the seventh release of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of the operating systems. It
1881-571: A variation of installation called Server Core . Server Core is a significantly scaled-back installation where no Windows Explorer shell is installed. It also lacks Internet Explorer , and many other non-essential features. All configuration and maintenance is done entirely through command-line interface windows, or by connecting to the machine remotely using Microsoft Management Console (MMC). Notepad and some Control Panel applets, such as Regional Settings, are available. A Server Core installation can be configured for several basic roles, including
1980-476: A virtual KVM switch . And the rear offers 6 bays for I/O modules numbered in 3 pairs: A1/A2, B1/B2 and C1/C2. The A bays connect the on-motherboard NICs to external systems (and/or allowing communication between the different blades within one enclosure). The Dell PowerConnect switches are modular switches for use in the Dell blade server enclosure M1000e . The M6220, M6348, M8024 and M8024K are all switches in
2079-564: Is 'end of sales' since November 2011 and replaced with the PCM8024-k. Since firmware update 4.2 the PCM8024-k supports partially FCoE via FIP (FCoE Initialisation Protocol) and thus Converged network adapters but unlike the PCM 8428-k it has no native fibre channel interfaces. Also since firmware 4.2 the PCM8024-k can be stacked using external 10 Gb Ethernet interfaces by assigning them as stacking ports. Although this new stacking-option
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#17327934606452178-406: Is a 48 port switch: 32 internal 1 Gb interfaces (two per serverblade) and 16 external copper (RJ45) gigabit interfaces. There are also two SFP+ slots for 10 Gb uplinks and two CX4 slots that can either be used for two extra 10 Gb uplinks or to stack several M6348's blades in one logical switch. The M6348 offers four 1 Gb interfaces to each blade which means that one can only utilize
2277-427: Is a feature that is integrated into failover clustering in Windows Server 2008. With the cluster validation wizard, an administrator can run a set of focused tests on a collection of servers that are intended to use as nodes in a cluster. This cluster validation process tests the underlying hardware and software directly, and individually, to obtain an accurate assessment of how well failover clustering can be supported on
2376-488: Is a smaller blade system that shares modules with the M1000e. The blade servers, although following the traditional naming strategy e.g. M520, M620 (only blades supported) are not interchangeable between the VRTX and the M1000e. The blades differ in firmware and mezzanine connectors. In 2018, Dell introduced the Dell PE MX7000 , a new MX enclosure model, next generation of Dell enclosures. The M1000e enclosure has
2475-522: Is also introduced in the same firmware release for the PCT8024 and PCT8024-f one can't stack blade (PCM) and rack (PCT)-versions in a single stack. The new features are not available on the 'original' PCM8024. Firmware 4.2.x for the PCM8024 only corrected bugs: no new features or new functionality are added to 'end of sale' models. To use the PCM8024 -k switches one will need the backplane that supports
2574-479: Is an improvement of the Configure my server dialog that launches by default on Windows Server 2003 machines. However, rather than serve only as a starting point to configuring new roles, Server Manager gathers together all of the operations users would want to conduct on the server, such as, getting a remote deployment method set up, adding more server roles etc., and provides a consolidated, portal-like view about
2673-591: Is available from Dell to allow moving a blade from a M1000e to VRTX chassis. Storage: The VRTX chassis includes shared storage slots that connect to a single or dual PERC 8 controller(s) via switched 6Gbit SAS. This controller which is managed through the CMC allows RAID groups to be configured and then allows for those RAID groups to be subdivided into individual virtual disks that can be presented out to either single or multiple blades. The shared storage slots are either 12 x 3.5" HDD slots or 24 x 2.5" HDD slots depending on
2772-658: Is disabled by default after installing the update. Starting in March 2019, Microsoft began transitioning to exclusively signing Windows updates with the SHA-2 algorithm. As a result of this Microsoft released several updates throughout 2019 to add SHA-2 signing support to Windows Server 2008. In June 2018, Microsoft announced that they would be moving Windows Server 2008 to a monthly update model beginning with updates released in September 2018 – two years after Microsoft switched
