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Official GA of Dell with Nutanix!! – #Dell, #Nutanix, #IaaS, #Web-Scale
It’s official! Finally! đ
WEB-SCALE CONVERGED APPLIANCE
This disruptive solution integrates Dell PowerEdge servers, storage, and Nutanix software to create a scalable, simple, and easy-to-deploy, Web-scale appliance.
WHAT IS WEB-SCALE?
Web-scale is a transformative approach to buying, deploying and managing infrastructure. Pioneered by Internet companies, now available to enterprises. Benefits include:
- Predictable scale: Scale with the needs of your business, one node at a time
- Business agility: Deploy within an hour, update latest software within minutes, and shorten business processes
- Low total cost of ownership: Reduce upfront and ongoing costs by automating processes and spending less time trouble shooting
DELL XC SERIES
Meet the Dell XC Web-scale Converged Appliance – With Software by Nutanix.
FORRESTER REPORT
Forrester Research Evaluates the Web-scale Converged Appliance from Dell and Nutanix.
Read more here!
GARTNER REPORT
Why Your Legacy Storage Vendor Doesn’t Want You to Adopt Web-scale IT Infrastructure.
//Richard
Dell + Nutanix = awesome! – #Nutanix, #Dell, #EnvokeIT
Hi all,
It’s been a while since I posted something… so the blog backlog is huge right now but I’ll try to finalise all of the items I have prepared soon when time allows!
But this is a really cool thing that I think that many don’t understand the capabilities of! Dell will now provide the awesome Nutanix distributed file system on their XC series!
You all know much I already like Nutanix and the the way that it “just works”! Think about it for a while, it’s so easy just to build a platform that you can scale and manage in such a simple manner. It’s also like a match in heaven for the Hyper-V Failover cluster and VMM world with storage presented over SMB3.. so easy to setup, so simple to manage, and what a performance and scalable solution!
If you have any thoughts, questions or simply just want to learn more about Nutanix or Dell then contact us at EnvokeIT, we know how this works and can help you to simplify and modernise your IaaS service in a true web-scale way!
//Richard
#Nutanix Announces Global Agreement with #Dell
Wow! This is interesting! đ
Strategic Relationship Significantly Expands Access and Distribution of Nutanix Solutions with Dellâs World-Class Hardware, Services and Marketing to Accelerate Adoption of Web-scale Converged Infrastructure in the Enterprise
SAN JOSE, CALIF. â June 24, 2014 â Nutanix, the leading provider of next-generation datacenter infrastructure solutions, today announced it has signed an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement with Dell to offer a new family of converged infrastructure appliances based on Nutanix web-scale technology. The combination of Nutanixâs groundbreaking software running on Dellâs industry-leading servers delivers a flexible, scale-out platform that brings IT simplicity to modern datacenters. The Nutanix and Dell collaboration is designed from the ground up to deliver innovative web-scale technology to enterprises of any size. The agreement also includes joint sales, marketing, support and service investments, as well as alignment of product roadmaps.
The new Dell XC Series of Web-scale Converged Appliances will be built with Nutanix software running on Dell PowerEdge servers, and will be available in multiple variants to meet a wide range of price and performance options. The appliances will deliver high-performance converged infrastructure ideal for powering a broad spectrum of popular enterprise use cases, including virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), virtualized business applications, multi-hypervisor environments and more. Nutanixâs web-scale software runs on all popular virtualization hypervisors, including VMware vSphereâ˘, Microsoft Hyper-V⢠and open source KVM, and is uniquely able to span multiple hypervisors in the same environment. The Dell XC Series appliances are scheduled for availability in the fourth quarter of this year and will be sold by Dell sales teams and channel partners worldwide.
âNutanix is a recognized leader in the converged infrastructure market with a software-driven offering that fits with Dellâs efforts to redefine datacenter economics and simplify IT for our customers,â said Alan Atkinson, vice president and general manager, Dell Storage. âBy combining market-leading infrastructure and software technologies from both companies with Dellâs world-class go-to-market capabilities, we believe our new solutions will be positioned to be a significant player in the growing, multi-billion dollar converged infrastructure market.â
âDell is a world-class leader in servers, storage and networking, and has established itself as a valuable IT partner for many of the worldâs largest organizations,â said Dheeraj Pandey, co-founder and CEO, Nutanix. âNutanix is teaming with Dell to accelerate our global sales growth through Dellâs vast direct and channel sales networks. In Dell, we chose a company that shares our vision of disrupting traditional datacenter infrastructures with intelligent software running on x86 hardware to power all datacenter services.â Read more…
Why huge IaaS/PaaS/DaaS providers don’t use Dell and HP, and why they can do VDI cheaper than you! – via @brianmadden
Yes, why do people and organisations still think that they can build IaaS/PaaS/DaaS services within their enterprise’s and believe that they will be able to do so with the “same old architecture” and components used before? It’s not going to be comparable to the bigger players that are using newer and more scalable architectures with cheaper components.
Enterprises just don’t have that innovation power that companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon has! And if they do then most of the time they are stuck in their old way of doing things from a service delivery point of view, stopping them from thinking outside of the box though the service delivery organisation isn’t ready for it..
This is a great blog post on this from Brian, great work!!
Last month I wrote that it’s not possible for you to build VDI cheaper than a huge DaaS provider like Amazon can sell it to you. Amazon can literally sell you DaaS and make a profit all for less than it costs you to actually build and operate an equivalent VDI system on your own. (“Equivalent” is the key word there. Some have claimed they can do it cheaper, but they’re achieving that by building in-house systems with lower capabilities than what the DaaS providers offer.)
