Inside Enterprise IT

AMD + Dell = Dell's ultra powerful mobile workstation

AMD-Janet M — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Note from Lionel: Like I mentioned yesterday, graphics performance is one of the most important aspects of mobile workstations. Here's the second post focused on graphics... this one coming from AMD's Janet Matsuda, who is the senior director of their Professional Graphics team. Here's her post:

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We sure are greedy when it comes to new technology! We expect more performance, longer battery life, faster frame-rates, more colors, unwavering dependability, smaller form factors and the

biggest bang for our buck. Just to name a few. This is especially true for professionals who not only want all of these things, but depend on them for their livelihood. There's no room for less-than-great computers when you're working in medical imaging, designing the world's largest airplane, or creating the next animated blockbuster film. And in today's ever-changing work environment, we need mobility and flexibility from our systems so we're able to take our work beyond

the office at the drop of a hat. Bottom line: Professionals want the world's best performing technology at their finger tips 24-hours a day, whether in the office or on the road.

With a clear understanding of the professionals' needs in mind, AMD has collaborated with Dell to offer a powerful GFX solution for the world's most powerful mobile workstation, the Dell Precision M6500 featuring the ATI FirePro M7740 graphics accelerator with 1GB of dedicated memory. Enabling the performance and power previously reserved for desktop workstations to be accessible in a mobile footprint, the Dell Precision M6500 mobile workstation delivers the brilliant color representation, raw power and massive scalability that professionals need to maximize productivity and creativity on the go.

But while portability is important, as a professional I also know that reliability is a necessity. Working on a system you can't trust inhibits productivity-especially when working with huge and demanding data sets. Professionals like us expect their systems to run flawlessly every day, every time. With our ATI FirePro M7740 graphics accelerator and the Dell Precision M6500, you can rest assured that you have more than just a great performing machine, you are also backed by a system that is certified for many of the applications you use every day, creating a highly reliable and real-time interactive work environment.

AMD and Dell are known for bringing first-class hardware to market and the Dell Precision M6500 is no exception. Compatibility, flexibility and optimized performance is what ATI FirePro mobile graphics technology is all about, making it the perfect complement to the Dell Precision M6500 mobile workstation, and providing professionals like you with the necessary tools to complete projects quickly and painlessly wherever you may be. Go forth and create!

Professional Freedom means the Dell Precision M6500 with Quadro FX Professional Graphics

NVIDIA-Shawn W — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Note from Lionel: Since professional graphics performance is a requirement in the mobile workstation space for a product like the M6500 that I blogged about yesterday, I thought it made sense to invite our graphics partners to share more details. First up is a post from NVIDIA's Shawn Worsell, who is the senior product manager in their Professional Systems Group.

With that, here's Shawn's post:

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Who knows when you will have your next great idea, and where you will be? So having a powerful computer with you gives you the freedom to be creative, wherever you are.

That's true professional freedom.

Freedom from the age-old constraints of being tethered to your desk with traditional workstations because, "mobile workstations just can't cut it." Freedom to work wherever and whenever you need to without sacrificing performance. This is the kind of professional freedom that can be realized with the latest breed of mobile workstations.

From the seismic visualization specialist looking for promising new oil deposits off the coast of New Zealand, to the wedding videographer creating an HD video for the newlyweds before they leave on their honeymoon, mobile workstations are the tools that more and more professionals use to get their jobs done.

The new Dell Precision M6500 mobile workstation is built with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M high-performance mobile workstation graphics solution, and features 1GB dedicated graphics memory for manipulation of large data sets. It offers freedom to all kinds of professionals-like geo-scientists working on oil rigs, as well as radiologists who can transfer images from CT scanners immediately to the comfort of their patients' rooms for diagnostic 3D visualization. The possibilities are endless. Feel free to let your mind and your mobile workstation wander.

With NVIDIA Quadro solutions that are "Built for Professionals," the Dell Precision M6500 makes it easy for pros to experience freedom when using the industry's leading professional CAD and DCC applications, like Autodesk, Inventor, and Dassault Systemes CATIA software; or Adobe Creative Suite 4 software with GPU-accelerated capabilities for more efficient rendering.

So if you've been looking for the freedom a mobile workstation provides, what's holding you back?

Proclaim "I want professional freedom!," and get creative anywhere you are with a Dell Precision M6500 mobile workstation powered by NVIDIA Quadro FX professional graphics.

Once you're free, do send us your comments, wherever you are, describing where and how you use your new mobile workstation.

Cast Iron: Integrating Cloud & on-premise Apps

DELL-Barton G — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:51:00 GMT

One of the trickiest parts for SMB’s (or organizations of any size) who are utilizing cloud-based applications is integrating these apps with existing on-premise applications. That’s where Cast Iron Systems, comes in.

