The Dell PowerEdge FX2s offers a modular foundation for a converged architecture where management, power, and cooling are supported by the enclosure consolidating resources and reducing cost. The Dell FX2s offers a "switched" architecture and has eight warm-swap PCIe modules to support combinations of quarter-width, half-width, and full width compute and storage modules. The PowerEdge FX2 chassis, without the "s" is an "unswitched" configuration that does not have integrated PCIe slots and offers a lower-cost alternative to the switched FX2s configuration. Compute, storage, and networking are shared in the 2U space and expansion is easily accomplished by adding more compute and storage nodes or additional FX2s enclosures. The modular FX2s supports several different compute nodes providing a flexible platform that's ideal for data centers and highly virtualized environments.
The FX2s supports the following compute modules including the quarter-width PowerEdge FC430, the half-width PowerEdge FC630, the full-width PowerEdge FC830, and the half-width PowerEdge FD332 storage module. The half-width PowerEdge FM120x4 server node has four discrete servers in each node and is designed specifically for the unswitched FX2 chassis without integrated PCIe slots.
Performance
The compute modules supported on Dell's FX2s are powered by the latest generation Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 or E5-2600 v4 processors and support DDR4 memory modules. The exceptions are the FC430 which also supports a single E5-1600 v3 CPU, and the FM120x4 which supports four Atom processors. Processors, memory, and storage are handled by the compute and storage modules while power, cooling, and networking are handled by the FX2 or FX2s chassis. The backplane automatically maps the compute modules to the PCIe 3.0 hot-swap modules located on the FX2s. The FC430 and FC630 support up to two CPUs, and the FC830 supports up to four CPUs.
Expansion
There are eight PCIe 3.0 expansion modules on the FX2s that automatically map to the installed compute sleds through the backplane. Two FN I/O modules or aggregators can be installed on the system for enhanced network connectivity and support up to eight 10GbE ports. The aggregators replace the standard network interface, simplifying cable management and optimizing "east/west" server to server traffic within the FX2s and LAN/SAN convergence. There are three different Aggregator modules to choose from. Two that support four ports with either copper or fiber optic cables, and a third aggregator module that offers a combination of four 10GbE ports and two fiber channel 2 plus 2 ports of SFP with 10GbE.
Management
The FX2s can use Dell's Chassis Management Controller to manage nodes and system resources from a web interface. Two RJ-45 ports on the back of the system above the Aggregator modules connect to the external management network and also allow up to 20 FX2s to be daisy-chained together for access to more shared resources. The OpenManage portfolio supports local and remote management for the FX2s enclosure. All compute modules supported on the FX2 enclosure feature Dell's iDRAC8 with Lifecycle Controller. Both iDRAC8 and CMC are embedded components that can be upgraded to support additional management features with Express or Enterprise licensing.
Summary
Featuring dense storage, and capable of supporting up to 16 processors in a single chassis, the Dell FX2s offers powerful performance in a 2U space. The FX2s enclosure is a highly scalable, and flexible platform suitable for a number of different workloads depending on your choice of compute modules and storage.