Virtualization.com

News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing

Dell

Nebula Appoints Dell Exec Dave Withers As SVP Of Global Field Operations

by Leave a Comment

Nebula, developer of a hardware appliance that enables enterprises to deploy large scale private cloud computing infrastructures at low cost, has announced that former Dell executive Dave Withers has joined the company’s executive team as Senior Vice President of Global Field Operations.

At Dell, Withers led the storage business in the U.S., Canada and Latin America. Withers joined Dell via the acquisition of Ocarina Networks, a storage technology vendor, where he was Vice President of Global Sales and Business Development.

Prior to Ocarina Networks, he was the Senior Director of Business Development at Isilon Systems leading up to a successful IPO and acquisition by EMC for $2.2 billion in 2010.

Dell Debuts ‘Cloud’, Based On VMware vCloud Datacenter Services

by Leave a Comment

Today at VMworld 2011, Dell and VMware jointly announced the availability of the Dell Cloud based on VMware vCloud Datacenter Services designed to provide a seamless multi-tenant environment for running virtual systems.

Dell is one of the first providers authorized to provide VMware vCloud Datacenter Services for enterprise-class, secure, public, private and hybrid clouds.

Today’s announcement is the first public and hybrid cloud offering by Dell and supports Dell’s strategy to provide customers next-generation computing solutions composed of hardware, software and services.

Dell will also offer consulting, application and infrastructure services to help companies transform their legacy IT environment and integrate these cloud services effectively in their business.

Dell and VMware will provide Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) choice for customer organizations, hosting and outsourcing firms, system integrators and service providers. The offer provides automation, multi-level security and availability in order to manage on-demand capacity, workload scalability, or as a platform to respond to changing business needs more rapidly.

Dell is currently offering the Dell Cloud with VMware vCloud Datacenter Service with beta customers. The offering will be generally available in the U.S. in the fourth calendar quarter this year with rollout planned for EMEA and APJ in 2012.

Dell To Acquires Datacenter Solutions Company Force10 Networks

by Leave a Comment

Dell this morning announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Force10 Networks, a provider of high-performance datacenter networking solutions.

Force10’s networking capabilities complement Dell’s datacenter solutions portfolio, enabling it to offer customers a broader range of enterprise offerings.

Force10 is a leader in datacenter, service provider, and enterprise networking. It is nearly a $200-million company, based on trailing 12 months revenue, with approximately 80 percent of its business in North America and operating in over 60 countries worldwide.

Force10’s Open Cloud Networking is based on open standards, automation and virtualization, and basically allows customers to transform their network infrastructures into an open, reliable and scalable datacenter and cloud computing fabric.

Much like past acquisitions of Compellent and EqualLogic, Dell says it is committed to maintaining and growing Force10’s channel program.

Force10’s customers include Web companies, Internet portals, carriers, research laboratories and government organizations.

Force10 was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in San Jose, California, with research and development operations based in Silicon Valley.

Dell says it plans to keep Force10’s existing operations in Chennai, India as it continues to invest in additional engineering and sales capability to grow this business.

The transaction was approved by the board of directors of each company. Additional terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The transaction remains subject to customary conditions and is expected to close in late summer.

Dell Introduces Storage Solutions “For The Virtual Era”

by Leave a Comment

At its Dell Storage Forum customer and partner event, Dell recently announced new solutions built on its Fluid Data Architecture to optimize cost, performance and protection as storage scales with a growing organization.

New solutions include its first unified Dell EqualLogic platform, updated Dell EqualLogic software capabilities, a Dell Compellent demonstration of 16Gbps Fibre Channel, and the introduction of Fibre Channel on its PowerVault product line.

The EqualLogic FS7500 adds scalable network-attached storage (NAS) capability to the EqualLogic product line. The EqualLogic FS7500 uses the Dell Scalable File System, a clustered file system based on Dell intellectual property. The EqualLogic FS7500 will be shipping in the third quarter of 2011.

EqualLogic software version 5.1 provides significant enhancements for iSCSI networking via Data Center Bridging (DCB) support. Additional enhancements provide improved performance via automated load-balancing and enhanced integration with VMware environments.

The EqualLogic firmware release 5.1 will be available for download from the EqualLogic support site in the third quarter of 2011. EqualLogic software is included in the cost of the array. Customers with a valid Dell ProSupport agreement can download software updates without paying additional license fees.

The PowerVault MD3600f storage arrays provide 8Gb Fibre Channel connectivity while upholding the common hardware and software features in the PowerVault MD32x0/36 x0 series of arrays. They will be available June 14, 2011.

Dell Chooses Ixia For Performance Testing On Its PowerEdge Server Line

by Leave a Comment

Ixia, a global provider of converged IP network test solutions, today announced that Dell has selected the company as one of its key partners for performance testing on its PowerEdge server line.

Dell’s PowerEdge series includes the large-scale blade servers used by service providers and enterprises for virtualized data centers, which require extensive benchmarking and testing.

Dell chose Ixia’s platform because of its ability to match the scale, performance, and flexibility necessary to test large rack servers.

Ixia’s solutions thoroughly test high-capacity virtualized data center networks and storage infrastructures by addressing key challenges, such as service availability, infrastructure elasticity and provisioning, capacity, end-to-end application and services delivery, and performance across all layers.

As enterprises migrate their data and applications to the cloud, and leverage virtualized server infrastructures, it is essential to measure application performance through all stages — on-premise physical servers, virtual machines, and eventually a fully-hosted cloud.