Last month Chandar Pattabhiram, VP of Product & Channel marketing at Cast Iron visited Dell. I met up with him to chat about the company and learn what they are up to.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Some of the topics Chandar tackles:

Cast Iron is the leader in connecting cloud-based applications with on premise enterprise apps (e.g. Oracle, SAP).
The company began by offering a pre-configured integration appliance. They have since expand and now also offer a virtual integration appliance as well as the Cast Iron Cloud (integration as a service).
While their focus is on SaaS, they are partnering with leaders in each layer of the cloud to integrate cloud offerings with on premise apps:
- SaaS: SalesForce, ADP
- PaaS: Google, Force.com, Azure
- IaaS: Dell
Cast Iron’s goal is to evolve to be the enterprise cloud integration platform, bridging the world of public, private and on premise applications.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Cast Iron provides the software underpinning Dell Integration Services. These services allow SalesForce.com customers to extract data that has been locked in on premise apps and provides centralized visibility within SalesForce.com.

Pau for now…

Super Group Goes Green and Prepares for the Cloud

DELL-Kathy B — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:24:00 GMT

Recently we spoke to Adam Orpen at Super Group about some of the challenges faced by ‘Africa’s logistics giant’. He talked us through the opportunities and demands created by rapid business growth, and how Dell consultants helped him create a more efficient, flexible infrastructure.

Johannesburg-based Super Group is an industry leader in supply chain management, and its IT team delivers a high availability environment to sites across South Africa. But rapid growth meant a big challenge for Enterprise Architect Orpen: “We needed more performance and capacity … but we didn’t want to spend a lot of money. Super Group buys and sells subsidiary companies and there’s an associated IT cost every time we do this,” he says.

Dell consultants put forward virtualization as a potential solution. Rather than buying more hardware, the group could extend its use of virtual servers – supporting expansion without sky-high energy costs and extensive space requirements.

An ambitious rollout saw Hyper-V installed at six Super Group sites – three of them major datacentres. The firm now runs 143 virtual machines on PowerEdge R900 servers, connected to Dell/EMC storage area networks. They also installed Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 under the Early Adopter Programme, meeting Super Group’s need for a robust communications platform.

One of the biggest benefits for the team is faster server rollout. Deployment time is now mere minutes rather than three weeks – a massive advantage for a fast-growing, acquisition-based enterprise. The task of juggling server resources has been transformed – it’s quick and cost effective, and it’s given the IT team the flexibility they were looking for. “Dell recommended a Hyper-V farm. As a result, we can provision a new virtual machine in 10 minutes. And, if we sell one of our companies in the future, we won’t be left with hardware we no longer need.” Orpen says.

What makes the project really striking is the fact that Super Group has a higher capacity infrastructure that’s actually much smaller. And the benefits don’t end there – the reduction in server footprint means the team can close an entire datacentre. “We’ve saved lots of space already, and we’re working on the rest. We plan to shut down one of our datacentres soon – we’re definitely going green. Plus, this Dell solution means we save all the energy, cooling and management costs for this facility.”

“We want to reach a stage where we can shut down our datacentres and access all our applications through a hosted cloud environment. We’re looking at Microsoft Online Services – this virtualization project is the first step on that path.”

To read more on Super Group, click here.

InfoWeek: Dell DCS unit racking up cloud sales

DELL-Barton G — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:19:00 GMT

There was a good article in Information Week recently with our GM, Forrest Norrod. Forrest talked to Charlie Babcock about the success that Dell’s Data Center Systems unit has had in the cloud space.

You should check out the whole article but here are a few bits I’ve pulled out for your reading pleasure:

Dell’s Data Center Solutions unit, has only 20 customers, but would be the third largest supplier of x86 servers in the U.S. if it were split out from Dell, said Forrest Norrod, the unit’s VP and general manager, in an interview. The only companies ahead it in shipping Intel or AMD servers would be HP and Dell itself.
This foray into cloud computing is somewhat contrary to Dell’s previous pattern of applying sophisticated supply chain logistics to well-worn grooves in the business and consumer computing markets. For one thing, Dell, until recently, hasn’t talked about it. For another, it’s built a business unit that refuses to address the mass market at all.
Norrod acknowledged what other Dell officials said as well: the lessons learned in producing servers for the big Internet service providers will be used when enterprise customers knock on Dell’s door to discuss how to build out their private clouds. “Dell will bring the capabilities from DCS to the mass market,” he said
“Interest [in private cloud computing] is spiking through the roof,” [Norrod] said, and he predicted most new enterprise applications will be designed to run in the cloud, whether public or private. Such applications are built with scalability in mind and can take advantage of the ability of the cloud to generate more virtual machines on demand.