2871-514: Is done via iDRAC 7 via the CMC. A half-height server with up to 2x 22-core Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3/v4 CPUs, running the Intel C610 chipset and offering up to 768 GB RAM memory via 24 DIMM slots, or 640 GB RAM memory via 20 DIMM slots when using 145w CPUs. Two on-blade disks (2,5" PCIe SSD, SATA HDD or SAS HDD) are installable for local storage and a choice of Intel or Broadcom LOM + 2 Mezzanine slots for I/O. The M630 can also be used in
2970-692: Is no option for direct communication of the server-blades in the chassis and the M4110: it only allows a user to pack a complete mini-datacentre in a single enclosure (19" rack, 10 RU ) Depending on the model and used disk driver the PS M4110 offers a system (raw) storage capacity between 4.5 TB (M4110XV with 14 × 146 Gb, 15K SAS HDD) and 14 TB (M4110E with 14 x 1 TB, 7,2K SAS HDD). The M4110XS offer 7.4 TB using 9 HDD's and 5 SSD's . Each M4110 comes with one or two controllers and two 10-gigabit Ethernet interfaces for iSCSI. The management of
3069-417: Is not optimized for use as a file server or media server . Windows Server 2008 is the last 32-bit Windows server operating system. Editions of Windows Server 2008 include: The Microsoft Imagine program, known as DreamSpark at the time, used to provide verified students with the 32-bit variant of Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition, but the version has since then been removed. However, they still provide
PowerEdge VRTX - Misplaced Pages Continue
3168-468: Is only supported as virtual machines on Hyper-V or ESXi. The main intended and marketed use will be as a system running Hyper-V or ESXi The supported Hypervisors on the VRTX Chassis are Microsoft Hyper-V , VMware ESXi 5.1, and VMware ESXi 5.5. At this time other hypervisors, like Citrix Xenserver, are not supported. At launch no Linux based operating systems were supported, mainly because there
3267-577: Is the fact that most interfaces are internal interfaces that connect to the blade-servers via the midplane of the enclosure. Also the M-series can't be running outside the enclosure: it will only work when inserted in the enclosure. This is a 20-port switch: 16 internal and 4 external Gigabit Ethernet interfaces and the option to extend it with up to four 10 Gb external interfaces for uplinks or two 10 Gb uplinks and two stacking ports to stack several PCM6220's into one large logical switch. This
3366-475: Is the first server operating system by Microsoft to exclusively support 64-bit processors, while consumer-oriented versions of Windows maintained 32-bit support until Windows 11 in 2021. It is also the final version of Windows Server that supports IA-64 -based processors. A service pack for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, formally designed Service Pack 1 , was released in February 2011. Support for
3465-548: Is via the on-board Matrox G200eW with 8 MB memory Each server comes with Ethernet NICs on the motherboard. These 'on board' NICs connect to a switch or pass-through module inserted in the A1 or the A2 bay at the back of the switch. To allow more NICs or non-Ethernet I/O each blade has two so-called mezzanine slots: slot B connecting to the switches/modules in bay B1 and B2 and slot C connecting to C1/C2: An M1000e chassis holds up to 6 switches or pass-through modules. For redundancy one would normally install switches in pairs:
3564-407: The 10GBASE-KR standard on fabric A ( 10GBASE-KR standard is supported on fabrics B&C). To have 10 Gb Ethernet on fabric A or 16 Gb Fibre Channel or InfiniBand FDR (and faster) on fabrics B&C, midplane 1.1 is required. Current versions of the enclosure come with midplane 1.1 and it is possible to upgrade the midplane. Via the markings on the back-side of the enclosure, just above
3663-454: The 10GBASE-KR standard. The external interfaces are mainly meant to be used as uplinks or stacking-interfaces but can also be used to connect non-blade servers to the network. On the link-level PCM switches support link aggregation : both static LAG's as well as LACP. As all PowerConnect switches the switches are running RSTP as Spanning Tree Protocol , but it is also possible to run MSTP or Multiple Spanning Tree. The internal ports towards
3762-536: The KVM switch . A blade enclosure offers centralized management for the servers and I/O systems of the blade-system. Most servers used in the blade-system offer an iDRAC card and one can connect to each servers iDRAC via the M1000e management system. It is also possible to connect a virtual KVM switch to have access to the main-console of each installed server. In June 2013, Dell introduced the PowerEdge VRTX , which
