Avastu Blog: Sustainable Global Clouds

When the decision was made to go with VMware at ManageNet Hyper-V was not ready for production environments. The company had also considered Virtual Iron, but was not confident in the level of local support compared with VMware. Dell wins in the end Despite their differences in virtualisation software selection, both companies at least have one thing in common - Dell. UXC purchased Dell rack-mounted servers and blades for its new infrastructure build out and ManageNet commissioned iSCSI storage systems from the Dell-owned EqualLogic. Rick Becker, Dell's vice president for software and Solutions, said internally the company migrated 326 PowerEdge 2650 servers to 21 blade servers saving an estimated US$800,000 in operating expenses. "We believe by adopting technology and negating the need for server space we will never need to build another data centre," Becker said. Source

Yesterday at the CloudCamp, Microsoft's Belgium Evangelist did show us pics of the Microsoft Data Centers and did admit that it was Dell, they were using in containers, each container packed with 2500 Servers! (and about several hundred containers then). To build the Azure data center, Microsoft has engaged Dell's Data Center Solutions division, an independent unit of the company - which has its own research, design, manufacturing, marketing, and sales employees - that was expressly created in the spring of 2006 to chase the cloud computing-Web 2.0-utility computing opportunity. DCS makes custom servers tuned for specific workloads and data center power and cooling envelopes. It does not sell standard PowerEdge iron and PowerVault storage. According to Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager of the unit, this small piece of Dell has close to 200 employees and is chasing 30 cloudy customers (including the brass ring called Google). While the DCS unit doesn't break...

Dell has bought out new switches to connect these servers to networks. There is a modular 8-port 10gigE switch (M8924), supporting multiple interface types, and an 8-port Fibre Channel switch courtesy of Brocade (M5024). The 10GigE switch is the first such to have 8 external ports and is a natural choice for linking the new servers to the EqualLogic iSCSI storage. Dell says its storage can thinly-provision apps running in a Citrix Xenserver environment, doling out the storage actually needed for written data rather than supplying the full allocation up front with lots of spinning but empty disks. The PS storage is also integrated with VMware Virtual Centre and Xenserver for snapshots. There is expanded management support for VMware, Hyper-V and Xenserver. Michael Dell this week bought $100m of Dell stock. He and his company are on a tightly-scripted, hard-driving mission to become the best virtualized server hardware and storage provider, a one-stop, virtualized server and storage shop...

Bangalore, India, Aug. 27, 2008 - Dell today unveiled two new Vostro laptops and two desktops designed specifically to meet the needs of small businesses, governments and educational institutions operating on limited budgets in India and the world's emerging economies. The new Vostro laptops and desktops will be available through authorized channel partners, as well as direct from Dell in India and more than 20 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. More information is available at www.Dell.com/newvostropresskit. "Within the world's emerging economies, such as India, millions of new businesses are demanding just the technology they need, at the prices they can afford, from a vendor they can trust. Today we answer that need by introducing new products that join our existing Vostro product line," said Steve Felice, president, Dell Asia-Pacific/Japan. "Together with our partners, Dell will play an important role in bringing more technology to more peop...

Tyler Independent School District in Texas said it has recently moved its servers to a virtualized infrastructure, consolidating 114 older servers onto seven new ones. The district is running VMware ESX Server software on Dell PowerEdge 2950 servers. Virtualization is a growing trend in IT departments across all sectors. Virtualization technologies allow the work of multiple machines to be carried out by a single computer, making more efficient use of power and helping to cut costs and reduce the carbon footprint of data centers. Back in April, research firm Gartner cited virtualization as the "highest-impact" technology looking ahead over the next four years. In the case of Tyler ISD, the district is also using virtualization technology to expand the services available to teachers and students remotely. Source

We did see Dell's name come up in the Group discussion earlier but Dell continues to attempt to get the TM on the Cloud Computing. Two giants of the computing industry have demonstrated their own commitment to ‘cloud computing’ a week after a joint research project from HP, Intel and Yahoo! was unveiled. IBM today revealed plans to spend $350m on two high-density cloud computing platforms in Tokyo and North Carolina. The facilities will be 50% more efficient than standard data centres, the company said, thanks to extensive server consolidation. Meanwhile, it emerged today that computer manufacturer Dell has filed an application in the US to trademark the phrase ‘cloud computing’. More here

Clearly Dell, VMware and Intel are cuddling up pretty much lately. HP is getting a cold shoulder and is increasingly looking in different directions for other allies. As a security sidekick , McAfee will tie up eventually into VMware's band of brothers. Microsoft is going strong with Citrix and going for various data center strategies. I am predicting (and this is also based on talks that I have had with several friends across the industry) that Microsoft will eventually make peace with Symantec and completely absorb it in its Data Centers. That is why I supported or should I say agreed with Ashlee (for once) that it might be a great idea to tie up with or buy out totally the Rackable and have a "containarized strategy" themselves to unleash when needed. So the only thing is that Dell is in it to grab some market share from HP. Since HP is too busy increasing its employee base and going after IBM which is still enjoying its market position. Now IBM has nothing to go after...