Stay tuned for more

Pau for now…

Making the Most of Your Microsoft Exchange Environment with PowerEdge

DELL-Andre F — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:20:00 GMT

Dell continually refines and optimizes performance right across the PowerEdge server line to ensure our customers get optimal productivity out of the business applications they rely on most. Last fall, we introduced the new PowerEdge R510 2-socket server with the option of 4 and 8 hard drives. The availability of large amount of internal storage makes it an ideal server for running Microsoft Exchange 2010.

We decided to put the R510 through its paces with research firm Principled Technologies. They ran various tests and determined that the PowerEdge R510 supports 10 times the mailbox size while delivering performance equivalent to the legacy HP ProLiant DL385. Migrating to Microsoft Exchange 2010 on the PowerEdge R510 also saves up to $24,000 in TCO in a year over that same HP system. Not bad!

To further meet the needs of various size companies running business applications like Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange, we are now introducing a 12 hard drive option for the PowerEdge R510. Here is a little bit more about what’s under the hood in the new 12 HDD version of the R510:

Up to 12 hot swap hard drives plus 2 internal cabled hard drives for OS support
Two processors with 4 DIMM slots each (64 GB with 8GB DIMMs or 128GB with 16GB DIMMs)
Simplified front panel with diagnostic LEDS
Redundant cooling with a total of 10 fans with selected configuration (power supplies each have their own fans)
Dual port GBe LOM
iDRAC Express and iDRAC Enterprise options for advanced system management

With all these “bells and whistles”, the R510 provides an ideal platform for customers looking to retire aging hardware investments and/or to run more efficiently on Microsoft Exchange 2010. Customers will be able to quickly and efficiently reduce deployment headaches to begin taking advantage of new Microsoft Exchange 2010 features including support for 10GB mailboxes, reduced disk I/O, enhanced mobility, greater fault-tolerance and enhanced voicemail and email integration.

I caught up with Frank Robinson, PowerEdge product manager, to get a better look at the PowerEdge R510. Here is what he had to say:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Lodge Park College makes the grade with Dell and Windows 7

DELL-Kathy B — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 13:55:00 GMT

Some people say that today’s students have it easy, but you only need to spend a day at any secondary school in the country to see that this is not true. However, utilising the latest technology, like Windows 7 can make a positive difference to school life. It won’t make exams any easier, but it can make learning, simpler, faster and more enjoyable.

The Microsoft Technology Adoption Program (TAP) gave Dell consultants an opportunity to help Lodge Park Technology College – a technical college for 11-19 year olds, and a Dell Technology Trust Partner. As a technology specialist, Lodge Park’s students are highly IT literate and a cutting edge, progressive IT infrastructure is essential.

To stay at the top of their game the IT team wanted to move to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. They also saw an opportunity to perform a complete overhaul on their environment, including, reducing energy consumption, cutting their server footprint and adding flexibility to the IT network.

As with all Windows 7 deployments, there was an immediate effect on the IT department, but also on the day-to-day life for students. Stephen Peverett, Network Manager at Lodge Park explains: “The students love Windows 7 – the Aero Peek and Aero Snap features are particularly popular and teachers have responded to the faster access to files and folders that Windows 7 affords when linked to Windows Server 2008 R2.”

Going further, Virtualization and Windows Server 2008 R2, has provided the school with a perfect opportunity to teach students about green IT. Students engaged in project work on energy consumption are invited into the datacentre, to clearly see how the new environment has reduced the school’s energy consumption.

As for the IT team, the simplified imaging available in a virtualized Windows 7 environment will save the school 30 days of IT team time every year and cut costs by up to £4,000. “We can do more maintenance during the day and not out of school hours. In addition, as the school’s needs change, we can easily add virtual machines. We estimate a saving of £4,000 a year on hardware.”

At Lodge Park, this adds up to a world of new opportunities. Peverett says: “The truth is we’ve only just begun. We want to explore options such as Intel vPro technology and applications requiring a 64-bit operating system – a world of functionality only available with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.”

To read more on Lodge Park Technology College, click here.

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.

Dell & the Cloud: Where we’ve been, Where we’re going

DELL-Barton G — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:06:00 GMT

They say turn around is fair play. Kevin Hazard of the Planet recently took this literally. No sooner had I finished interviewing him at the Cloud Expo in Santa Clara then he turned around and pointed his camera at me. He got me talking about the cloud and what the heck Dell’s doing in it.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Some of the topics I tackle:

What I do as Dell’s Cloud Evangelist.
Where Dell plays in the cloud:
- Cloud based services providing IT management as a service.
- Building these capabilities through the acquisition of four companies over the last two years: MessageOne, ASAP, Everdream and Silverback.
- Creating custom servers as well as providing data center design and implementation for some of the world’s largest “hyper-scale” customers e.g. Microsoft’s Azure and three out of the top five search engines in the U.S.
What’s next: building on this experience to offer integrated cloud solutions for setting up private and public clouds. Combining Dell hardware and services with best of breed software — all coming from/supported by Dell.