3861-470: The PowerEdge VRTX system. Amulet HotKey offers a modified M630 server that can be fitted with a GPU or Teradici PCoIP Mezzanine module. A half-height server with up to 2x 28-core Xeon Scalable CPU. Supported on both the M1000e and PowerEdge VRTX chassis. The server can support up to 16 DDR4 RDIMM memory slots for up to 1024 GB RAM and 2 drive bays supporting SAS / SATA or NVMe drives (with an adapter). The server uses iDRAC 9. A full-height server with
3960-537: The domain controller ( Active Directory Domain Services ), Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (formerly known as Active Directory Application Mode ), DNS Server , DHCP server , file server , print server , Windows Media Server , Internet Information Services 7 web server and Hyper-V virtual server roles. Server Core can also be used to create a cluster with high availability using failover clustering or network load balancing . Andrew Mason,
4059-476: The new PC-M8024-k switch the switches need to run firmware version 4.2 or higher. In principle one can only stack switches of the same family; thus stacking multiple PCM6220's together or several PCM8024-k. The only exception is the capability to stack the blade PCM6348 together with the rack-switch PCT7024 or PCT7048. Stacks can contain multiple switches within one M1000e chassis but one can also stack switches from different chassis to form one logical switch. At
PowerEdge VRTX - Misplaced Pages Continue
4158-466: The upper blades and 9-16 are directly beneath 1-8. When using full-height blades one use slot n (where n=1 to 8) and slot n+8 Integrated at the bottom of the front-side is a connection-option for 2 x USB , meant for a mouse and keyboard, as well as a standard VGA monitor connection (15 pin). Next to this is a power-button with power-indication. Next to this is a small LCD screen with navigation buttons which allows one to get system-information without
4257-516: The 15 pin VGA connector are at the front of the system. USB: The USB connectors are only for connecting keyboard and mouse; it doesn't support external storage via USB. LCD: Via the mini-LCD screen at the front of the system you can find status information of the system, configure some basic settings (such as CMC IP address) and manage the built-in KVM switch. The LCD screen functions can be controlled via
4356-463: The 24 port 1Gb switch option provides 16 internal ports (4 per blade slot) and 8 external ports to be used to uplink to the network. The R2210 has 16 internal, 4 external and two additional 1Gb external ports. The I/O modules used on the VRTX are a different size to the I/O modules of the M1000e, so I/O modules are not compatible between the systems. Management: A CMC is responsible for the management of
4455-442: The 2nd on-board NIC goes to interface 5 of fabric A2) I/O modules in fabric B1/B2 will connect to the (optional) Mezzanine card B or 2 in the server and fabric C to Mezzanine C or 3. All modules can be inserted or removed on a running enclosure ( Hot swapping ) An M1000e holds up to 32 quarter-height, 16 half-height blades or 8 full-height blades or a mix of them (e.g. 2 full height + 12 half-height). The 1/4 height blades require
4554-571: The AMD FirePro™ W7000. The VRTX is targeted at two different user-groups: either local offices of large enterprises where the majority of the IT services are centrally provided via remote datacenters - where the VRTX system provides local functions such as a relative small virtualisation platform to provide locally needed services as VDI workstations, local Exchange or Lync server and local storage facilities. The entire system will normally be managed by
4653-684: The Dell Interop 2012 in Las Vegas Dell announced the first FTOS based blade-switch: the Force10 MXL 10/40Gpbs blade switch, and later a 10/40 Gbit/s concentrator. The FTOS MXL 40 Gb was introduced on 19 July 2012. The MXL provides 32 internal 10 Gbit/s links (2 ports per blade in the chassis), two QSFP+ 40 Gbit/s ports and two empty expansion slots allowing a maximum of 4 additional QSFP+ 40 Gbit/s ports or 8 10 Gbit/s ports. Each QSFP+ port can be used for
4752-542: The I/O modules: if an "arrow down" can be seen above the 6 I/O slots the 1.0 midplane was installed in the factory; if there are 3 or 4 horizontal bars, midplane 1.1 was installed. As it is possible to upgrade the midplane the outside markings are not decisive: via the CMC management interface actual installed version of the midplane is visible Each M1000e enclosure can hold up to 32 quarter-height, 16 half-height blades or 8 full-height or combinations (e.g. 1 full-height + 14 half-height). The slots are numbered 1-16 where 1-8 are
4851-525: The IA-32 editions of Windows Server 2008 cannot run or install Hyper-V, they can run the MMC snap-in for managing Hyper-V. Windows System Resource Manager (WSRM) is integrated into Windows Server 2008. It provides resource management and can be used to control the amount of resources a process or a user can use based on business priorities. Process Matching Criteria , which is defined by the name, type or owner of
