ABOUT / WHO WE ARE

A Proven History

For five decades the nation’s largest military and commercial organizations have relied on Tracewell Systems to support their mission critical objectives.

These customers turn to Tracewell when they need products, platforms and solutions for a number of scenarios. Tactical environments where size, weight, power and other constraints present challenges that cannot be met by standard computing systems. In the data center where easy integration with third-party technology is necessary or platforms need to accommodate a range of additional specifications. And in sensitive cases where an advanced technology needs to be transformed to meet challenging tactical conditions or urgent mission requirements at the edge.

Solving Unsolvable Problems

At Tracewell Systems we’ve built a reputation for stretching the limits of what commercial technology can do – how it can be used and where it can go. 

The ability to solve what most people think of as unsolvable problems is what drives us forward. It’s our heritage. Sometimes we begin by taking the best available commercial technology on the market and modifying it to operate in tactical, space-constrained environments, such as in the air, at sea or on land, in unique fixed or mobile installations. In other cases, our customers come to us with a specific program objective and a disparate set of technology and components and trust us to create a unified platform or capability that delivers results. And then there are the customers who come to us with a seemingly unsolvable problem and rely on Tracewell experience to think through how to make the impossible … possible. It’s who we are and what we do.

Big Technology Background

We are pioneers in enabling commercial, high-performance computing technology to fundamentally transform the kinds of solutions that businesses and government agencies can use “beyond the back office” or in support of their wide ranging program requirements.

Based on our extensive engineering experience Tracewell Systems was approached by IBM to help a customer do something that had never been done before – engineer its BladeCenter product to operate in a rough and tumble airborne environment. The result – the Tracewell Rugged Blade System based on IBM technology – was a resounding success, significantly cutting costs when compared to custom computing solutions, while at the same time dramatically increasing system performance capabilities. That project also marked the first time that IBM trusted its core BladeCenter intellectual property to an outside firm. Tracewell quickly became a trusted go to engineering partner developing several additional IBM-based platforms and supporting a number of IBM custom engineering projects.

As the market shifted, Tracewell turned to Dell to develop a new generation of high-performance, blade-based systems to take advantage of the rapidly emerging benefits of converged computing – systems that integrate compute networking and storage in an easy to manage and scalable platform. Based on years of experience in blade technology, collaboration with our long-standing customers, and working closely with Dell OEM, Dell Engineering and Dell Federal teams, we launched the Tracewell T-FX2 in 2014. Based on Dell’s powerful FX architecture the Tracewell T-FX2 product family has grown to encompass platforms focused on tactical environments, PCIe enabled systems and new platforms for hyper-converged computing and software-defined storage. 

And we’re just getting started. New Dell-based solutions are on the way.

Solid Expertise

We are problem solvers at heart. It’s in our DNA. 

Tracewell teams have a relentless focus on understanding the challenges our customers face and in using technology to meet those challenges. We start by searching for the best technology available (or soon to be available) to solve the problem at hand and then we adapt, modify and bend – and in some cases misuse and abuse – that technology to meet our customers’ needs and objectives. But that approach – our methodology – wouldn’t be possible without our core skills. We are designers. We are electrical engineers. Mechanical engineers. Thermal experts. Program managers. And more. Our team’s skills have been developed, honed and tested in literally thousands of projects for virtually every environment on land, at sea or in the air. That’s the type of real, solid expertise that Tracewell brings to the table for every project we work on, every product we create and every problem we solve. 

A Unique Environment

We are company of doers and makers. We design, engineer and manufacture products, platforms and solutions – and we do it all in our 100,000 square foot facility in Columbus, Ohio.

In our facility you will see engineers designing things and manufacturing teams building them using state-of-the-art tools and technologies. Our facility is also well-known as a virtual technology lab where companies of all kinds come to showcase, develop and test their products for use in the field, in the data center or any environment where computing and other types of technology are mission critical. On any given day at Tracewell the biggest names in software – such as Red Hat, Microsoft or VMware – may be in our facility ensuring that their latest applications lead the market when they benchmark on Tracewell platforms. Some of the biggest names in high technology – such as Intel, Dell, Nvidia or IBM – will be testing their newest technologies to see how their products can be modified or adapted to address a particular challenge in a specific industry. And, on any given day, you can also find smaller, disruptive hardware and software firms sharing their groundbreaking technology and looking for ways deliver their products and capabilities on Tracewell platforms. 

A Trusted Innovator

The combination of our history, our proven ability to solve what were previously thought to be unsolvable problems, our deep relationships with global technology firms and small technology disruptors, our solid engineering and manufacturing expertise and truly dynamic facility has led Tracewell Systems to become recognized by the top names in the defense, technology and business sectors for its commitment to Trusted Innovation, using AS9100 processes where we solve sensitive, mission-critical platform challenges through custom solution design, engineering, manufacturing and end-to-end program management, all under one roof.