The message from HP is that it wants to deliver more efficiently used assets. "Everything has to be saved now," says Phil Dodsworth, director of HP Datacentre Solutions. That means energy efficiency, power and cooling and lowering operating costs, he adds. "Our strategy is all about managing risk for our clients, and we manage risks through these processes. It's not a silver bullet." HP sees virtualisation as an important strand in what it wants to deliver - but that is a long way from the full story. "Every other supplier seems to imagine that virtualisation is a cure all for everything," says Dodsworth, "but some applications don't lend themselves to virtualisation at all." HP's strategy is very much cost-driven rather than technology-led. "That's what our customers have been telling us," says Dodsworth. "It's the cost of the datacentre that is crippling companies, not the strategic advantages that technolo...

While HP makes like its rival Virtual Connect management software is now at the sundae stage lacking only the sprinkles and a cherry, Egenera CTO Peter Manca says HP is “still out milking the cow” and that IBM, which invented virtualization for its mainframes, is “still calving.” Manca calls HP’s approach “disjointed” and “not integrated,” requiring manual intervention to achieve any, say, SAN failover – and then only on its blade servers, not on the many rack servers it sells.HP can’t treat physical and virtual servers as if they were the same either, Egenera says; PAN can. It’s supposed to have anywhere from a two- to four-year lead on the market. Egenera, which continues to sell and enhance its own Pan-integrated BladeFrame servers, decided to port its infrastructure virtualization magic toother people’s x86 machines late last year. But we shouldn't forget that... Dell’s deal is obviously not exclusive. PAN could still wind up on IBM and HP gear but both are closer rivals of Ege...

SANTA CLARA, CA – May 7, 2008 – Citrix® Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced the availability of Citrix XenServer™ factory integrated on Dell PowerEdge™ servers. Building on the announcement made on October 23, 2007 , Citrix and Dell Inc. have partnered to make server virtualization technology a reality for customers of all sizes. The initial products now available to Dell customers worldwide include the Citrix XenServer Dell Express Edition and Citrix XenServer Dell Enterprise Edition as part of factory-integrated solutions designed to make it even easier for customers to begin implementing their virtualization strategies. The Citrix XenServer Dell products are the only virtualization solutions to feature integrated Dell management agent technology. As a result, customers can use the same familiar Dell OpenManage System Management software on their existing Dell servers to help increase server and storage utilizati...

I'll be chatting up with Simon as well today!

“Dell is leading the transformation of storage IT to simpler, more manageable and robust environments,” said Stephen Murdoch, vice president, Global Infrastructure Consulting Services, Dell. “GlassHouse offers intellectual property and knowledgeable people that, when combined with our products and services, enhance our ability to help customers simplify their storage environments.” “Teaming with Dell through a strategic partnership allows us to continue developing our IP to better serve our customers,” said Mark Shirman, CEO of GlassHouse. “Dell is a natural partner for GlassHouse as we are both focused on service offerings in the storage, virtualization and data center markets.” More here...

And please, we don't have to play sweet anymore, its a mad-house here and lets just all act the way we think in our heads ;-) Brad Anderson, Dell senior vice president of commercial products, contends that the EqualLogic products are "complementary" to those offered jointly by Dell and EMC, but pointedly said Dell won't use any EqualLogic technology to enhance Dell's EMC product line. While the Dell/EMC partnership remains lucrative for both companies, Dell can be expected to put more emphasis on EqualLogic's product line, Forrester analyst Andrew Reichman says. "In the long term, there is the potential for some conflict and some overlap, and maybe rationalizing the product line down into fewer models," Reichman said, following a panel discussion he lead at the Dell-hosted event. "You have to figure the emphasis [for Dell] is going to be on what it owns. I t...

Check all the offerings here.