4950-565: The Intel 5520 chipset. Via 18 DIMM slots up to 288 Gb DDR3 RAM can put on this blade and the standard choice of on-board Ethernet NICs based on Broadcom or Intel and one or two Mezzanine cards for Ethernet, Fibre Channel or InfiniBand. A full-height server with 4x 8 core Intel Xeon E5-4600 CPU, running the Intel C600 chipset and offering up to 1.5 TB RAM memory via 48 DIMM slots. Up to four on-blade 2,5" SAS HDD/SSD or two PCIe flash SSD are installable for local storage. The M820 offers
5049-424: The Intel C600 chipset and offering up to 384 Gb RAM memory via 12 DIMM slots. Two on-blade disks (2.5-inch PCIe SSD, SATA HDD or SAS HDD) are installable for local storage and a choice of Intel or Broadcom LOM + 2 Mezzanine slots for I/O. The M520 can also be used in the PowerEdge VRTX system. A half-height server with a Quad-Core Intel Xeon and 8 DIMM slots for up to 64 GB RAM A half-height server with
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#17327934606455148-642: The Intel E 7510 chipset. A choice of built-in NICs for Ethernet, Fibre Channel or InfiniBand Also a full-height 11G server using the AMD Opteron 6100 or 6200 series CPU with the AMD SR5670 and SP5100 chipset. Memory via 32 DDR3 DIMM slots offering up to 512 Gb RAM. On-board up to two 2,5 inch HDD or SSD's. The blade comes with a choice of on-board NICs and up to two mezzanine cards for dual-port 10 Gb Ethernet, dual-port FCoE, dual-port 8 Gb fibre-channel or dual port Mellanox Infiniband. Video
5247-471: The KR or IEEE 802.3ap standards All PowerConnect M-series ("PCM") switches are multi-layer switches thus offering both layer 2 (Ethernet) options as well as layer 3 or IP routing options. Depending on the model the switches offer internally 1 Gbit/s or 10 Gbit/s interfaces towards the blades in the chassis. The PowerConnect M series with "-k" in the model-name offer 10 Gb internal connections using
5346-417: The M1000e chassis: this SAN will take the same space in the enclosure as two half-height blades next to each other. Apart from the form factor (the physical size, getting power from the enclosure system etc.) it is a "normal" iSCSI SAN: the blades in the (same) chassis communicate via Ethernet and the system does require an accepted Ethernet blade-switch in the back (or a pass-through module + rack-switch): there
5445-456: The M420 has some consequences for the system: many people have reserved 16 IP addresses per chassis to support the "automatic IP address assignment" for the iDRAC management card in a blade, but as it is now possible to run 32 blades per chassis people might need to change their management IP assignment for the iDRAC. To support the M420 server one needs to run CMC firmware 4.1 or later and one needs
5544-477: The MXL also supports a 4x10 Gb SFP+ and a 4x10GbaseT module. All Ethernet extension modules for the MXL can also be used for the rack based N4000 series (fka Power connector 8100). The MXL switches also support Fibre Channel over Ethernet so that server-blades with a converged network adapter Mezzanine card can be used for both data as storage using a Fibre Channel storage system. The MXL 10/40 Gbit/s blade switch will run FTOS and because of this will be
5643-534: The Mezzanine card it is different: the connections from Mezzanine B on the PE M420 are "load-balanced" between the B and C-fabric of the M1000e: the Mezzanine card in "slot A" (top slot in the sleeve) connects to Fabric C while "slot B" (the second slot from the top) connects to fabric B, and that is then repeated for C and D slots in the sleeve. A half-height server with up to 2x 8 core Intel Xeon E5-2400 CPU, running
5742-522: The R2 release. The Server Core feature is available in the Web, Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter editions. Windows Server 2008 Foundation Released on May 21, 2009. System requirements for Windows Server 2008 are as follows: Windows Server 2008 supports the following maximum hardware specifications: Windows Server 2008 shares most of its updates with Windows Vista , given that the operating systems share
5841-742: The RTM version of Windows Server 2008 ended on July 12, 2011, and users can no longer receive further security updates for the operating system. As a component of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 2 continued to be supported with security updates, lasting until January 14, 2020, the same respective end-of-life dates of its successor, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 . Microsoft planned to end support for Windows Server 2008 on January 12, 2016. However, in order to give customers more time to migrate to newer Windows versions, particularly in developing or emerging markets, Microsoft decided to extend support to January 14, 2020. Windows Server 2008
