Last year at Dell Technologies World 2022, my mentor Marc Huppert (VCDX 181) and I came across the Dell XR4000 at the Solutions Expo. I mean we have seen it all before, servers, storage and networking but this edge solution from Dell blew us away! CEO Michael Dell said in his keynote that by 2025, more than 50% of IT deployments will happen in the edge. And so it is, in 2023 edge computing is already the talk of the town and everyone is reporting a need for compute infrastructure in unusual areas.

Let us take a closer look at the Dell PowerEdge NextGen Portfolio.

The Dell Technologies portfolio is immensely large, the manufacturer divides its server models into three areas:
AI / ML with GPU accelerated servers,
Edge / Telco with ruggidized servers and
Core for our well known data centers, campuses, banks, retailers, military.
Depending on the use case, there is a suitable Dell server. 😎

Now let us move on to our little star, which we saw last year at the Dell Technologies World.

Dell PowerEdge XR4000

I want to give you a basic idea for this server models. There is a rackable and stackable option. No matter which of the two you choose, you get a fully supported VMware vSAN cluster. The rackable one gives you the ability to build a VMware Horizon or AI/ML (NVIDIA AI Enterprise) environment with NVIDIA GPUs!

Both models fit perfectly into various industries such as retail (supermarkets), military (tanks, submarines), video surveillance and security, telco (5G antennas) but also in core datacenters. These are Dell’s most versatile server models.

Let me give you some more specific UseCase ideas:

More and more fire departments in Germany are acquiring drones, and the data needs to be analyzed in the field. The XR4000’s form factor fits perfectly into the fire trucks and provides the necessary computing power.

Municipal utilities like infrafürth GmbH need reliable hardware for their dark site control systems which are both redundant and temperature resistant. With an operating temperature range of -5 to 55 degrees Celsius, the XR4000 is the perfect solution.

vSAN Stretched clusters always require a 3rd site for the witness appliance, customers usually use a single server as a witness node. In case of hardware failures, the hole site would be down. This is another perfect use case for the XR4000, thanks to its redundant compute.

And many more… The Usecase list is endless, because these server models can handle nearly every Workload!

Technical Specifications

We recommend both stackable and rackable models to all our VMware vSAN Streched Cluster customers who need to have a third site to deploy the VMware vSAN Witness appliance. Most of our customers have 1U servers at their third site for this purpose. But in case of maintenance or hardware failure the site has to be shut down completely and that is where the XR4000 provides redundancy on point.

Both models can handle temperatures from -5 (23°F) up to 55 (131°F) degrees Celsius, they are rated to MIL 810H and NEBS Level 3 certification, have a short depth of 35cm (14″) and can provide up to 4 compute nodes depending on configuration.

Regarding to VMware vSphere 8, I must inform you that currently the systems are not supported. We have upgraded the compute nodes to vSphere 8 but only for testing purposes. It worked fine but it is not officially supported by VMware and Dell! Now let us take a closer look at the two chassis options:

With the XR4000z you get a chassis just a bit bigger than a shoebox. The chassis consists of 2 slots for compute nodes, 1 slot for a hardware witness node (NS) and 2 slots for power supplies. The XR4000z can be screwed to a wall via VESA mount and operated that way. The chassis has gripper arms to stack more XR4000z enclosures.
Dimensions are without bezel & latch 26,6 (10.5″) x 35,6cm (14″) and with bezel & latch 30,4 (12″) x 45,7cm (18″).

With the XR4000r you can configure up to 2 more server nodes compared to the XR4000z, plus this model is in 19″ rack format, but still with 35cm (14″) depth! The XR4000r chassis offers you several configuration options, including PCI/Storage expansion – more on that below.
Dimensions are 48.2 (19″) x 35.6cm (14″) without bezel and 48.2 (19″) x 45.7cm (18″) with bezel.

The 1U XR4510 Server Node or also called Compute Sled offers you following possibilities:

• 1x Intel 3rd Gen Xeon-D Processors; up to 20 Cores at 120W
• 4x Memory Slots; up to 512GB total
• 1x Dell BOSS Device; up to 2x M.2 NVMe (480GB or 960GB)
• 4x M.2 NVMe drives for Storage (or VMware vSAN Disk Groups); from 480GB up to 3.84TB
• 4x SFP (SFP+ or Base-T; speed depends on CPU selection)

The 2U XR4520 Compute Sled offers you the same as the XR4510, plus:

• PCI Expansion with two x16 PCI Gen4 Lanes for NVIDIA GPUs and/or NIC Options

or

• Storage Expansion (Disk Groups) for additional 8x M.2 NVMe drives (4x per x16Slot)

As mentioned above there is an optional embedded Witness Node for your VMware vSAN cluster. Here you get the following static components:

• 1x Intel Atom C3508 CPU (fully supported by VMware)
• 1x 16GB ECC Memory
• 2x i210 Base-T NIC
• 1x M.2 NVMe drive for OS and Storage
• 1x MCU for amangement
• 1x USB 3.0

The Witness Node runs a pre-installed VMware vSphere 7.0 U3, for which you must provide a full license. As mentioned, there is currently no chance to upgrade the Witness Node – I will keep you guys updated on this.

VMware vSAN

For all our VMware vSAN customers an important information; due to the missing resources like 32 core CPU the VMware vSAN ESA architecture is currently not supported. We have tried it for testing purposes – it works – but you will not get any support from VMware and Dell for it!

However, it is a luxury for this form factor because VMware vSAN OSA is fully supported. We heard at VMware Explore 2023 Las Vegas that there will be some reduction in the requirements for VMware vSAN ESA, so we may be able to take advantage of the new architecture in the near future.

That’s it for this small but important product presentation, but I have one more ace up my sleeve and that’s our own Datacenter2Go solution, take a look here:

Computacenter – Datacenter2Go with Dell XR4000 & VMware vSAN

And as always, if you have any questions, just use the comment box below. 🙂