Dell today announced new enterprise technology to help customers architect new data centers and modernize campus networks, while meeting increasing IT performance and network access demands. The new solutions include the highest-performing Dell EqualLogic storage solutions to date and higher-speed wireless and simplified campus networking switches. The new products announced today help customers architect and build future-ready data centers which address customer expectations for instant access to information no matter if they are in the office or working remotely.
New Dell EqualLogic releases include the PS6210 storage arrays, which extend Dell’s ability to deliver flash at the price of disk solutions for customers seeking both faster performance and higher cost efficiency for their data-intensive virtual environments. The new suite of Dell Networking campus solutions enables customers to rapidly deploy and scale campus networks and maximize efficiency with visibility into the network environment from a single console. The networking solutions also secure the devices and information at the network edge, leverage existing investments, and can reduce capital expenses by more than 50 percent.
Dell also unveiled new systems management capabilities for Dell Open Manage, including intelligent auto-configuration of servers, which are infrastructure-aware, to further simplify IT management tasks, deliver optimal workload and server performance, and to provide additional time and cost-savings to customers.
“Dell continues to be an increasingly important partner for enterprises of all sizes as we deliver innovative products to help customers solve problems in new ways,” said Marius Haas, chief commercial officer and president, Dell Enterprise Solutions. “Today’s announcements further redefine data center economics with technology that provides unsurpassed product functionality and lower total cost of ownership to power modern workloads through storage and networking innovation. Dell’s approach offers intelligent solutions that prepare customers with a future-ready data center built on a scalable architecture to support their data center growth.”
The new generation of industry-leading Dell EqualLogic storage technologies allows customers to scale from small environments to large data centers while addressing their needs for enterprise-class storage that is easy to manage and optimized for highly-virtualized environments. The simplicity and virtualization support designed into EqualLogic has helped the company remain the overall market leader of iSCSI-based storage for more than the past five years, according to IDC.6 Dell storage customers can benefit from offerings announced today that seamlessly integrate into existing environments without requiring downtime or a storage overhaul:
- Dell EqualLogic PS6210 Series arrays
- Dell EqualLogic Array Software 7.0
- Dell EqualLogic SAN Headquarters 3.0 Dell Fluid File System (FluidFS) v3 on EqualLogic FS7610/7600
Just as network architectures in the data center are transforming to accommodate new workloads, applications and delivery models, so too are campus network architectures. Rising end-user expectations for a rich multimedia experience, increased mobility, bring-your-own-device (BYOD), and access to cloud services are often incompatible with previous-generation campus network architectures.
Most current campus network designs were never intended to provide today’s needs for “everywhere” wireless access. As Bob Laliberte, Senior Analyst for Enterprise Strategy Group, notes, ESG research indicates that the majority of respondents (60 percent) from a recent campus network survey were actively moving to a 10GbE core campus network to meet these new demands.
Dell W-Series Gigabit Wireless Access Points deliver unprecedented data rates up to 1.3 Gigabits per second (Gbps) for end-to-end wireless infrastructure solutions utilizing the 802.11ac standard. Unlike other solutions that require an add-on module, these new access points were designed to simplify .ac wireless implementations.
Many customer campus networks still employ 10/100Mbps speeds at the edge and 1GbE in the core. The Dell Networking N-Series is a family of energy efficient, cost-effective 1 GbE and 10 GbE switches designed for modernizing and scaling campus network infrastructures with a comprehensive enterprise-class feature set.
The Dell Networking C-Series delivers a robust, highly-available foundation with a versatile, high performance modular switches for demanding enterprise and end-user environments. The Dell Networking C-Series are modular, fully-redundant 1/10/40GbE switches designed with flexible connectivity, dependable operation and proven software for enterprises, mid-market, and data center environments. Customers can achieve high-performance aggregation and back-end infrastructure for end-user mobility, reducing bottlenecks and congestion with high-density 10GbE and 40GbE operation.
IT is under constant pressure to optimize infrastructure for the workloads that matter most to the business, monitor and manage the full stack of hardware within their environment, decrease deployment time and simplify operational tasks.
With enhancements to Dell’s industry-acclaimed agent-free embedded server management technology, iDRAC with Lifecycle Controller, customers can now automate server deployments and configurations for optimal workload performance and availability. The new automation features simplify systems management operations for environments of any scale – from one server to thousands – allowing administrators to decrease time from setup to production by more than 90 percent.
“Dell continues to pioneer new storage economics in response to customer needs to address the massive growth of performance-hungry applications while seeking affordable storage to support the rise of unstructured data, such as audio, video and digital images,” said Alan Atkinson, vice president and general manager, Dell Storage. “Today’s releases provide unparalleled EqualLogic performance for block and file storage with our trademark ease of use that allows customers to devote less of their resources on IT administration and more on developing new services to help achieve their business objectives.”
“As a Dell EqualLogic customer for several years, we have leveraged the technology to give our firm a distinct advantage over our competitors,” said Rich Raether, director of Security and Network Services for Milwaukee-based Quarles & Brady. “We initially partnered with Dell to help reduce the complexity of our SAN environment, but EqualLogic filled many of our other needs including disaster recovery with offsite replication and elimination of backup tapes with SAN based snapshots. As we transition to 10GbE platforms, we are looking forward to new enhancements on the PS6210 and FS7610, including increased speed and capacity savings with compression and data deduplication. These features will make it easier for our engineers to deliver better services to our attorneys and make them more productive in servicing our clients.”
“Dell Networking is driving innovation from the data center to the mobile device to meet the demands of today’s dynamic and changing network environment,” said Tom Burns, vice president and general manager, Dell Networking. “In the last 18 months, we’ve completely refreshed our entire portfolio with the latest industry-leading silicon and advanced software features to provide future-ready, end-to-end solutions for our customers.”
“We are modernizing our network with the new Dell Networking N-Series that provides consistent L2/L3 solution to manage our network peripheral sprawl in the workplace, saving space and operational expenses with an easily managed end-of-row solution,” said Jonathan LaChance, Global Network and Telecom Manager, National Instruments.
