There is a little known secret about Dell EMC servers that you should know. It’s something that is been available on every server since day one yet most people, even Dell EMC employees, don’t know…
If you’ve been around PowerEdge servers, you may know there are two different colors located on the servers: one is a light blue, the other is an orange color – each has a meaning. The light blue is a representative of an area that can be removed, however the system should be powered off first.
The other color, however, is not orange. It’s terracotta. To be specific, it’s Pantone 1525c The terracotta color depicts a device that can be “hot-removed.” In the image to the left, the MX5116s storage blade has 16 x hot-pluggable drives, which is proved by the terracotta color. However, the color is not what you should know.
What most people don’t realize is that the color terracotta can be seen by those with color blindness. In case you are thinking “B.S.” understand that I’ve had customers in briefings who had color blindness who confirmed they can actually see the color on the PowerEdge servers. Another interesting point- the color of terracotta, and the fact that it can be seen by those with color blindness was discovered by an IBM scientist, therefore you may have seen this specific orange tint on IBM/Lenovo servers as well. As you may have deducted, Dell decided to borrow the same terracotta color as IBM when PowerEdge first started shipping in 1996.
So, now you know. When you buy a PowerEdge server and see the orange looking, terracotta, it serves the function of showing you that it is hot-pluggable.
Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com. He has over 20 years of experience in the x86 server marketplace. Since 1997 Kevin has worked at several resellers in the Atlanta area, and has a vast array of competitive x86 server knowledge and certifications as well as an in-depth understanding of VMware and Citrix virtualization. Kevin has worked at Dell EMC since August 2011 as a Server Sales Engineer covering the Global Enterprise market from 2011 to 2017 and now works as a Principal Engineer and Chief Technical Server Architect supporting the Central Enterprise Region at Dell EMC.
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