5940-627: The SAN goes via the chassis-management interface (CMC). Because the iSCSI uses 10 Gb interfaces the SAN should be used in combination with one of the 10G blade switches: the PCM 8024-k or the Force10 MXL switch. The enclosure's mid-plane hardware version should be at least version 1.1 to support 10 Gb KR connectivity At the rear side of the enclosure one will find the power-supplies, fan-trays, one or two chassis-management modules (the CMC's) and
6039-575: The VRTX chassis purchased. Dell offers 12Gbit SAS disks for the VRTX, but these will operate at the slower 6Gbit rate for compatibility with the older PERC8 and SAS switches. Networking: The VRTX chassis has a built in IOM for supporting Ethernet traffic to the server blades. At present the options for this IOM are an 8 port 1Gb pass-through module, a 24 Port 1Gb switch (R2401) and a 20 X 10Gb (+2*1Gb) switch (R2210). The 8 port pass through module offers 2 pass-through connections to each internal blade slot where
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#17327934606456138-414: The ability to act as a Xen virtualization hypervisor host allowing Xen-enabled guest operating systems to run virtualized. A beta version of Hyper-V shipped with certain x86-64 editions of Windows Server 2008, prior to Microsoft's release of the final version of Hyper-V on 26 June 2008 as a free download. Also, a standalone variant of Hyper-V exists; this variant supports only x86-64 architecture. While
6237-540: The back. The original midplane 1.0 capabilities are Fabric A - Ethernet 1 Gb; Fabrics B&C - Ethernet 1 Gb, 10 Gb, 40 Gb - Fibre Channel 4 Gb, 8 Gb - IfiniBand DDR, QDR, FDR10. The enhanced midplane 1.1 capabilities are Fabric A - Ethernet 1 Gb, 10 Gb; Fabrics B&C - Ethernet 1 Gb, 10 Gb, 40 Gb - Fibre Channel 4 Gb, 8 Gb, 16 Gb - IfiniBand DDR, QDR, FDR10, FDR. The original M1000e enclosures came with midplane version 1.0 but that midplane did not support
6336-490: The blades (or even only a SD-card with boot-OS like VMware ESX ). It is also possible to use completely diskless blades that boot via PXE or external storage. But regardless of the local and boot-storage: the majority of the data used by blades will be stored on SAN or NAS external from the blade-enclosure. Dell has put the EqualLogic PS M4110 models of iSCSI storage arrays that are physically installed in
6435-476: The blades and standard two 40 Gbit/s QSFP+ uplinks and offers two extension slots. Depending on one's requirements one can get extension modules for 40 Gb QSFP+ ports, 10 Gb SFP+ or 1-10 GBaseT copper interfaces. One can assign up to 16 x 10 Gb uplinks to one's distribution or core layer. The I/O aggregator supports FCoE and DCB ( Data center bridging ) features Dell also offered some Cisco Catalyst switches for this blade enclosure. Cisco offers
6534-410: The blades are by default set as edge or "portfast" ports. Another feature is to use link-dependency. One can, for example, configure the switch that all internal ports to the blades are shut down when the switch gets isolated because it loses its uplink to the rest of the network. All PCM switches can be configured as pure layer-2 switches or they can be configured to do all routing: both routing between
6633-448: The bottom of the enclosure there are 6 bays for power-supply units. A standard M1000e operates with three PSU's The area in between offers 3 x 3 bays for cooling-fans (left - middle - right) and up to 6 I/O modules: three modules to the left of the middle fans and three to the right. The I/O modules on the left are the I/O modules numbered A1, B1 and C1 while the right hand side has places for A2, B2 and C2. The A fabric I/O modules connect to
6732-469: The central IT department via the CMC (for the chassis) and some IT manager as SCCM or KACE for the servers running on the system. The other intended public is the SME market with limited IT requirements. The tower model is designed to run in a normal office environment. Dell claims that the noise level of the VRTX system is very low and can be installed in a normal office environment: there is no need to install
6831-485: The codebase is common, Windows Server 2008 inherits most of the technical , security , management and administrative features new to Windows Vista such as the rewritten networking stack (native IPv6 , native wireless, speed and security improvements); improved image-based installation, deployment and recovery; improved diagnostics, monitoring, event logging and reporting tools; new security features such as BitLocker and address space layout randomization (ASLR);
