Dell has launched a raft of new equipment for the data center, including an update to its EqualLogic storage solutions as well as higher-speed wireless and simplified campus networking switches. The releases come ahead of the company's annual Dell World conference in Austin, Texas.

It includes the PS6210 storage arrays, which Dell said would allow it to deliver flash storage at the price of hard disk solutions, for those customers seeking both faster performance and higher cost efficiency for their virtual environments. 

The new suite of Dell Networking campus solutions aims to enable customers to rapidly deploy and scale campus networks, maximizing efficiency with visibility into the network environment from a single console. The networking solutions would also secure the devices and information at the network edge, leverage existing investments and reduce capital expenses by more than 50%.

PS6210 Series offers 3x power and 4x memory of old models
The EqualLogic PS6210 Series arrays arrive in six models, including all-flash, hybrid and all-hard disk drive options. According to Dell, each offers an increased throughput of up to three-times higher performance and four-times the memory of prior generations, as well as a faster, more powerful storage controller.

Dell said the new flash-enabled arrays could support 2.4-times the virtual desktops and double the OLTP (online transaction processing) database workload performance, with half the latency of prior-generation arrays.

The scale-out architecture would enable organisations to minimise I/O bottlenecks and address growing workloads with flash-enabled SANs (storage area networks), which can achieve over 1.2m IOPS (input/output operations per second) with less than 2 ms latency.

The new software running on these arrays is the EqualLogic Array Software 7.0, which includes a simplified user interface for faster virtualisation.

Dell said this is achieved by streamlining ongoing administration with new policy-based access controls. It is also backwards compatible, so the 64-bit software version for new arrays “works seamlessly” with a 32-bit version for older arrays, thus making the update “easy to adopt”.

SAN-monitoring software and OpenManage system management capabilities unveiled
Dell also announced SAN Headquarters 3.0, the firm's SAN-monitoring software, which provides in-depth reporting and analysis as well as an upgrade in performance and event monitoring across multiple EqualLogic groups.

As part of its EqualLogic release, Dell also unveiled systems management capabilities for OpenManage, including auto-configuration of servers, which are infrastructure aware to further simplify IT management tasks, deliver better workload and server performance, and to provide additional time and cost-savings to customers.

In terms of networking solutions Dell also unveiled the W-Series and N-Series networking switches. The W-Series Gigabit Wireless Access Points deliver data rates of up to 1.3Gbps for end-to-end wireless infrastructure solutions, using the 802.11ac standard.

Dell said W-AP224/225 are the first purpose-built 802.11ac enterprise access points shipping in the market, allowing customers to deploy the highest performing Gigabit wireless access points available, up to three-times faster than 802.11n access points.

The N-Series is a family of “energy-efficient, cost-effective” one-Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and ten-GbE switches designed for modernising and scaling campus network infrastructures. The switches also offer the latest open-standard protocols and include technology to interface with Cisco protocols.