Earlier this year we introduced Dell Technologies Cloud, a set of hybrid cloud solutions. Since the launch at Dell Technologies World 2019, our customers have embraced the vision of a consistent hybrid cloud to improve their cloud experience. By combining the power of VMware Cloud Foundation and Dell infrastructure, they are removing operational complexity with consistent infrastructure and operations across public clouds, private clouds, and edge locations—bringing the benefits of automation, scalability, and agility to their workloads.
Today, we’re continuing to drive innovation with Dell Technologies Cloud Validated Designs, which brings cloud to a broader set of workloads that require independent scaling of storage and compute. This new option to consume Dell Technologies Cloud provides deployment guidance for pre-tested Dell storage, compute and networking infrastructure that’s been validated with VMware Cloud Foundation.
With more solutions coming soon, Validated Designs are now available for Dell Unity XT and PowerMax storage arrays, and PowerEdge MX servers—which have been the backbone of most companies’ high-value workloads for the better part of the last three decades.
Bringing a cloud operation model to enterprise storage
Continuing a history of collaboration with VMware, Dell is in the process of validating Fibre Channel (FC) data storage solutions as primary storage for VMware Cloud Foundation workload domains. With FC support coming in October 2019, both the versatile mid-range storage system, Unity XT, and enterprise-class, PowerMax, will support Network File System (NFS) and FC storage classes as primary and supplemental storage for workload domains. This gives customers more deployment choices for workloads that have unique external storage-intensive requirements such as independent capacity.
By taking advantage of VMware’s deployment tools, they can drive operational efficiency and rapidly stand up new hybrid cloud environments with attached external storage. In addition, they can also leverage unique enterprise data services such as inline data reduction capabilities, synchronous replication, and more. And for customers with existing Dell storage investments, this delivers investment protection and allows them to easily attach existing data sets to hybrid cloud environments.
Rapid resource allocation with a kinetic hybrid cloud foundation
Dell PowerEdge MX, along with the onboard management, OpenManage Enterprise – Modular Edition, now supports interoperability with VMware Cloud Foundation based on DMTF Redfish standards. IT administrators can now manage and scale resources dynamically as needed to meet demanding workload requirements. Instead of manually allocating resources, they can now rapidly provision storage, and assign workloads to individual drives across a large network of grouped and connected chassis.
Expanded cloud-enabled infrastructure support
Customers can also expand their cloud-enabled infrastructure by deploying Dell Unity Cloud Edition and the Unity Cloud Tiering Appliances directly from VMware’s new Cloud Market Place. Dell Unity Cloud Edition provides both Block and File capabilities—and can be combined with Unity Cloud Tiering to deliver file tiering to Amazon S3 buckets for both longer term retention and better cost management.
Unlocking value and competitive advantages
With Dell Technologies Cloud, customers have more choice to build a consistent hybrid cloud environment for their infrastructure. Using Validated Designs, they can now support new and legacy workloads that have infrastructure-intensive requirements in the most efficient way possible with independent scaling of storage and compute.
To find out more about Dell Technologies Cloud and Validated Designs, visit our website or download the Validated Designs Solution Brief, the Dell Storage with VMware Cloud Foundation White Paper, or the Cloud-Enabled Infrastructure Solution Brief.
