Dell PowerEdge M710 Blade Server

On paper – the Dell M710HD looks like a direct competitor to the HP ProLiant BL490 G6, and it is, however as I showed you in the video, Dell has added something that I really believe could change the blade server market – a flexible embedded network controller.  The “Network Daughter Card” or NDC is the blade servers LAN on Motherboard (LOM) but on a removable daughter card, very similar to the mezzanine cards.  This is really cool stuff because this design allows for a user to change their blade server’s on-board I/O as their network grows.  For example, today many IT environments are standardized on 1Gb networks for server connectivity, however 10Gb connectivity is becoming more and more prevalent.  When users move from 1Gb to 10Gb in their blade environments, with the NDC design, they will have the ability to upgrade the onboard network controller from 1Gb to 10Gb therefore protecting their investment.  Any time a manufacturer offers investment protection I get excited.  An important note – the M710HD comes with a NDC that will provide up to 4 x 1Gb NICs when the Dell PowerConnect M6348 Ethernet Switch is used.  Dell is continuing with the development of the NDC with last month’s announcement of a Converged Network Adapter (CNA) network daughter card option for the M710HD.