Data Center

Last week we experienced one of the most significant and exciting launches from Microsoft… the release of Windows 7! As part of the Microsoft Technology Adoption Program (TAP), Dell consultants worked with a number of customers during their testing and implementation of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

At Betfair – home of the world’s biggest betting community – robust IT is crucial. Staff at the firm process six million transactions every day; that’s more than the combined total of the European stock markets. Security and high availability are paramount, as are energy efficiency and ease of maintenance.

When the IT team replicated a standard workflow across various operating systems, they saw a 20 percent performance increase with Windows 7. This improved performance will boost staff productivity, as well as increase the time the IT team has for value-added work. New features of Windows 7, including BitLocker and AppLocker will improve security. With staff queuing for upgrades, the end-user benefits are clear. Eighty percent of Betfair’s staff in Europe will be using Windows 7 within the next month.

Ian Burgess, Head of Microsoft and Datacentre Platforms, Betfair says: “We have a list of tickets in our support system from people requesting Windows 7. It’s faster, easier to use and has lots of features that produce a more polished, seamless user experience.”

Betfair has also significantly reduced energy consumption. For example, Windows Server 2008 R2 takes advantage of the energy saving features of Dell PowerEdge servers and Intel technology. Hyper-V will also help to achieve efficiency and simplify management. Burgess says: “One of our Hyper-V clusters has four nodes with capacity to spare, whereas before there were seven nodes at full capacity. That equates to a massive energy saving across our datacentres. We’ve achieved this through the combined features of the PowerEdge R610 servers, and Windows Server 2008 R2.”

So whether your main motivation is the safety of your mission critical data, energy efficiency or the time your IT team spends managing your client estate, read on for an idea of how Dell can support you. If you're interested in more information your company's migration to the Windows 7 environment, take a look at IT Expert Voice, where best practices and news related to Windows 7 in the enterprise is discussed.

Remember Michael Dell talking at Oracle OpenWorld about Dell’s plan to reduce IT infrastructure spend by $200 billion? That doesn’t happen by making pretty PowerPoint. The team here in Round Rock has a rock-solid plan to bring Virtual-Ready Infrastructure (VRI) to life and soon.

So, what’s in it for customers … the folks actually struggling with hundreds of unique tools, scores of unique skill sets and dozens of unique processes. The ultimate goal of Dell’s VRI is to reduce customers IT spend through the use of fewer tools, fewer tasks and optimized IT delivery.

Paul Prince, Dell’s CTO, Enterprise Product Group, explains our VRI investment in the clip below.

The unified resource manager Paul mentions is a solution from Scalent Systems, a partnership we announced during VMworld this year.

It will allow you to dynamically manage your servers, storage and networking and allows one of the biggest resource savings:

• Rack once, cable once – modify workloads without touching the physical infrastructure
• Works with existing hardware
• Incorporates both physical and virtual workloads
• Doesn’t effect in-band server performance

We’re excited about what’s evolving, so please stay tuned. We’ll definitely be back to share more information on how this and the rest of VRI will come to life for you.

Jimmy Pike is the director of systems architecture for the Data Center Solutions group here at Dell and self-proclaimed “head geek.”   Using a tool case with its insides stripped out, part of an old inbox and a bunch of off the shelf components he has created the world’s first portable “data center.”   (All for the princely sum of ~$2,000)

This former toolkit now holds:

• Two dual-socket servers featuring 2.5GHz Intel processors
• One server running Windows ‘03 acting as the DHCP and domain server and the other running Red Hat linux.
• 2 x 1TB SATA drives for each of the servers
• 32GB of memory
• A single central power supply
• A 5-port Gigabit Ethernet switch
• 2 x 500GB scratch discs

and a whole bunch more…

Extra credit reading:

GigaOm – Exclusive: Dell Shows Off a Data Center — In a Briefcase!