My thoughts on Public vs. Private clouds and how we will end up with a mix of computing models.

Extra Credit Reading

MSPmentor’s take on my interview

Pau for now…

Talking to the Head of VMware’s Cloud Business

DELL-Barton G — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:41:00 GMT

Here is the second in my three part series on Virtualization and the cloud. Today’s entry focuses on the 800 pound gorilla in the virtualization space, VMware.

At last month’s Gartner’s Data Center conference, right after his standing room only presentation, I grabbed some time with VMware’s Mr. Cloud, Dan Chu . Hear what he had to say:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Some of the topics Dan tackles:

What VMware is seeing customers actually doing to take advantage of the cloud today both with regards to public and private clouds.
Some polling data he collected during his talk based on the ~300 folks who attended: 90-95% were virtualizing, 15% had an active private cloud project, 5-10% had a public cloud project. (This is pretty representative of what Dan’s generally seeing.)
The three phases of cloud:
- Phase I: Standardizing and virtualizing an environment.
- Phase II: Adopting private cloud from a management stand point: getting to self service and automation in terms of provisioning a new service/collapsing the time it takes to get a new image out to an end user or developer from weeks to minutes/ implementing charge back, dynamic capacity planning and management.
- Phase III: Thinking about or planning how to leverage the public cloud in a fully compatible way.
A short history of VMware: how they’ve moved from desktop and server virtualization to VM management and optimization to enabling their platform for private clouds and public cloud providers.
Their “recent” acquisition of Spring Source and how it fits in.

Stay tuned next time for a summary of Gartner’s virtualization presentation from their data center conference.

Pau for now…

What’s new in 2010 in the appliance and OEM industries?

DELL-Franklin F — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:27:00 GMT

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my 29 years of working with computers, it’s that technology advances and changes at exponentially increasing rates over time. I remember when I first started working with OEM customers in 2001, and the biggest issue for us was getting enough ISA expansion slots in a rack dense server. Today my customers’ needs are much more complex, advanced and far reaching than anything I could have imagined in 2001, much less in 1981. While 2009 introduced the appliance and OEM industries to substantially higher performing computers, and ushered in a much wider adoption of 64-bit memory addressing, we still have quite a bit to look forward to in 2010.

In the springtime we are going to see the release of new server CPUs from Intel and AMD. Both will be category changing products providing higher performance, efficiency, and enhanced capabilities unlike anything we’ve seen so far. With these new CPUs we’ll also see change – change in systems, new systems, new lifecycle and transition concerns, and planning issues that must be addressed. Dell will have several programs in place to mitigate these issues.

The introduction of solid state hard drives in 2009 was widely welcomed by the OEM community, but adoption of SSDs did not take off due to price and the immaturity of the technology. However, I anticipate several companies utilizing the newer, more mature SSDs in their appliance and high performance systems in 2010 as the prices come down and a general commoditization of the technology starts to take place. Dell will offer more options in SSDs and performance and reliability data will be more widely available helping designers & engineers better understand the benefits to be had from the new SSDs.

I also expect 10-Gigabit Ethernet to grow in popularity, potentially to the point that having a 10Gig-E option on every network appliance sold by our OEM customers to be common by the end of 2010. Along with 10Gig-E, I imagine the broad availability of converged Ethernet networking to drive prices down for high performance 10Gig Fibre-Channel over Ethernet and improved IP performance to drive raw throughput capabilities of high performance platforms, such as storage appliances, logging and data capture appliances, and video/media servers. Look for new NICs, switching, protocol adoption, and simplified application of the OSI stack to be exciting new trends in 2010.

Also, after nearly a decade of talking about systems management, I am relatively sure we’ll finally see a more significant number of OEM customers start using all the built-in management features of our PowerEdge, PowerVault, Optiplex and Precision products. The benefits of being able to monitor, manage, deploy, change, and control the computer in the field should start to outweigh the complexity of development, time to develop, and long term management of the systems management software. I would anticipate our customers’ field support organizations to benefit from this adoption of management tools and improve their customer experience metrics and lower the support costs.

Along with these three core technologies being more widely adopted, the OEM Solutions Group is looking forward to seeing Dell’s DC Powered 2U Server, long life Precision workstation, and specially designed OptiPlex for embedded applications to take off in 2010. Filling two gaps in our customers’ requirements with these platforms is something we are very proud of, and we hope to see greater successes in our customers’ product sales and reputations.

Let me know what new things you expect to see in 2010 for the OEM appliance and computing space.