Dell intros Blade arrays, converged infrastructure

BOSTON, USA: Dell announced converged infrastructure offering across storage, servers, networking and IT management for data centres.

Dell's new Converged Blade Data Center solution combines Dell EqualLogic Blade Arrays, 12th generation Dell PowerEdge blade servers, and Dell Force10 MXL blade switching. These latest offerings advance the Dell Fluid Data architecture.

The company made this announcement at its second annual US Dell Storage Forum customer and partner event.

"Dell is redrawing the lines among servers, storage, networking and management to offer customers technology convergence that provides simplicity and improved performance while reducing the operational costs associated with running today's data centers," said Brad Anderson, president of Enterprise Solutions Group at Dell. "Our holistic approach helps customers cost-effectively manage the physical, virtual and cloud environments that deliver flexible IT services to support their business goals."

Dell EqualLogic PS-M4110 Blade Arrays provide functionality and features of traditional EqualLogic arrays inside a Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade chassis.

The new blade arrays combine with Dell 11th or 12th generation PowerEdge blade servers and Dell Force10 or PowerConnect networking switches.

Dell's first storage blade arrays, like all EqualLogic solutions, are virtualized, and provide automated load balancing.

Multiple EqualLogic Blade Arrays can be configured in less than an hour with a fraction of the set-up time required by other available blade storage solutions.

Users can also benefit from:

Four different EqualLogic PS-M4110 Blade Array configurations and the ability to store up to 14 terabytes of data per array, up to 28 terabytes per group inside a blade chassis, and up to 56 terabytes with two groups inside one blade chassis.

Peer-scaling architecture that allows for simultaneous scalability of performance and capacity within and outside the blade chassis.

Ability to scale outside the chassis to more than two petabytes of storage in a single group and provide approximately double the usable capacity of a competitive solution inside the chassis.

EqualLogic set-up and deployment capabilities closely integrated with the blade chassis management console

Flexibility with blade arrays that fit into any slot within the blade chassis

Centralized monitoring and reporting tools that gather and provide in-depth information on performance, capacity and alerts across multiple groups of arrays, enabling improved performance and effective allocation of group resources

Data protection, such as snapshots, clones and replicas, and advanced integration with Microsoft, VMware and Linux platforms wrapped into every solution

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Support for multi-generational EqualLogic systems, allowing existing SAN arrays to receive continuous advancements and capabilities as storage and business requirements grow.

Dell also announced the first pre-tested and certified Dell Converged Blade Data Center solution, a 10GbE data centre contained within a single Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade chassis.

With the convergence of Dell technologies, customers can support up to 48 percent more Microsoft SQL, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint users and up to 42 more users per watt of power compared to a competitive blade server and storage offering, claims the company in a release.

With the new Dell Converged Blade Data Center solution, customers can also benefit from:

A compact, shared footprint that reduces the need for excessive licenses, space, cable configuration and power and cooling costs

Flexible Dell Force10 MXL networking switches, scalable for 1GbE, 10GbE or 40GbE using interchangeable FlexIO modules

PowerEdge M420, a quarter height two-socket blade server.

10GbE Data Center Bridging (DCB) that enables fabric convergence.

An integrated approach to infrastructure management that allows administrators to manage the underlying Dell server and storage hardware from VMware or Microsoft management consoles.

The new EqualLogic Blade Arrays and Dell Converged Blade Data Center solution are complemented by new releases of EqualLogic software that tightly integrate SANs with hosts and applications.

With an all-inclusive software licensing model, EqualLogic storage systems include all supporting software applications and tools without additional licensing fees. New software releases include:

EqualLogic Array Software 6.0 - provides real-time data protection with synchronous replication, improved data security, and increased efficiency with snapshot borrowing, volume unmap, and volume undelete features

EqualLogic SAN Headquarters 2.5 - monitoring and analysis tool introduces the Dell Integrated Support feature for automatic diagnostic data collection and transmission to Dell for improved customer experience

EqualLogic Host Integration Tools for Microsoft 4.5 - offers enhanced reliability and availability for Microsoft SharePoint deployments with new Auto-Snapshot Manager for Microsoft SharePoint.

New Dell vStart 1000 for Dell Private Cloud Speeds Application and IT Service Delivery

Dell vStart systems include the servers, storage, networking and management tools.

With Dell's latest vStart 1000 for Dell Private Cloud, Dell can provide a pre-integrated, virtualization and private cloud infrastructure.

The vStart 1000 for Dell Private Cloud includes the first Dell Compellent storage and Dell Force10 networking-based vStart solution.

The new vStart systems include Dell's VIS Creator cloud automation software. Dell vStart 1000 also is Microsoft Fast Track Private Cloud validated with Microsoft System Center 2012.

By leveraging the new PowerEdge M620, Dell Force10 networking and Compellent fibre channel storage, vStart 1000 provides an application and private cloud platform.

New Migration Planning and Data Migration Services Ease Move to Dell Storage

Dell Global Services also announced new Data Migration Planning and Data Migration Services to assist customers with an easy transition to the new EqualLogic blade array as well as Dell's broad storage portfolio.

This set of services, available worldwide, enables Dell to uniquely address a broad range of data migration opportunities from small projects to large, complex custom engagements.

The EqualLogic PS-M4110 Blade Arrays, Dell Converged Blade Center solution, EqualLogic Array Software 6.0 and SAN Headquarters 2.5 will become available in Dell's third quarter..

EqualLogic Host Integration Tools for Microsoft 4.5 is planned for availability this year.

Dell vStart 1000 will be available in the US in July and worldwide this year.

Dell Data Migration Planning and Data Migration Services are available worldwide.