Version 0.3, 4 December, 2000 DCSE: PowerEdge 1550 Self-Study
Dell Page 3
PowerEdge 1550 Overview
Introduction
This section provides information about the customer to which the
PowerEdge 1550 is designed to appeal. It also provides a description of
the feature set that allows the PowerEdge 1550 to serve the needs of those
customers.
The information contained in this section is helpful because it can provide
the DSP with a clear picture of the types of environments to expect when
servicing the PowerEdge 1550. It also provides the right information for a
DSP to be able to answer simple questions that the customer may have or
to understand error messages, error lights, or error codes that the system
may display.
Product Positioning
The PowerEdge 1550 is a general-purpose (GP) ultra rack-dense 1U (1.75-
inch) server targeted to support Internet and network infrastructure
applications, including gateways, DNS servers, and DHCP servers. The
PowerEdge 1550 provides unprecedented levels of performance,
availability, and scalability in a 1U form factor, including dual Pentium III
processors (up to 1 GHz), a new chipset (ServerWorks HE SL) that
supports dual 64-bit/66 MHz PCI slots on separate PCI buses for
maximum I/O throughput, up to three hot-pluggable 1-inch SCSI hard
drives, embedded Ultra3 SCSI, and up to 2 GB of RAM (4 GB when 1 GB
DIMMs become generally available on the market).
The explosive growth of the Internet has fueled the need for rack dense
servers as service providers (ISPs/ASPs), dot-coms, enterprise customers,
or any organization leveraging Internet technologies all struggle with the
same fundamental issue – data center space. Data center space is either
scarce, expensive, or both for most organizations so whether customers
build their own data centers or lease space from a service provider,
companies must maximize their return by deploying as many servers as
possible in the smallest space possible. These factors have made 1U
servers extremely attractive.
Traditionally, common product segmentation divided server products into
workgroup, departmental, and enterprise systems. This classification tied
a product’s features with its price point. With the growth of the ultra rack
dense server market, including products such as the PowerEdge 1550 and
PowerEdge 2450, a new thin server segment has emerged. While these
servers can cut across all of the traditional segments, 1U servers are
primarily deployed in the front end (first tier) of the traditional 3-tier
architecture where rack density is the most critical.
