Fast and flexible

MID-RANGE SERVERS have always existed in a sort of netherworld. On one hand, they had to be affordable, but on the other, they had to offer more to companies than could be gotten from even less expensive, 1U servers that the same vendors were selling for high-density applications. The requirement for affordable pricing used to mean that mid-range servers might be fast and capable, but they usually didn’t have the management tools and redundancy of their larger brethren.

Clearly, that’s changing. The two servers in this review, Dell’s PowerEdge 2600 and Hewlett-Packard’s Compaq ProLiant DL-580 G2, are among the finest mid-range servers we’ve tested. They are very fast, they have lots of storage space, they are designed with datacenter management in mind, and they are very long on redundancy and serviceability. In short, these machines are excellent general purpose servers for all but the largest applications.

In addition, both Dell and HP clearly know that customers don’t want to be forced into a limited number of ways to solve their problems. Both companies offer these servers in a wide range of configurations, with several operating systems. You’re not forced into a predefined idea of what the manufacturer thinks you should do. In this respect, the Dell PowerEdge 2600 and the Compaq ProLiant DL-580 G2 are similar to offerings from IBM, Micron, and Gateway, and refreshingly unlike the Sun LX50 we reviewed last week (see ” Sun serves Linux ,” Oct. 7.)

This is not to suggest that these two excellent servers are just alike. They are not. In addition to important internal differences (see sidebar, “Dell and Compaq: a tale of two chipsets”), they are targeted at different customers. HP aims the Compaq ProLiant squarely at the datacenter. This is a 4U, rack-mount unit that’s clearly designed for life in the dark. It’s easily serviceable without requiring that the unit be removed from the rack; there are no cables for major components, and most items, including the fans, power supplies, disk drives, and even memory, can be hot-swapped. The management capabilities are extensive, thanks to the Compaq’s iLO (Integrated Lights Out) management. Although you can attach a keyboard, mouse, and monitor to this server, it’s unlikely you’ll ever want to once it’s up and running.

Dell’s PowerEdge is for the departmental user who may have a small datacenter or simply a server room. You can order this machine as either a rack-mount or a tower configuration. We reviewed the 5U, rack-mount unit. However, Dell gives up no ground in the quality of its management or in serviceability. Although the Dell PowerEdge is not specifically a rack-optimized server, and therefore not quite as easy to open as the Compaq ProLiant, Dell’s management software is somewhat more useful than the Compaq’s.

In testing these servers, our focus was mainly on ease of management, serviceability, and access. Although we confirmed that these servers could serve Web pages fast enough to use the bandwidth available on a Fast Ethernet network, performance benchmarks on servers of this class don’t mean much because of the great diversity of the applications they’re tasked to support. These machines could easily serve as file and print servers, application servers, database servers, or even Web servers, or they could be used to manage a storage network.

The Compaq ProLiant is a four-way, 1.6 GHz Xeon server. (The ProLiant was still called a Compaq at press time, but HP says this is about to change.) The tested unit had Windows 2000 Server installed, along with iLO and Insight Manager, Compaq’s remote management tool and fuller-featured SNMP tool, respectively. One serious drawback with the Compaq management software is that it requires you to use Microsoft Internet Explorer to run the management services. Nothing else will work, which raises interesting problems for network managers with Sun Solaris-or Linux-based management consoles.

More inconvenient, at least for this test, is that the version of Insight Manager installed on the test server was very limited. It would tell you that all was fine, but disclose no details. You can install the full version of Insight Manager, but despite repeated requests, HP was unable to provide the necessary materials to make the full version actually run. Fortunately, the iLO manager takes care of most of what you need to do remotely. Because this server is intended to be managed remotely, that’s not a critical issue. But the ability to run Insight Manager would have been useful.

Dell, for its part, brags about being operating-system agnostic. Not only can you buy the Dell PowerEdge with support for most operating systems, or with no operating system at all, you can also manage this two-way 2.4 GHz Xeon server with any browser. In addition, Dell’s management utilities are clear, intuitive, and effective, and remote management works well.

While it’s unlikely that you’ll have to spend much time working on these computers once they’re installed in their racks, it’s still important that servicing these machines be as easy as possible, preferably while they’re still in the rack. Both machines are heavy, so you don’t just lift them out of the rack and onto a workbench as you might a 1U server.

The Compaq ProLiant has one of the most serviceable designs we’ve ever seen. Opening the chassis is a simple matter of moving a latch and sliding the top open. The top cover has large, embedded illustrations of the interior and instructions for servicing each component. Inside, there are no cables, and everything is tool-free accessible and hot-swappable. Even the memory cards can be hot-swapped. The only tool you are likely to need is for unscrewing one of those dreaded Torx fasteners that holds a power supply in place during shipping. Fortunately, HP now includes a Torx wrench, clipped to the back of the server.

Servicing the Dell PowerEdge is almost as easy. To access the internals, you have to unscrew three thumbscrews and remove the top. This is not difficult, but it’s not as easy as sliding open the Compaq ProLiant’s top. The PowerEdge does not contain embedded illustrations. And although the chassis is not exactly cable free, it’s nearly so (there are two cables), and, as with the Compaq ProLiant, most of the fans as well as the power supplies and disks are hot-swap devices.

About the only complaint we have with the Dell PowerEdge is that you have to open a front cover to turn on the unit. This could be inconvenient if the key is not handy. In a well-managed datacenter, a locking front cover shouldn’t be necessary. However, this is part of the legacy of the Dell’s design as a departmental server, where such protection is necessary.

In short, the Dell PowerEdge 2600 and the Compaq ProLiant DL-580 G2 are two excellent servers aimed at somewhat different uses. Either would provide reliable service in your datacenter. The Dell PowerEdge can also be put to other uses, while the Compaq ProLiant is ideally suited for life in a rack.

Depending on your specific needs, one of these servers could be a better choice than the other, but it’s hard to see how you could go wrong with either.