6930-418: The configured VLAN's as external routing. Besides static routes the switches also support OSPF and RIP routing. When using the switch as routing switch one need to configure vlan interfaces and assign an IP address to that vlan interface: it is not possible to assign an IP address directly to a physical interface. All PowerConnect blade switches, except for the original PC-M8024, can be stacked. To stack
7029-570: The enclosure one can place extra mezzanine cards on the blade. The same applies to adding a Fibre Channel host bus adapter or a Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) converged network adapter interface. Dell offers the following (converged) Ethernet mezzanine cards for their PowerEdge blades: Apart from the above the following mezzanine cards are available: In most setups the server-blades will use external storage ( NAS using iSCSI , FCoE or Fibre Channel ) in combination with local server-storage on each blade via hard disk drives or SSDs on
7128-462: The entire system. The CMC is similar to the CMC used in the M1000e chassis. Connection to the CMCs is done via separate RJ45 Ethernet connectors. Power and cooling: The system comes with four PSUs at 110 or 230 V AC. There is no option to use -48 V DC PSUs. Each 1100 watt PSU has a built-in fan. For cooling of the server-modules there are four blower-modules, each containing two fans, and for cooling of
7227-591: The first M1000e I/O product without a Web graphical user interface . The MXL can either forward the FCoE traffic to an upstream switch or, using a 4 port 8 Gb FC module, perform the FCF function, connecting the MXL to a full FC switch or directly to a FC SAN. In October 2012 Dell also launched the I/O Aggregator for the M1000e chassis running on FTOS . The I/O Aggregator offers 32 internal 10 Gb ports towards
7326-616: The four servers. Servers: The VRTX chassis has 4 half-height slots available for Ivy-Bridge based PowerEdge blade servers. At launch the PE-M520 (Xeon E5-2400v2) and the PE-M620 (Xeon E5-2600v2) were the only two supported server blades, however the M520 was since discontinued. The same blades are used in the M1000e but for use in the VRTX they need to run specific configuration, using two PCIe 2.0 mezzanine cards per server. A conversion kit
7425-621: The improved Windows Firewall with secure default configuration; .NET Framework 3.0 technologies, specifically Windows Communication Foundation , Microsoft Message Queuing and Windows Workflow Foundation ; and the core kernel, memory and file system improvements. Processors and memory devices are modeled as Plug and Play devices to allow hot-plugging of these devices. This allows the system resources to be partitioned dynamically using dynamic hardware partitioning – each partition has its own memory, processor and I/O host bridge devices independent of other partitions. Windows Server 2008 includes
7524-472: The management controller you can assign each slot to a specific server. You can only assign a PCIe slot to a server when the server is powered off as the PCIe card is recognized and initialized by the server BIOS at startup. Only certain PCIe cards are supported by Dell. Currently, VRTX support is limited to eight different PCIe cards, including six Ethernet NICs (Intel and Broadcom), a 6Git SAS adapter (LSI) and
7623-400: The month, another package would be released which was a preview of the next month's security and quality update rollup. Installing the preview rollup package released for Windows Server 2008 on March 19, 2019, or any later released rollup package, will update the operating system kernel's build number from version 6.0.6002 to 6.0.6003. This change was made so Microsoft could continue to service
7722-537: The need to access the CMC/management system of the enclosure. Basic status and configuration information is available via this display. To operate the display one can pull it towards one and tilt it for optimal view and access to the navigation button. For quick status checks, an indicator light sits alongside the LCD display and is always visible, with a blue LED indicating normal operation and an orange LED indicating
7821-402: The on-board I/O controllers which in most cases will be a dual 1 Gb or 10 Gb Ethernet NIC. When the blade has a dual port on-board 1 Gb NIC the first NIC will connect to the I/O module in fabric A1 and the 2nd NIC will connect to fabric A2 (and the blade-slot corresponds with the internal Ethernet interface: e.g. the on-board NIC in slot 5 will connect to interface 5 of fabric A1 and