We have Dell (with its EqualLofic acquisition) becoming a strong contender in the SMB and Enterprise market. Here are all the mentioned parties: BakBone Software Inc. Citrix Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS - message board ) Data Domain Inc. (Nasdaq: DDUP - message board ) Dell Inc. (Nasdaq: DELL - message board ) EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC - message board ) Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) Hitachi Ltd. (NYSE: HIT - message board ; Paris: PHA) IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM - message board ) Isilon Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: ISLN - message board ) LSI Corp. (NYSE: LSI - message board ) Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP - message board ) Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW - message board ) XenSource Inc. Quoting B&S: No. 7: Citrix A longtime leader in the remote computing space, Citrix is faced with a head-to-head confrontation with VMware in several markets. Citrix's purchase of XenSource for $500 million this year was a step in the right direction. C...

Storage is a bright spot for Dell, which is in the midst of a turnaround after sluggish sales and profit prompted founder Michael Dell to return to the chief executive's post almost a year ago. Storage is a key part of its strategy to boost growth. Dell last month said it would spend $1.4 billion for storage company EqualLogic to beef up its lineup. "Storage is a fast-growing market segment; there is opportunity there," said Praveen Asthana, worldwide director of marketing for Dell. "It's a good area for us to focus on." Storage sales rose 8% in Dell's most recent quarter, ended Nov. 2, which was the same as Dell's overall growth. But in the previous quarter storage revenue jumped 12%, to just 4% for the company overall. Storage sales help Dell's lucrative server sales, says IDC analyst Brad Nisbet. Many corporate customers like to buy servers and storage from the same company. Investor.com is carrying the article

Both Dell and Virtual Iron have a CEO on a war-footing. That helps companies define their "next-level" strategy much faster than the ones who aren't ready for change. The news snippet: Virtual Iron Software (www.virtualiron.com), a provider of enterprise-class server virtualization and virtual infrastructure software, announced a new worldwide authorized reseller agreement with Dell Corporation. Dell will work through Virtual Iron's distribution channel and resell the software to end-users as part of an extensive portfolio of server virtualization and storage offerings. Dell servers provide an ideal platform for Virtual Iron and virtualization is a key component of Dell's scaleable enterprise strategy that aims to help customers cost-effectively scale, improve utilization and simplify IT operations. Virtual Iron simplifies enterprise server virtualization with a comprehensive solution that is easy to use and easy to afford. Many of Virtual Iron's existing cust...

Press Release: Dell has signed an agreement to acquire privately-held Everdream Corp ., a leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for remote-service management. Terms were not disclosed and the purchase will not be final until all closing conditions are met. Everdream is based in Fremont, Calif., with a second facility in Charlotte, N.C. The planned acquisition is a key component in Dell’s strategy of enabling customers to Simplify IT. Everdream’s capabilities complement those provided by the recently acquired Silverback Technologies , further enabling end-to-end remote management of customers’ IT environments. With this acquisition, Dell can now extend remote management of critical IT assets from servers, storage, printers, etc to desktops, notebooks and other end-user devices globally. “The planned Everdream acquisition is a significant step in Dell’s next-generation service offerings and provides Dell an expanded presence in the rapidly growing SaaS-enabled ...

EWeek is reporting: The acquisition, which is expected to close either by the end of 2007 or the first quarter of 2008, is also expected to strengthen the Round Rock, Texas, company's channel program after it begins incorporating EqualLogic's technology into its PowerVault storage portfolio. EqualLogic, which earlier this year announced that it would pursue an initial public offering in the wake of VMware's successful stock announcement, incorporates iSCSI storage protocol into its products. Storage remains one of the most talked about areas of IT management, and Dell is jumping into the market as more and more storage capacity is being shifted to IP SANs (storage area networks). The iSCSI SAN market is expected to grow from about $600 million in 2006 to $6 billion in the next five years, according to IDC. Link2EW

Cost? $1100 including hardware prices. Forget thin clients and blade PCs. Dell will do the virtual desktop thing in its own, less than radical way. Dell today announced a streamed desktop package that will allow customers to manage up to 100 PCs from a single server. As you might expect, Dell will rely on Citrix's Provisioning Server for Desktops software to send copies of an operating system out from the data center to PCs. By controlling PCs from the server room, Dell thinks customers can cut down on their security risks and management costs - a familiar refrain for anyone familiar with the server-based PC model. Rivals such as HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems have embraced more dramatic approaches to this sort of virtual PC. Sun, for example, has spent years hyping the thin client where you basically have a smarter than average monitor connect to a server. For its part, HP has thin clients and blade PCs. IBM has followed a similar approach but recently rolled up something kind of un...