One of the reasons huge providers can build VDI cheaper than you is because they’re doing it at scale. While we all understand the economics of buying servers by the container instead of by the rack, there’s more to it than that when it comes to huge cloud provider. Their datacenters are not crammed full of HP or Dell’s latest rack mount, blade, or Moonshot servers; rather, they’re stacked floor-to-ceiling with heaps of circuit boards you’d hardly recognize as “servers” at all.
Building Amazon’s, Google’s, and Facebook’s “servers”
For most corporate datacenters, rack-mounted servers from vendors like Dell and HP make sense. They’re efficient in that they’re modular, manageable, and interchangeable. If you take the top cover off a 1U server, it looks like everything is packed in there. On the scale of a few dozen racks managed by IT pros who have a million other things on their mind, these servers work wonderfully!
VDI Smackdown: Head-to-head analysis of Citrix XenDesktop, Microsoft etc… via @rpruijt
Great work!!!! đ Continue reading!!!
by Ruben Spruijt 
Are you looking for an independent overview of desktop virtualization solutions and curious about the different strategy questions? Do you want detailed information about the features and functions each desktop virtualization vendor is offering!? If so the VDI Smackdown you definitely must read!
In the current market there is an increasing demand for unbiased information about desktop virtualization solutions. This white paper is focused on solutions that are anticipated to have an important role in desktop virtualization deployments. An overview of available features of each solution has been created to allow an understanding and comparison of capabilities.
The latest solutions included in the feature matrix are: Citrix XenDesktop 5.6FP1, Citrix VDI-in-a-Box 5.2, Dell vWorkspace 7.6, Microsoft RDVH Windows8/Server 2012 and VMware View 5.2; The English whitepaper can be downloaded here. The Japanese version will be available as soon as possible.
Empowering the end-user by giving access to Windows, Web and Mobile applications so he can access data and information systems from both private and public datacenters regardless of the device or location is the ultimate strategic objective.
The delivery of the classic (Windows) desktop interface can be divided in two segments:
- the classic desktop and laptop, running Windows, Linux or Mac OS X;
- the virtual desktop running in the datacenter or local on the classic workstation.
In essence âdesktop virtualizationâ is the de-coupling of the desktop, operating system and the applications from the underlying endpoint or device. This kind of virtualization can be subdivided into two types:
- With the first type applications are executed remotely, server hosted, and presented at the endpoint via a remote display protocol.
- With the second type applications are executed at the endpoint, client-side and presented locally.
Making Windows, Web and Mobile applications available to the end-user, regardless of the technology being used, is an important strategic objective of an advanced IT infrastructure. The Virtual Desktop (vDesktop) is an essential component in the range of Application and Desktop delivery solutions and in essence, it provides the following functions:
- Flexibility: Detach the vDesktop from the endpoint; Several vDesktops can be used next to one another
- BYO: enables delivery of applications and desktops for BYO scenarioâs;
- Access: vDesktop works independently of location, endpoint and network;
- Security: Server Hosted â VDI; data in the computing center;
- Freedom: Every user can have his own desktop with administrator privileges when needed;
- Management: Centrally managed and hardware independent;
- Legacy: It is simple to offer legacy applications on a state-of-the-art platform;
- Sustainability: Power Management, handling the necessary resources in an efficient manner
The transition to a dynamic and optimized desktop is causing many IT organizations to reevaluate traditional IT operations, deployment, delivery, packaging, support, and management methods.
Desktop virtualization is a key component in the optimized desktop. Itâs important to have a Vision and Strategy around application and desktop delivery and enterprise mobility. Designing, building, managing and maintaining the desktop virtualization…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
OpenStack vs CloudStack: The Latest Score – #CloudStack, #OpenStack
A little update below from Joe Panettieri, good reading! And thanks Oded Nahum for sharing!
And I must agree that I would not count out CloudStack! đ
OpenStack vs CloudStack: The Latest Score
OpenStack remains the largest and most active open source cloud computing project, Network World notes. But research from Chinese blogger Qingye “John” Jiangsuggests that momentum is building for CloudStack, and interest in Eucalyptus and OpenNebula remains strong. For cloud services providers (CSPs) and consultants, it’s critically important to track each of the four open source cloud platforms. Here’s why.
During Q4 2012, interest in CloudStack grew faster than rival open source cloud platforms. But Jiang’s data shows that:
- OpenStack has the largest total population, followed by Eucalyptus, CloudStack, and OpenNebula;
- OpenStack has the largest active population during the past quarter, followed by CloudStack, Eucalyptus, and OpenNebula;
- OpenStack has the largest active population during the past month, followed by CloudStack, Eucalyptus, and OpenNebula.
Partner Views
Those findings are important to CSPs and consultants that are selecting cloud platforms upon which to build services. OpenStack has been the poster child for open source cloud computing for more than a year now but the bandwagon has some challenges.
Dell, for one, says OpenStack lacks maturity and the hardware giant won’t launch its public cloud (based on OpenStack) for roughly a year. Dell also alleges that Hewlett-Packard’s own public cloud uses a “dramatically forked” version of OpenStack containing proprietary HP technology.
Still, OpenStack consulting opportunities seem to be emerging rapidly. Mirantis, for instance, has emeged as the largest OpenStack systems integrator. The company’s clientele apparently includes Cisco, Dell, GE, Agilent, NASA, HP, AT&T, The Gap, Axcient and Nexenta.
Moreover, Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) continues to see OpenStack progress. CTO John Engates recently offered his perspectives — including some OpenStack milestones — to ZDnet.
Here Comes CloudStack
Meanwhile, it has been awhile since I’ve heard from the CloudStack community. But the CloudStack chatter will likely grow very loud…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
The IT Melting Pot! 