Dell unveils new PowerEdge rack-optimized and workgroup servers

PRESS RELEASE — Dell today announced the next generation of its
most popular and fastest growing PowerEdge servers for customers
deploying Internet and intranet infrastructures, hosted
applications and traditional applications, such as mail and
file/print services.

The PowerEdge 2550, a 2U (3.5 inch) server designed for use in
racked environments, such as corporate data centers, introduces
enterprise-class technology features to the fastest growing segment
of the server market. The PowerEdge 2500 is a tower-based server
that offers additional expansion options for use in departments and
work groups. The servers incorporate technology previously reserved
for the high end of the marketplace, such as a new chipset for
increased performance and embedded RAID for greater data
redundancy. The PowerEdge 2550 is the first server in the industry
to feature embedded Gigabit Ethernet for the fastest network
performance available in any class server today.

The PowerEdge 2550 succeeds the PowerEdge 2450, which helped
redefine the server market by delivering the performance and
reliability found in much larger servers to a small form factor.
Dell is the No. 2 provider of standard Intel architecture servers
worldwide(b) and the PowerEdge 2450 was so well received by the
company’s customers that it showed the fastest sales growth among
Dell’s server products. The new PowerEdge 2550 provides the highest
degrees of availability and expandability in a 2U form factor and
is ideally suited for use as an application or Web server in
tiered, datacenter infrastructures that are space conscious, but
require availability and expansion capabilities.

The new PowerEdge 2550 and PowerEdge 2500 servers support dual
Intel Pentium III processors — up to 1GHz; feature a new chipset
that supports three PCI buses — two 64 bit and one 32-bit — for
faster throughput; up to 4 GB of RAM; and embedded dual channel
RAID with battery backup for improved availability. In the
PowerEdge 2550, this effectively delivers seven I/O connectivity
outputs from the server within a small 2U form factor.

The PowerEdge 2550 offers up to five hot-plug, one-inch SCSI
hard drives for up to 180GB of storage and an optional hot-plug
redundant power supply, support for external Fibre Channel and SCSI
storage expansion, high-availability clustering and an easy access
chassis. The PowerEdge 2500 offers additional features including up
to 8 hot-plug, one inch SCSI hard drives for up to 288GB storage
and redundant hot-plug cooling fans, an optional hot-plug redundant
power supply, and a new, smaller chassis designed for easy access
and maximum aesthetic effect.

The PowerEdge 2550 and 2500 are scheduled to be available in
April 2001; prices start at $2,399. The servers can be factory
installed with Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 Server or
Advanced Server operating systems, Novell NetWare 5.1 or Red Hat
Linux 7.

Each Dell server ships with Dell’s OpenManage software for
systems management. This solution eases the installation and
configuration of Dell PowerEdge and PowerApp servers, while
enhancing system monitoring, enabling remote management, and
helping organizations manage and track assets. Dell OpenManage
supports Dell servers running all Microsoft Windows server
operating systems, Novell Netware operating systems, and Red Hat
Linux 6.2 and 7.

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