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Dell’s XS11-VX8, nicknamed Fortuna, was a compact server design announced in 2009: the contemporary description says it could fit 12 server nodes into a 2U chassis and used VIA Nano processors. Dell discussed the system’s power profile and possible customer uses, but the available announcement gives no Fortuna-specific TCO total, measured power draw, benchmark, or quantified savings. Its TCO positioning was therefore a subject of discussion, not a published numerical result.
What was Dell’s Fortuna server?
DataCenterKnowledge reported on May 22, 2009, that Dell’s Data Center Solutions Group had introduced the XS11-VX8, better known as “Fortuna.” The article describes a multi-node system using VIA Nano processors, with 12 servers fitting in a 2U (3.5-inch) form factor. Read the 2009 announcement.
The compact arrangement is a configuration detail, not proof of lower total cost. Node count and rack height alone do not establish how much useful work a system delivered, how much power it consumed, or what it cost to buy and operate.
What evidence supported the TCO positioning?
The announcement pointed readers to an approximately six-minute video in which Dell representative Drew Schulke discussed the server’s features, including its power profile, and ways customers might use it. The article summarizes the interview rather than providing a numerical power measurement or a verbatim quote.
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It does not report a Fortuna purchase price, workload benchmark, power draw, cooling cost, customer case study, TCO total, or savings comparison. As a result, it supports the narrower claim that Dell discussed power and potential uses—not a specific financial or efficiency outcome.
Why a separate Dell blade-system TCO report does not prove Fortuna savings
A Dell-commissioned Principled Technologies report labeled October 2008 modeled total cost of ownership for Dell PowerEdge M1000e, HP BladeSystem c-Class, and IBM BladeCenter H Type 8852 blade solutions. It covered hardware, support, management software, power, cooling, network ports, and data-center space, and compared acquisition costs with one-, three-, and five-year costs. Fortuna was not one of the systems studied. See the blade-solution TCO report.
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The report’s assumptions—including a one-third busy and two-thirds idle duty cycle, an additional dollar of cooling and auxiliary power per dollar of server electricity, and electricity and cooling priced at $0.11 per kWh—belong to that historical model. They are not measurements of Fortuna or universal current operating costs. Applying the report’s results or assumptions to Fortuna would conflate different products and evidence.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteWhat would be needed to evaluate Fortuna’s TCO?
A meaningful comparison would need to match systems to the same workload and time horizon. For a historical or like-for-like assessment, compare:
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- Useful workload performance and capacity, rather than node count alone.
- Measured power at idle and under representative load, with the test conditions stated.
- Cooling and auxiliary-power assumptions, kept distinct from server electricity.
- Acquisition cost, support, management, networking, and space requirements.
- Total costs over the same ownership period, with assumptions and prices dated.
The 2009 announcement does not supply those Fortuna-specific inputs, so it cannot establish whether the system lowered TCO or by how much.
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