7920-433: The operating system was with Extended Security Updates until January 10, 2023 for non-Azure customers and January 9, 2024 for Azure customers respectively and January 2026 for Premium Assurance customers. The latest supported version of the .NET Framework officially is version 4.6, released on October 15, 2015. In July 2017, Microsoft released an update to add TLS 1.1 and 1.2 support to Windows Server 2008, however it
8019-535: The operating system while avoiding "version-related issues". The last free security update rollup packages were released on January 14, 2020. A second release of Windows Server 2008 based on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 , was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009 and became generally available on October 22, 2009. New features added in Windows Server 2008 R2 include new virtualization features, new Active Directory features, Internet Information Services 7.5 and support for up to 256 logical processors. It
8118-484: The process, enforces restrictions on the resource usage by a process that matches the criteria. CPU time, bandwidth that it can use, number of processors it can be run on, and allocated to a process can be restricted. Restrictions can be set to be imposed only on certain dates as well. Server Manager is a new roles-based management tool for Windows Server 2008. It is a combination of Manage Your Server and Security Configuration Wizard from Windows Server 2003. Server Manager
8217-494: The rest of the chassis there are 6 internal fans which can only be reached by opening the chassis. The fans used are the same units as used in the PowerEdge R-720xd rack-server. KVM: Unlike the M1000e the VRTX doesn't have a separate KVM module, but it is built into the main chassis. The system only supports USB keyboard and mouse. Control of the KVM function is done via the mini LCD screen. These USB ports as well as
8316-474: The rest of their supported operating systems to that model. With the new update model, instead of updates being released as they became available, only two update packages were released on the second Tuesday of every month until Windows Server 2008 reached its end of life – one package containing security and quality updates, and a smaller package that contained only the security updates. Users could choose which package they wanted to install each month. Later in
8415-481: The same capabilities as the half-height M610 but offering an expansion module containing x16 PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 expansion slots that can support up to two standard full-length/full-height PCIe cards. A half-height server with up to 2x 12 core Intel Xeon E5-2600 or Xeon E5-2600 v2 CPUs, running the Intel C600 chipset and offering up to 768 GB RAM memory via 24 DIMM slots. Two on-blade disks (2,5" PCIe SSD, SATA HDD or SAS HDD) are installable for local storage with
8514-469: The same family, based on the same fabrics ( Broadcom ) and running the same firmware-version. All the M-series switches are OSI layer 3 capable: so one can also say that these devices are layer 2 Ethernet switches with built-in router or layer3 functionality. The most important difference between the M-series switches and the Dell PowerConnect classic switches (e.g. the 8024 model )
8613-748: The same service pack update binary. On October 27, 2009, Microsoft released the Platform Update for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. It backports several APIs and libraries introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 to Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, including the Ribbon API, DirectX 11, the XPS library, the Windows Automation API and the Portable Device Platform. A supplemental update
8712-416: The status of each role. Most editions of Windows Server 2008 are available in x86-64 and IA-32 variants. These editions come in two DVDs: One for installing the IA-32 variant and the other for x64. Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems supports IA-64 processors. The IA-64 variant is optimized for high-workload scenarios like database servers and Line of Business (LOB) applications. As such, it
8811-539: The switch in bay A2 is normally the same as the A1 switch and connects the blades on-motherboard NICs to connect to the data or storage network. Standard blade-servers have one or more built-in NICs that connect to the 'default' switch-slot (the A-fabric ) in the enclosure (often blade-servers also offer one or more external NIC interfaces at the front of the blade) but if one want the server to have more physical (internal) interfaces or connect to different switch-blades in
8910-550: The switch to full capacity when using blades that offer 4 internal NICs on the A fabric (=the internal/on motherboard NIC). The M6348 can be stacked with other M6348 but also with the PCT7000 series rack-switches. The M8024 and M8024-k offer 16 internal autosensing 1 or 10 Gb interfaces and up to 8 external ports via one or two I/O modules each of which can offer: 4 × 10 Gb SFP+ slots, 3 x CX4 10 Gb (only) copper or 2 x 10G BaseT 1/10 Gb RJ-45 interfaces. The PCM8024
