Products & Services

I was working with our virtualization guru the other day and we were talking about the biggest opportunities for channel partners. Learning what the direct side of our business is doing allows me to share best practices to our channel partners. So where does the virtualization guru see channel opportunities? Here are the notes:

Cost management: The simplest idea is to use virtualization as a way to get more with what your customers already have – large or small. Virtualizing 20 servers to operate like 400 makes you a rock star with your customer. Virtualization-optimized servers, tested & validated configs, and a choice of hypervisors from Dell fits great with your deployment, management, and/or rehosting services. You can help your customers save real money.

Improving IT efficiency: Your customers with more complex IT environments might be looking for greater efficiency to accelerate deployment or provisioning, or simply to run things more effectively. Here you start with cost management components from Dell – virtualization-optimized servers, software suites (i.e. VI3 or XenServer Enterprise), and virtualized shared storage (SAN, iSCSI, DAS-enabled). (EqualLogic is a really strong play here.) Then you add your services, such as assessment, design, and deployment services for server or legacy re-hosting, virtual machine migration, and storage consolidation.

Protecting & automating the enterprise: More sophisticated customers want to increase the quality and reliability of their IT service: business continuance in event of disaster and reducing business risk. Here you’re talking about services and products for disaster recovery, high availability, planned downtime, data replication, and things like VMWare Site Recovery Manager. Your lifecycle management and disaster recovery services offer a great opportunity.

As always, I’m more interested in the experience of our channel partners, so if you have some virtualization stories or questions that you would like to share, I would be glad to hear and answer them. I’d like to know if I missed any opportunities you see for virtualization in either larger enterprises or smaller organizations.

There’s a ton of talk these days about Green IT and products that support this initiative. When Dell markets its M Series Server as using 19% less energy than its predecessor, I fully expect an industry challenge.

Check out the results presented by InfoWorld regarding their lab tests and how the M series favored. They concluded that, “the Dell M-Series blade server should be able to save you bucks on your energy bill. It will also save your hearing since with all those remote control features, you'll make fewer trips into the server room.”

For a community focused on blades, check out the TechCenter wiki.

Our Inside IT Group Blog featured an interesting video on EqualLogic a few weeks ago that I find both valuable and educational. Watch the video by clicking here.

For a more inclusive, non-Dell perspective, check out eWeek’s article posted back in February regarding Dell’s first product launch after the acquisition of EqualLogic. Let us know what you think of the video and feel free to post comments below for the EqualLogic team.

Can this be right? After more than a year of dodging the EOL bullet, Microsoft Windows XP finds itself square in the iron sights of its long and harshly debated successor, Vista. The curtain has fallen, and the credits are rolling, but how does the crowd feel about the show? Or better yet, what do they think of the sequel?

It’s been a good run for XP, who’s been touted as the longest shipping (2001-2008) and most widely accepted operating system Microsoft has put out to date. It’s also, as far as I can remember, the only OS that’s actually created a public outcry, endorsing its temporary pardon from joining the inevitable resting place of Windows 95, 98, 2000, etc… But as they say, all good things must come to an end, and it’s an end that XP has finally found.

With rumors of Windows 7 visible, but not quite distinguishable, on the horizon; Vistas victory over XP may be short lived, although you’ll have to stay tuned for more on that one. In the mean time, is there an option for those business users who aren’t quite ready to say goodbye to XP? Yes, two actually. The first is basically a “loophole” in the Microsoft licensing agreement that allows for downgrade rights. The short version is that Dell can sell what we’ve branded “Windows Vista Bonus” which allows us to preinstall XP Professional with a Vista license (on select system categories). This lets customer’s upgrade to the Vista platform when they’re ready. And yes, Dell will support both OSs. You’ll find more on the subject here.

The second option, which is the good news for the channel, is that if you utilize our CFI process for your customers, nothing changes. XP will still be available as an image to roll out on new systems.

Microsoft is scheduled to transition XP to EOL status on June 30^th, 2008. The last day to order a system pre-installed with XP from Dell will be today, June 26, 2008, in order to allow for building and assembly of the system and stay in accordance with Microsoft’s licensing policies.