Dell’s New Cloud Server line – An Overview

March 30, 2010

At last week’s Dell Launch, “Solutions for the Virtual Era,” we unveiled the first three systems in our new PowerEdge C line.  These “hyper-scale inspired” systems are based on designs that we have built for our largest scaled-out customers such as Windows Azure, Facebook, Ask.com and Tencent.

The PowerEdge C line is targeted at both Public and Private cloud builders as well as HPC, Web 2.0, gaming and large scaled out web farms.  In the video below, Dell solutions architect Rafael Zamora walks us through the PowerEdge C6100, C1100 and C2100.

Upcoming posts

In the days to come I will be posting individual walk-thrus of each of the three systems.  I will also be posting interviews I did with executives from our cloud partners Joyent, Aster Data, Greenplum and Eucalyptus (who’s not a partner but provides a key component of our partner Canonical’s Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud).

Extra-Credit reading

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Dell Unveils Cloud Solutions (Yippee!)

March 24, 2010

Today is the big day.  The one we’ve been working towards for a long time.  As a part of Dell’s quarterly launch “Solutions for the Virtual Era,” we are announcing the introduction of:

  • Dell Cloud Solution for Web Applications, our first Revolutionary cloud solution.  Partnering with enterprise-class cloud pioneer Joyent, we are offering a turnkey private PaaS solution comprised of pre-tested, pre-assembled and fully-supported hardware, software and services — all sold and supported by Dell.  This integrated solution is targeted at enterprise app developers who are looking to develop “new world” applications in the cloud to be deployed in the cloud.
  • The Cloud Partner Program Working with cloud ISVs we will be offering easy-to-buy and deploy cloud solutions and blueprints optimized for and validated on Dell platforms.  The first three partners we are announcing are Aster Data (providing web analytics), Canonical (offering an open source Infrastructure-as-a-Service private cloud) and Greenplum (self-service data warehousing).   (On the Evolutionary cloud side we will continue to work with VMware and Microsoft  and stay tuned for news on what’s happening on the Windows Azure front :) .
  • A new line of hyperscale-inspired PowerEdge C servers including the PowerEdge C1100, C2100 and C6100 targeting HPC, data analytics, gaming and cloud builders.  These are based on the designs we have created for the some of the worlds largest internet companies and cloud providers.
  • A suite of cloud professional services to help customers assess, deploy, design and manage dedicated solutions.

This is just a quick overview of what we are announcing today.  Stay tuned for more details and info in the coming days and weeks.

Extra credit reading: Our Cloud solutions press release

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Private Clouds: Evolutionary vs. Revolutionary

March 23, 2010

Yesterday I wrote about how IT’s portfolio of compute models will shift over the next 3-5 years.  I ended by saying that the line between virtualization and private cloud will blur and that there are two ways of getting to private cloud: Evolutionary and Revolutionary.  Intrigued?  Well then press on dear reader…

The Evolutionary Approach

The evolutionary approach starts with virtualization and is appropriate where large investments in that area have been made and when you are talking about traditional enterprise applications.   With virtualization serving as the foundation (see the graph below), additional capabilities are then layered on, such as usage-based-billing/chargeback, workload lifecycle management, dynamic resource pooling, a self-service portal for users etc.

One of the key aspects of the Evolutionary approach is that every step along the way, every capability added, brings greater efficiencies and agility.  You do not need to wait until you meet the full definition of a private cloud to derive value and you can stop anywhere along the way.

You say you want a Revolution?

The other way to get to private cloud is the Revolutionary approach.  This is appropriate for Greenfield opportunities within organizations, and is targeted at non-traditional, web 2.0 applications that are “cloud-native” (i.e. applications written in the cloud for deployment in the cloud).   These revolutionary solutions will often be delivered as an integrated, turnkey unit (see graph below).

You don’t need to choose

Rather than adopting one or the other, most organizations will use both approaches to get to private cloud.  While at this stage the evolutionary approach will be the predominate way of getting to private cloud, as more and more “new world” applications are developed in the cloud for the cloud, the balance will begin tip in favor of  the revolutionary approach.

Tune in tomorrow for a specific example of a revolutionary cloud solution (and a whole lot more :)

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

The Cloud Cometh

March 22, 2010

Whether you believe in the Cloud or not, it’s coming.  That being said it’s not a phenomenon that will fill skies of IT departments tomorrow, but rather it is starting out as another tool in IT’s bag of tricks.  As time passes, cloud computing will increasingly become a greater part of the portfolio of compute models that IT departments manage, sitting alongside Traditional computing and Virtualization.

Cloud Computing Today

If you were to graph the distribution of compute models being used today by IT departments in large enterprises, it would look something like the chart below.   Today, traditional computing and virtualization are where most of the distribution lies with a little bit of flirting with the Public Cloud in the case of SaaS applications for areas like HR, CRM, email etc.  Private cloud is presently negligible.

Over the next three to five years

Over the next three to five years the above distribution will flatten out and shift to the right and will resemble the graph below. Private cloud will represent the largest compute model utilized but it will be equally flanked by virtualization and public cloud.  You’ll notice there will still be a decent amount of resources that remain in the traditional compute bucket representing applications that are not worth the effort of rewriting or converting to a cloud platform.

Evolutionary Vs. Revolutionary

One of the things to note with this new distribution is that the lines between Virtualization and Private Cloud will start to blur (there will also be a blurring between Private and Public clouds as hybrid clouds become more of a reality in the future, but that’s another story for another time).  There are two ways to go about setting up private clouds, evolutionary and revolutionary.

Tune in tomorrow and learn more about these two approaches and how they differ.  :)

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

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