9009-493: The system in a special server-room. It is possible however to convert a tower-VRTX into a rack-mounted VRTX. The server blades in a VRTX system (M520/M620/M820) have a different list of supported operating systems than their M1000e counterparts. The operating systems supported to run on the blades are: Windows Server 2008 SP2, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012 , Windows Server 2012 R2, VMware ESX 5.1, and VMware ESX 5.5. Support for running other operating systems
9108-606: Was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and generally to retail on February 27, 2008. Derived from Windows Vista , Windows Server 2008 is the successor of Windows Server 2003 and the predecessor to Windows Server 2008 R2 . It removed support for processors without ACPI , and is the first version that includes Hyper-V . It is the last version of Windows Server that supports 32-bit processors ( IA-32 ). As of July 2019, 60% of Windows servers were running Windows Server 2008. Microsoft had released Windows Vista to mixed reception , and their last Windows Server release
9207-440: Was based on Windows XP . The operating system's working title was Windows Server Codename "Longhorn" , but was later changed to Windows Server 2008 when Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced it during his keynote address at WinHEC on May 16, 2007. Beta 1 was released on July 27, 2005; Beta 2 was announced and released on May 23, 2006, at WinHEC 2006 and Beta 3 was released publicly on April 25, 2007. Release Candidate 0
9306-413: Was eligible for the paid Extended Security Updates (ESU) program. The program allowed volume license customers to purchase, in yearly installments, security updates for the operating system for three additional years, until January 10, 2023. The program was also included with Microsoft Azure purchases, and Azure customers received an extra year of support, until January 9, 2024. The licenses are paid for on
9405-502: Was initially announced on October 24, 2008 and released on May 26, 2009. Service Pack 2 added new features, such as Windows Search 4.0, support for Bluetooth 2.1, the ability to write to Blu-ray discs, and simpler Wi-Fi configuration. Windows Server 2008 specifically received the final release of Hyper-V 1.0, improved backwards compatibility with Terminal Server license keys and an approximate 10% reduction in power usage with this service pack. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 share
9504-931: Was no Linux driver available for the MegaRAID controller for shared storage access. As of June 2014, Linux support for the VRTX Shared PERC 8 was released. This driver supports the single-controller Entry Shared Mode (ESM) configuration, support for the dual-controller High Availability Shared PERC configuration has not been announced. Although not available at launch in June 2013 Dell has hinted about future improvements and functionality. These include: Dell M1000e The Dell blade server products are built around their M1000e enclosure that can hold their server blades, an embedded EqualLogic iSCSI storage area network and I/O modules including Ethernet , Fibre Channel and InfiniBand switches. The M1000e fits in
9603-499: Was released in 2011 to provide improvements and bug fixes. Windows Server 2008 shipped with Internet Explorer 7 , the same version that shipped with Windows Vista. The last supported version of Internet Explorer for Windows Server 2008 was Internet Explorer 9, released in 2011. Internet Explorer 9 was continually updated with cumulative monthly update rollups until support for Internet Explorer 9 on Windows Server 2008 ended on January 14, 2020. IE9 continued to receive updates as long as
9702-407: Was released to the general public on September 24, 2007 and Release Candidate 1 was released to the general public on December 5, 2007. Windows Server 2008 was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and officially launched on the 27th of that month. Windows Server 2008 is built from the same codebase as Windows Vista and thus it shares much of the same architecture and functionality. Since
9801-410: Was renamed to Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS). Windows Server 2008 offers high availability to services and applications through Failover Clustering . Most server features and roles can be kept running with little to no downtime. In Windows Server 2008, the way clusters are qualified changed significantly with the introduction of the cluster validation wizard. The cluster validation wizard
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