Dell EMC debuts NVMe VxRail HCI appliances

Dell EMC has rolled out two NVMe appliances for the VxRail hyperconverged range. It has also added better management and is automating network fabric setup in multi-rack VxRail deployments.

The P580N is an all-NVMe four-socket system with second generation Xeon SP processors. It provides twice the CPU and memory per system over the prior generation P570.

The E560N has all-NVMe SSDs and complements the E560 hybrid and E560F all-SAS SSD systems. Dell EMC doesn’t say how the E560N’s performance compares to its E-class systems.

Automating fabric setup

Dell EMC today introduced SmartFabric Services (SFS) to help automate network fabric setup across VxRail racks. IT admins enter one command per switch and SFS will automate more than 99 per cent of the configuration steps for multi-rack leaf and spine fabrics.

SFS fully automates fabric configuration for six switches in a two-rack deployment, and up to 14 switches in a six-rack deployment across a single site.

VxRail ACE

Dell EMC today also announced the VxRail Analytical Consulting Engine (ACE), a management system that provides users with global views of their clusters, health scores, drill down analytics, anomaly alerts, predictive capacity analysis and upgrade orchestration.

This is an HPE InfoSight-like system, using cloud monitoring and a  data lake filled with historical data of VxRail usage, and machine learning to optimise configurations and streamline infrastructure management. Watch an ACE video here.

VxRail ACE is available this month. The VxRail P580N, E560N HCI hardware and Dell EMC SmartFabric Services go on sale in December.

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