Hoping to attract those corporate users interested in consolidating older RISC-based servers, Dell on Wednesday rolled out two of its lowest-priced, Intel-based, four-processor systems that company officials contend are best suited for data base, consolidation and virtualization strategies.Along with the new systems, Dell also unveiled new data management software, and a data center environmental assessment service, the latter intended help corporate users better evaluate a data center’s thermal and power requirements.Fueled by Intel’s 64-bit Xeon processor, the Dell PowerEdge 6800 and 6850 both include DDR-400 ECC memory and PCI Express I/O, which contributes to making the systems 32 per cent faster than the company’s previous four-processor systems, company officials said. The new servers mark the first time that PowerEdge servers can be configured for application-specific performance optimization. The units can be bought in two different configurations, one with an 8 mbyte level three cache, or one with a level 2 cache but with a faster processor, giving IT administrators a choice to pick the system that best fits their application requirements.Both the Models 6800 and 6850 have been tested and certified for 32-bit versions of Oracle’s Database 10g and Database 9i, Real Application Clusters, as well as Microsoft’s SQL Server 2005, running under Windows Server 2003 64-bit Edition. The servers have also been certified to work with Red Hat’s 64-bit Enterprise Linux operating system. Dell officials said they plan to offer the 64-bit operating systems on the new servers sometime later this year.Dell has included an improved version of its OpenManage management software, called Version 4.3, which contains a number of security and change management enhancements, simpler monitoring capabilities and improved deployment tools. Scheduled to be available “in the coming weeks,” according to company officials, the PowerEdge 6800 and 6850 carry a starting price of $3,999 and $4,899 respectively.More technical information on the servers, management software, and assessment service can be seen at www.dell.com/servers. Technology Industry