Dell Technologies rolled out several software and hardware updates to its VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) systems.

Dell jointly engineers its VxRail products with VMware, and the new HCI systems are based on the latest-generation Dell EMC PowerEdge servers. The release also includes VxRail dynamic nodes that allow users to independently scale storage and compute.

Additionally, the new HCI systems introduce self-service automation software that lets customers validate, orchestrate, and automate cluster deployment on their own time. This is ideal for enterprises with remote or distributed environments, said Nancy Hurley, Dell senior manager of product marketing for HCI. “We have customers that have thousands of remote sites that they’re utilizing, and this really makes it easier for them to deploy on their own time,” she said.

Other new software capabilities allow customers to dynamically redeploy or reallocate nodes within clusters.

And finally, lifecycle management software offers VMware updates, such as NSX-T and Tanzu, in a single upgrade cycle. Plus, Dell added the Nvidia AI Enterprise and VMware installation bundles to the lifecycle management process. Flexible upgrade options and automatically validated infrastructure can help customers meet maintenance windows and compliance reporting requirements.

The HCI software updates are about driving simplicity in customers’ IT environments, Hurley said. “It’s really about taking the burden off of the customer to have their environments in a ready-state.”

Dell performs more than 25,000 hours of tests on both the hardware and software product components “to ensure that if you are doing upgrades, if you are doing patches, everything has already been tested, everything has already been sequenced, so you can just push a button and do your upgrades,” she said.

VxRail HCI system software updates will be available in July.

In addition to the HCI software updates, Dell introduced VxRail dynamic nodes, which are “all about enabling flexible, scale-out storage,” Hurley said.

Dynamic nodes are compute-only systems that let customers scale compute and storage resources separately based on workload demands.

This enables better storage resource management and cost reduction by extending VxRail environments to include external storage options. Customers can expand VxRail’s operational model to external storage by sharing VMware vSAN storage capacity across clusters via VMware vSAN HCI Mesh.

VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail, as a hybrid cloud infrastructure platform, can be configured with dynamic nodes to use Dell EMC PowerStore, PowerMax, or Unity XT as primary storage.

VxRail dynamic nodes will be available in August.

On the hardware side, customers can choose between Intel and AMD processors running in Dell EMC PowerEdge servers.

The new VxRail systems based on third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors provide 42% more cores for faster performance compared to previous generations, according to Intel. Additionally, optional Intel Optane persistent memory 200 series increases bandwidth by 32% on average over the previous generation.

And VxRail systems based on third-generation AMD Epyc processors can scale up to 64 cores per processor with increased performance to support a wide range of workloads and use cases.

VxRail V Series now offers Nvidia A40 or A100 Tensor Core GPU options. When combined with Nvidia AI Enterprise software and NVMe caching capabilities, Dell says these systems provide greater performance and simpler deployment for artificial intelligence and machine learning applications.

VxRail P Series provides up to a 20% increase in capacity to better support workloads such as VDI, streaming video, and medical imaging.

And VxRail E Series includes 50% more PCIe slots to add additional resources such as network or fibre channel cards.

Customers can also add PCIe Gen 4 to their Intel-based PowerEdge systems. This doubles bandwidth and offers 33% more PCIe lanes to speed data processing, according to Dell’s internal testing.

VxRail systems based on AMD will be available in June, and Intel-based systems will be available in July.