Dell promises an open route to cloud computing

Dell's PowerEdge C6100 is designed for 'hyperscale' environments

Dell is positioning itself to be the vendor of choice for firms looking to transition their IT infrastructure to one based on virtualisation and the cloud.

The firm said that it is committed to an open solutions approach that will build on a customer's existing infrastructure, and unveiled a number of new servers, storage and services to complement this vision.

Among the new announcements is the PowerEdge C-Series of servers designed for "hyperscale" cloud deployments, a new object-based storage platform to tackle data sprawl, enhanced management tools for virtualisation, and new partnerships through which Dell aims to provide the necessary expertise and support for customers considering cloud-based services.

Dell explained that the industry is at the start of a tremendous shift in architecture enabled by virtualisation, comparable to earlier shifts such as the move from mainframe to client/server computing, or the introduction of the web.

Such a shift will allow the IT function within organisations to support users with much greater flexibility, according to James Quarles, director of public sector marketing for Dell in EMEA.

"At the core of virtualisation is intelligent self-provisioning IT, based on a charge-back model," he said.

However, customers want a supplier that can help them see where IT is headed and help them get there, he added.

Quarles contrasted Dell's approach with those of many rival enterprise vendors, which he claimed had a vested interest in protecting current computing models, but also said that Dell could help customers adapt their existing investments rather than rip and replace.

"Choice and interoperability are the words we hear coming from chief information officers," he said, claiming that Dell customers can choose blade or rack-mount servers, network infrastructure from Juniper, Brocade or Cisco, run multiple hypervisors, and keep their systems management tools.

As part of this strategy, the new PowerEdge C-Series servers are designed as building blocks for scale-out environments such as high-performance cluster computing and cloud infrastructure, according to Dell, and offer high performance with reduced energy consumption.

Quarles said that Dell is "mainstreaming hyperscale" with the launch of these track-mount systems, which are based on Intel's quad-core Xeon 5500 and six-core Xeon 5600 processors.

Available immediately, the initial models include the PowerEdge C1100, which fits two processor sockets, up to 144GB of memory and up to 10 2.5in hard drives into a 1U enclosure. The PowerEdge C6100, meanwhile, is a 2U enclosure that can hold up to four independent server nodes, each with two processor sockets and up to 96GB memory, with space for up to 24 2.5in drives inside the enclosure.

Due in the second quarter of 2010, the Dell DX Object Storage Platform is being introduced to help organisations cope with the massive growth in data. This provides a content-addressable storage system, according to Quarles, allowing customers to attach metadata to content such as video files so that they can be searched for in a single, flat address space.

Deployed as a DX6000 network appliance, the DX platform is designed to automatically manage data from creation through to deletion, managing tiered storage levels using hard disk and solid state media. It is intended to meet data management and governance needs through automated policy-based retention and deletion of data.

Dell also announced new Dell Cloud Services, including consulting, deployment and support to help customers plan for and manage their adoption of cloud computing models.

As part of this, Dell has created a Dell Cloud Partner Programme in which the company will partner with cloud software providers to deliver validated solutions for specific cloud applications.

Initially, it is available only in the US and consists of cloud blueprints for data analytics, self-service data warehousing, and an infrastructure-as-a-service capability, but Dell aims to bring in European partners to deliver similar blueprint offerings to customers later in 2010, according to Quarles.

"Customers want assurance that a cloud application will work for them, and these are Dell tested and approved solutions," Quarles said.