ACADEMIA

• OEM agreements with Brocade, Scalent and VMware position Dell to uniquely offer open, standards-based foundation for virtualized enterprise computing – from the desktop to the datacenter
• In keynote address, Dell outlines the future of open, efficient data centers

Addressing the desire to simplify and standardize the data center, Dell today unveiled additions to its efficient enterprise portfolio at the VMworld ‘09 conference. Dell announced new desktop, networking, and virtualization management partnerships that can allow businesses to reduce the cost and time associated with the deployment and ongoing management of desktop and data center virtual environments.

“The growing desire for increased enterprise efficiency, combined with the rapid evolution and adoption of virtualized, standards-based architectures is changing the way enterprise technology is built and deployed,” said Praveen Asthana, vice president of Dell Enterprise Storage and Networking, in his presentation at VMworld 09. “The future of enterprise computing does not lie in a proprietary, monolithic stack. Businesses are looking to drive efficiency and innovation and products from Dell help drive these gains while avoiding vendor lock in. The next-generation datacenter – or the Efficient Datacenter – will be standards-based from the compute to the networking fabric, fully virtualized and cloud enabled, and highly automated.”

Adhering to the philosophy of open, pragmatic and end-to-end, Dell’s datacenter approach is designed to enable choice in IT deployment, management and automation so that businesses can focus on their core competencies. This occurs in part due to Dell’s philosophy of designing business ready configurations which are engineered, architected and pre-built product offerings designed to work together and accelerate deployments. When coupled with Dell’s approach and perspective on enterprise computing – from the desktop to the datacenter and out to the cloud – the company is uniquely positioned to help business drive efficiency in the datacenter.

Together with key partners, Dell is building a unified datacenter environment that is built on standards, highly virtualized and easy to manage:

• Today Dell expanded its OEM relationship with Brocade. Specifically, the two companies intend to:
  • Develop a dynamic infrastructure and optimization solution enabled by virtualization to allow customers to deploy and manage an efficient data center. Increasingly, customers need applications deployed rapidly to meet their performance requirements, with secure and reliable access to their mission-critical data.
  • Deliver integrated toolsets to manage application delivery and deployment as business services on highly reliable compute, network and storage infrastructure. The Brocade and Dell solution will help provide capital and operational expense savings by deploying server and storage virtualization more broadly across the data center.

• Dell is simplifying the deployment and management of virtual environments by delivering an OEM version of Scalent’s V/OE, an open infrastructure management solution.
  • Dell customers can avoid many of the common, repetitive IT tasks associated with deploying and managing virtual environments. The Scalent architecture is consistent with Dell’s approach in that it does not lock-in customer to a specific technology, putting the control of IT infrastructure back into the hands of businesses.
  • The Dell and Scalent solution is open and flexible, creating a more efficient way to manage virtual and physical infrastructures and create a foundation for cloud computing.

Dell is also helping customers drive efficiency and effectiveness in distributed computing environments through desktop virtualization. Dell’s Flexible Computing strategy uses client-server (network based) computing and virtualization technologies to improve manageability, data security, compliance and disaster recovery.

Dell today announced that it has expanded its Flexible Computing portfolio by incorporating VMware VIEW into its Virtual Remote Desktop solution. Now IT managers can run virtual desktops in the datacenter, while giving end users a single view of all their applications and data in a familiar, personalized environment on any device at any location.