Pau for now…

You might think that after two full days of keynotes, breakout sessions, events and meetings at Oracle OpenWorld it would be hard to excite a convention hall full of business and IT leaders, but Michael Dell had just the right formula with:

• A compelling vision - Redirect IT dollars from management and maintenance to innovation and improving the business by building an Efficient Enterprise;
• Big commitments for quantifiable results like working to take $200 billion of inefficiency out of the $1.2 trillion IT infrastructure industry spend and driving $200 million in savings for Dell's own IT;
• Impressive statistics, something almost all of us in the IT industry get into, of the power of the Dell and Oracle partnership and Dell's leadership and track record in providing solutions;
• Cool products, including:
  • Dell's 11th generation of PowerEdge servers were onstage and Michael highlighted the enhancements in these new servers to simplify deployment, enhance performance, reduce complexity and lower power and cooling requirements;
  • He also discussed more innovation to come next year with new PowerEdge servers based on Intel Nehalem EX architecture; and,
  • Talked about continued enhancements to the EqualLogic storage products, like SSD (launched this year) and 10Gbps Ethernet (coming soon) that will drive efficiency and performance for storage.
• A blueprint to make this vision a reality including:
  • Standardization on open standard solutions built on x86-based servers;
  • Simplification by starting with the applications and taking the complexity out of the way they are supported and managed, and by using Virtualization and Storage Consolidation;
  • Automation by streamlining Services delivery and enabling self-service IT models where critical business services can be deployed through the cloud.
• Dell's own plan - Robin Johnson, CIO of Dell, shared how he is driving inefficiency out of the Dell IT machine
• Having fun - Everyone was excited by Larry Ellison's surprise appearance and from the return of the Tech Force alliance!

Hopefully you are as excited as we are about building the Efficient Enterprise, and if you’re here this week, be sure to come see us in the booth. 

You can follow us on Twitter @dellatORACLEwld and check out my earlier post on Direct2Dell with details of all our activities.

Oracle OpenWorld is in full swing and things are exciting here in San Francisco. If you’re here, be sure to stop by the booth and say hi, see a demo, listen in on a presentation, enter to win one of the new Dell Latitude Z portable notebooks and catch one of the many breakout sessions with Dell. Also be sure not to miss Michael Dell’s keynote Tuesday, October 13 at 8:30 AM in Moscone North, Hall D.

One of our focuses at Dell is to help people plan for an Oracle deployment. If you fall into that camp, here are a few items for you to consider:

• Is the solution scalable and based on industry-standard application and technology solutions?
• Can you get the complete stack of products and solutions, applications and hardware to help you address your pain points and focus on meeting your goals?
• Are you simplifying IT at the least possible acquisition cost?
• Can you count on highly trained Oracle Sales Specialists to guide you on what products and solutions would best fit your requirements?
• Are value-add services available to enhance your productivity and promote IT simplicity through the design and implementation of Oracle solutions comprised of standards-based x86 architecture?
• Do you have everything you need for systems integration such as pre-engineered, tested, and validated Intel-based Oracle database solutions on Red Hat/Oracle Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows Server to ensure compatibility and reduce pre-implementation testing with entire tested solution stacks: servers, storage, switches, operating systems, and Oracle Database software?
• Can you get sizing tools to help you size your projects and provide guidelines for the required infrastructure?
• Are finance options available to help you close the gap between your technology needs and cash flow?

If you need assistance, Dell can provide all these things. Dell and Oracle are committed to each other’s technologies and here are some great examples of this commitment.

• http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/casestudies/2006_HowDellDoesIT.pdf
• http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/casestudies/2006_eheim.pdf
• http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/casestudies/2004_dell_oracle.pdf

You can find out more, like Dell’s Solution sizing, validations and reference architectures, here as well: www.dell.com/oracle

We provide total solutions in terms of the entire stack all tested, and validated, Hardware, Storage, Networking, OS Support, Power & Cooling, Oracle Software, Services, Finance and finally Purchase Consolidation. This is The Difference at Dell. This is why our customers choose Dell / Oracle.

We hope you’ll get to know the Dell and Oracle experience this week. Follow us on Twitter @dellatORACLEwld, check out my earlier post on Direct2Dell with details of our activities and check back here and the Dell TechCenter to stay up to date on all that we’re doing with Oracle.