New Release of the Dell Ready Bundle for Red Hat OpenStack Platform
This week, we’re thinking about Red Hat, particularly as we are in Boston for the Red Hat Summit (May 2-4) and the week after for the OpenStack Summit (May 8-11). And we have some exciting news to share!
Today we are announcing the next generation of the Dell Ready Bundle for Red Hat OpenStack Platform, a complete, proven and production-grade cloud platform jointly engineered and validated by Dell and Red Hat. This release features Red Hat OpenStack Platform (OSP) 10, a massively-scalable and agile cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution based on the upstream OpenStack ‘Newton’ release.
What’s New?
This release delivers new and enhanced capabilities not only in features but also in ordering, deployment, and support capabilities, as well. Savvy readers may notice a slight change to the solution name and release numbering. Beginning now, we are aligning the solution release numbering to that of Red Hat OpenStack Platform, for greater simplicity. So what, then, is new in release 10?
Red Hat OpenStack Platform 10 and Ceph Storage 2 – First, as mentioned, this release is based on OSP 10, which enhances the Ready Bundle by delivering streamlined operations and management, increased system-wide scalability, and improved orchestration, network performance, and platform security. Also included is an upgrade to Ceph Storage 2, a massively scalable, software defined storage platform for cloud infrastructure that supports block, object, and file storage in a single open and unified platform.
Dell PowerEdge FX Converged Architecture – Based on customer demand, this release introduces support for the PowerEdge FX-series converged modular server and storage platforms, providing greater choice and flexibility for Dell’s OpenStack customers. In Release 10, we support the groundbreaking PowerEdge FX modular chassis along with the FC630 server for OpenStack compute and controller nodes, and the FC630 server with FD332 storage for massive direct attached storage capacity in easily scalable increments.
JetPack Automation Toolkit – One of the hallmarks of the Ready Bundle for Red Hat OpenStack Platform is the rapid and automated deployment experience that we have refined and optimized over the years. With this release, we are pleased to announce the availability of a powerful automation toolkit called JetPack, a single package for configuring the underlying hardware and the OpenStack software in a fully automated fashion.
JetPack includes a large set of automation scripts that are used in conjunction with Red Hat OSP Director (based on the OpenStack OOO project) and OpenStack Ironic bare metal provisioning to provide a completely automated software deployment experience, as well as an automated update and upgrade experience. So whether you choose to have Dell experts deploy your system or to do it yourself, you will have access to the same tools and validated deployment guides and the same rapid, reliable, and automated processes. We plan to make JetPack available as open source, and until this process is complete, they will be available for free to any customer of the Ready Bundle for Red Hat OpenStack Platform.
Dell OpenStack Software Ordering – As of Release 10, The Red Hat OpenStack Platform software can be ordered via OEM SKUs directly from Dell. This simplifies the ordering and procurement process by allowing the complete solution, hardware and software, to be ordered from a single source. And it makes it easier to leverage the innovative Dell OpenScale Payment Solutions, such as ‘Pay as You Grow’ or ‘Provision and Pay’.
Dell OpenStack Sizing Tool – With Release 10, we have developed a brand new OpenStack configuration and sizing tool to enable solution architects to more easily and accurately design and size an optimized solution based on each customer’s projected workloads, storage capacity, growth expectations, and other factors. This includes rack layouts and power requirements as well. This tool, designed for Dell cloud solution architects ensures that customers get the most accurate and optimized OpenStack solution that leverages the best practices, options, and scalability built into the pre-engineered Ready Bundle.
Dell Support – New ProSupport Services from Dell enable us to handle all level 1 and level 2 support calls on both the Dell hardware and the Red Hat software, including the close coordination with Red Hat support that we have always had, when the need arises. And Release 10 is a long life version of Red Hat OpenStack Platform, which means it has the option of three or even five-year support.
This is just a sample of the new features and capabilities in Release 10 of the Dell Ready Bundle for Red Hat OpenStack Platform.
What’s Better?
Several components and extensions to the solution introduced in the last release have been updated and expanded.
Red Hat CloudForms is a unified cloud management and operations platform with advanced life cycle management and hybrid cloud capabilities for OpenStack, plus other private and public cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. This release contains CloudForms 4.2, and includes support for chargeback capabilities. CloudForms includes a self-service portal and catalog, monitoring and tracking, and policy and governance control, delivering simplified and unified management for the Ready Bundle for Red Hat OpenStack Platform.
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform –The Ready Bundle supports OpenShift on OpenStack as a validated extension, providing a complete, integrated, and efficient IaaS and PaaS environment. Built on Docker and Kubernetes, OpenShift supports bare metal, virtual machine, and container deployment.
Dell provides validated deployment and configuration guides for OpenShift on OpenStack, for CloudForms with OpenStack, and a configuration guide for integrating all of them together, thereby offering a Containers as a Service (CaaS) capability.
In-place Updates and Upgrades – This feature, introduced with Release 6 and naturally supported in Release 10, enables minor updates and major full-system software upgrades to be performed with minimal-disruption. But now, it is enhanced and fully automated with the JetPack automation toolkit.
What’s Great?
Well, everything about this release is great. We’re really proud of it. But a powerful example of the speed and efficiency of the solution can be seen in the tangible results of the new JetPack automation. For example, using the JetPack automation toolkit from Dell, the OpenStack software for the Ready Bundle for Red Hat OpenStack Platform can be deployed on the Dell PowerEdge R-series servers in under half the time it takes to deploy using manual methods.* And with greater ease, reliability and consistency as well.
What’s more, with the Dell PowerEdge FX-series modular servers, now supported in Release 10, the OpenStack software can be deployed using the JetPack automation toolkit in just over an hour.*
These results and our plans for JetPack underscore our commitment not only to enhancing the speed, simplicity, and reliability of deploying and operating the system, but also to supporting the open source community.
When Can I Get This?
The Dell Ready Bundle for Red Hat OpenStack Platform will be generally available in North America in mid-May and worldwide by the end of May. For more information, you can visit Dell.com/OpenStack. For the Architecture Guide and all technical guides including deployment, operations, and best practices, you can visit the TechCenter community, which will be updated for Release 10 upon general availability. And for either sales or technical inquiries, you can always email openstack@dell.com. Easy, right?
In Boston for either the Red Hat Summit this week or for next week’s Open Stack Summit? Be sure to visit us and get an in-person view of Release 10.
*Based on Dell internal testing, April 2017.
