Increasing pressure to shift IT to a competitive advantage is driving many companies to modernize their data centers with software-defined solutions, including hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI). IT must support new and dynamic workloads, often with limited resources. Do more with less. It’s the mantra of our world, it seems. And, IT administrators must play many roles for a multitude of constituents within their company. For the C-suite, IT is required to do much more than simply support the company’s day-to-day business operations; it’s imperative they enable faster, more efficient business outcomes with a goal of enabling competitive advantages in today’s digital economy. For the office workers, IT must provide troubleshooting and support. For R&D, IT is required to play yet another role by enabling dev ops or even advanced modeling. We expect IT administrators to be our everyday superheroes, our avengers in action. To accomplish this feat, they need the best tools, the right skills, and a trusted team, Dell and VMware. Oh, an epic costume doesn’t hurt, either!
My recommended superhero toolset
Dell and VMware can help IT administrators suit up, simplifying IT with Dell PowerEdge, the world’s #1 server[1], and industry-leading server and storage virtualization.[2,3] Design your software-defined data center (SDDC) based on your needs, with flexibility to build from the ground-up with PowerEdge servers, or leverage HCI building blocks such as Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, which are PowerEdge servers that have been pre-configured, tested and jointly certified to run VMware vSAN™, a radically simple software-defined storage (SDS) solution for HCI. vSAN is a core building block for SDDC, and it powers leading HCI solutions with a VMware vSphere®-native, high-performance architecture.
Dell offers one of the broadest vSAN Ready Node portfolios in the market, with over 100 certified ready node configurations available, spanning options such as all-flash, rugged, hybrid rack and kinetic infrastructure models.[4] One unique, super feature in select Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is the Identity Module, which enables the node to self-identify upon boot-up as a Dell vSAN Ready Node, streamlining deployment, updates, inventory management, and support.
Superhero skills
There are a lot of superheroes in IT, ranging from server admins to storage admins to IT generalists and more. Dell understands the requirement to manage hardware and software in a more seamless manner, which is why we aim to help IT staff bridge the physical and virtual gap by automating and consolidating key PowerEdge server management tasks within the VMware vCenter® console with OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter (OMIVV) 4.3. OMIVV is a proprietary Dell plug-in for vCenter that dramatically reduces complexity, speeds deployment and minimizes risk in IT operations. Manage up to 10 vCenters and 1,000 servers using a single OMIVV plug-in. The following video shows how you can create and save ESXi deployment profiles with just a few clicks in OMIVV and apply it effortlessly to achieve 130% faster deployment with 97% less administrator time required.[5]
Superhero sidekicks
Team up with Dell and VMware as your superhero sidekicks, and get up to 66% faster deployment with Dell ProDeploy Services[6] which includes software installation and configuration of the operating system, firmware and VMware hypervisors. Dell has over 1,800 VMware-certified support professionals, offering IT a single point of contact for hardware and software support. And, Dell vSAN Ready Nodes with Identity Modules further streamline support as the Dell ProSupport team will know the server is a vSAN Ready Node once they are provided the service tag. Everyone will marvel at how quickly IT resolved the issue!
Being in IT at large and small organizations alike is challenging, but thousands of people around the world do it every day. Trust Dell and VMware to help you conquer your biggest IT modernization and SDDC obstacles with the right hardware and software to maximize your superhero skills and obtain legendary status!
Learn more at dell.com/vsanreadynodes.
[1] IDC WW Quarterly x86 Server Tracker, 2018Q4, March 6, 2019 – Units and Vendor Revenue.
[2] Based on internal VMware data regarding hypervisor market share.
[3] Most deployed HCI software solution by cloud providers, per VMware vSAN 6.7 datasheet.
[4] Based on Dell review of complete vSAN Ready Node offering across all OEMs listed on VMware vSAN Compatibility Guide on February 1, 2019.
[5] Based on Dell internal competitive testing of PowerEdge and OMIVV versus Cisco UCS manual OS deployment.
[6] Principled Technologies report commissioned by Dell, “Bring new systems to production readiness faster and with less effort from in-house administrators,” November 2017.