Dell EMC Advances Hybrid Cloud and Modern Data Center Operations for VMware Environments

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Dell EMC VxRail enhanced as an integrated cloud platform with support for VMware Cloud Foundation and fully automated network configuration with Dell EMC Networking SmartFabric Services
• Dell EMC VxBlock 1000 joins the Dell EMC Cloud Marketplace with new automation software and integration with VMware vRealize Suite, revolutionizing converged infrastructure (CI) operations by enabling administrators to expand resources in minutes versus hours
• New 25GbE top-of-rack switches added to Dell EMC’s open networking offerings to help customers meet increasing network demands and migrate to a software-defined data center
• Expanded range of VMware-based cloud platform and cloud consumption options now available within Dell EMC Cloud Marketplace

Dell EMC, the number-one provider of cloud infrastructurei , announces key portfolio enhancements and integrations with VMware designed to help customers further automate operations of their modern data center and hybrid cloud environments. These new capabilities allow businesses to accelerate innovation, simplify operations and speed overall IT Transformation initiatives.

Dell EMC VxRail simplifies networking, management and access to latest VMware innovations 

Organizations globally are choosing highly automated, scale-out VxRail HCI appliances, powered by VMware vSAN to support their digital transformation objectives and need to scale operations rapidly and efficiently. Applications and data are increasingly distributed across edge locations, core data centers, and hybrid cloud environments. Customers turn to Dell Technologies as a trusted partner to provide a seamless, simplified experience through a jointly engineered digital foundation between Dell EMC VxRail and VMware. Through this collaboration and co-engineering, VxRail is becoming even simpler to adopt, deploy and manage. 

New advances to Dell EMC VxRail include:

• Simpler networking deployments with the first HCI appliances to integrate fully automated network awareness and configuration during set up, cluster expansion, and day-to-day management with Dell EMC SmartFabric Servicesii . To deploy VxRail at any scale more rapidly, SmartFabric Services, as part of Dell EMC Networking OS10 Enterprise Edition network operating system, automates up to 98% of the network configuration steps for VxRail hyper-converged environments through integration with VxRail Manager and VMware vSphere. SmartFabric Services also enable customers to quickly deploy and automate data center networking fabrics while being fully interoperable with existing data center infrastructure.
• More automation for the entire VMware cloud stack, along with networking, to more quickly deploy and manage hybrid cloud environments with VxRail clusters. The only VMware jointly engineered HCI appliance with VMware Cloud Foundation, coming soon, VxRail offers an integrated cloud platform that delivers an even simpler path to the VMware SDDC and hybrid cloud strategy that is future-proofed for next generation VMware Cloud technologies. It allows extensibility to public cloud providers, such as VMware Cloud on AWS, and hybrid cloud container services such as Pivotal.
• Transparent systems management with all VxRail tasks available to be managed directly from the familiar VMware vCenter Server console, making it even easier to move to and manage VxRail from the primary management platform for VMware environments.
• Greater flexibility by supporting a two-node VxRail cluster, instead of the previously required three. This makes VxRail more accessible at the edge for larger organizations, such as retailers with limited requirements at remote locations. Additionally, new, flexible vSAN licensing further enables customers to choose their desired level of HCI software functionality and investment.
• Tighter integration with next-generation VMware Cloud technology with VxRail now available on the latest vSAN release (version 6.7U1), support for VMware Validated Design for SDDC 4.3 and planned Project Dimension integration for data center, edge, and hybrid-cloud use cases. Project Dimension will combine VMware’s compute, storage and networking solutions with VxRail, managed as a Service by VMware. Additionally, customers can now also use VxRail with VMware Site Recovery for push-button failover to VMware Cloud on AWS for disaster recovery.

New Dell EMC VxBlock Central simplifies CI operations with enhanced awareness, automation and analytics 

Enterprises worldwide modernize their data centers and run their VMware-based clouds using Dell EMC VxBlock Systems—turnkey CI systems that bring together compute, storage, networking and VMware vSphere virtualization. Continuing this long history of CI innovation, demonstrated with the introduction of the VxBlock System 1000, new Dell EMC VxBlock Central software provides converged awareness, automation and analytics to simplify daily CI administration. VxBlock Central includes a single unified user interface for accessing VxBlock System information in real time. It includes an integrated launch point to VMware vRealize Orchestrator for automating daily operational tasks and a launch point to vRealize Operations to provide detailed analytics and an easy way to manage VxBlock storage capacity