Dell EMC PowerEdge servers provide a scalable business architecture, intelligent automation, and integrated security for high-value data-management and analytics workloads. The PowerEdge portfolio of rack, tower, and modular server infrastructure, based on open-standard x86 technology, can help you quickly scale from the data center to the cloud. PowerEdge servers deliver the same user experience and the same integrated management experience across all our product options; thus, you have one set of runbooks to patch, manage, update, refresh, and retire all your assets.

For our use cases, we chose the PowerEdge R740 server. The R740 is a 2U form factor that houses up to two Intel Xeon Scalable processors, each with up to 28 compute cores. It has support for the most popular enterprise-deployed versions of Linux—Canonical Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The R740 supports a range of memory configurations to satisfy the most demanding database and analytic workloads. It includes 24 slots for registered ECC DDR4 load-reduced DIMMS (LRDIMMs) with speeds up to 2,933 MT/s and has expandable memory up to 3 TB. On-board storage can be configured with front drive bays holding up to 16 x 2.5 in. SAS/SATA SSDs, for a maximum of 122.88 TB, or up to 8 x 3.5 in. SAS/SATA drives, for a maximum of 112 TB.

For details about the PowerEdge server configuration that we used for our use cases, see Appendix A: Solution architecture and component specifications.