Inside Enterprise IT : IT Services

Betfair Places its Odds on Dell With Windows 7

DELL-Kathy B — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:02:00 GMT

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.

Dell Works with PlateSpin to Manage Data Centers/Customer Workloads

DELL-Timothy W — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Dell recently had a big showing in San Francisco for vmworld 2009. We had quite a few of our people out there as my colleague Andrew Gilman wrote about here, showing off our capabilities and making some pretty cool announcements.

From a services perspective, there are some interesting virtualization initiatives underway at Dell as well. Dell ProConsult services help customers dramatically simplify their IT infrastructure, reduce operating costs and freeing up resources for new business initiatives -- especially in the area of virtualization. While virtualization is often seen as a panacea, unless it is planned and managed correctly, it can create more problems than it solves.

In order to help customers streamline and optimize virtualization planning and deployment, Dell will expand use of PlateSpin Recon to provide Virtualization Readiness Assessments and PlateSpin Migrate for Rapid Deployment Services. PlateSpin is the first data center workload profiling, analysis and planning tool to combine consolidation planning with virtual capacity management.

The goal for using these tools is to help save companies OPEX and accelerate the savings through the use of a single Workload Management solution that spans that data center including multiple hypervisors and operating systems, as well as physical and virtual workloads.

It is through these partnerships and expanded services offerings that we continue our vision to simplify our customer's IT infrastructures.

Appliances in the World of SaaS and Cloud Computing? Really?

DELL-Franklin F — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Recently the buzz in the IT industry has been focused on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and the larger concept of “Cloud Computing.” In its most basic form, the concept of SaaS involves a company paying for software as it is used. The software runs on computers someone else owns, and the ongoing maintenance and support of the server infrastructure is handled by that company. It involves essentially leasing the application time for a specific period of time, typically month-to-month. In theory, the value proposition of SaaS is that only paying for computing resources when needed should reduce cost in the long run if an application is used in short spurts.

However, industry analyst firm Gartner recently released the results of a large survey on SaaS implementations still has concerns with broad, cross-enterprise adoption of SaaS. In the study, respondents had some concerns and reservations about specific SaaS solutions. This suggests that there are some applications where SaaS is a bit ahead of its time. As a Technology Evangelist for Dell’s OEM Group, I don’t see SaaS as a panacea and know there are specific cases where hardware-based appliances should be leveraged or at least strongly considered.

A company needing to deploy a service, application, or IT capability has many options available including SaaS and cloud computing, self-built installations, and an ever-growing selection of appliances. While SaaS is definitely an outstanding choice for many of these applications, it is not for every solution as once imagined. Hardware-based appliances still have a growing role to play and in many instances can overcome many of the challenges that customers like those surveyed by Gartner are experiencing with SaaS.

For example, the third most common issue with SaaS implementations, according to the survey, was reliability and performance to technical specs, something an appliance solution will not have any issues with whatsoever since the solution is designed with dedicated hardware and carefully tested to provide the performance and capabilities for which it was designed. Similarly, the main concern of those surveyed -- functionality for business users -- is addressed with an appliance-based solution since a business need only find the most appropriate appliance for their needs and deploy it in the simple, appliance model (typically a fast and simple installation), and they are up and running with the new solution.

Of course, not every IT service or solution is offered as an appliance, but when they are available, they can be surprisingly simple and effective.

So, what do you think? Are there specific situations where an appliance plays more nicely than SaaS or cloud computing applications?

Dell Offers Microsoft Consulting Services

DELL-Kirstan R — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:00:00 GMT

There are lots of conversations going on in the media about the customer concerns related to upgrading to a Microsoft Windows 7/Server 2008 R2.

And rightly so, as it is at the top of many customers minds. However, there are many other ways customers are looking at to better holistically optimize their Microsoft applications and environments. Recently, Burk Buechler reflected on the conversations that he is having with customers related to their Microsoft environments and how Dell is helping those customers to better holistically optimize them.

Listen as Burk describes how Dell ProConsult provides best practice and in-depth expertise to ensure optimal integration of Microsoft’s core technologies to address customer needs.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Ready for the Transition? Dell Provides Support for Windows Server 2008 R2

DELL-Matt M — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:41:00 GMT

If you want to be the first on the block to do live migration using Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008 R2, Dell can help you get there. Dell now offers support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, the newest release in the Windows family of enterprise operating systems. This includes the release of Dell drivers, systems management capability and supporting documents to help you get up and running quickly.

Any software migration can be nerve wracking, so Dell has done the heavy lifting to take the risk out of implementing Windows Server 2008 R2.

Our engineers have missed countless dinners, piano recitals and episodes of American Idol while spending thousands of hours of testing and validation to make sure Dell products running Windows Server 2008 R2 are business-ready.
We have complete driver support for Windows Server 2008 R2 for Dell hardware so you can deploy it, run it and manage easily. You can go here to download drivers.
You are not in it alone. We offer a comprehensive suite of Dell ProConsult, Dell ProSupport and Dell ProManage services to help you get the most out of your Microsoft environment. In fact, if you already have a Dell ProSupport contract, you have existing support for Windows Server 2008 R2 and for Microsoft Windows 7.

We're ready to help you make the upgrade to R2 today and we will also have Windows Server 2008 R2 factory installed on all available new Dell PowerEdge servers in the third quarter of 2009. You can get the version you want. Dell will offer Standard, Enterprise, Web, Datacenter and Academic editions of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 Foundation R2, designed for organizations with up to 15 users, on select PowerEdge systems.

Frederick Memorial Healthcare Virtualizes Its Data Center with Dell, VMware

DELL-Bruce Eric — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:30:00 GMT

One of the customers that participated in yesterdays' press briefing with Dell and VMware was Frederick Memorial Healthcare (FMH), which began providing health services to Maryland residents over 100 years ago.

As the hospital is entering its second century in an expanded facility, Roy Turner, FMH's server systems engineer, explains how the healthcare provider's use of technology is key to delivering top-quality care to its patients. For example, FMH is one of the few hospitals in its area with a wireless infrastructure throughout the facility to make information and communication instantly available to care providers.

Dell has helped FMH with IT projects in the past, and the customer trusted the Dell's advice when we recommended VMware as the leading virtualization technology.

Dell ProConsult Services performed the hospital’s initial data center virtualization implementation using VMware ESX 3.5 and VMware Virtual Center 2.5. Dell helped the IT team deploy 106 virtual servers on six new Dell PowerEdge R900 servers.

FMH asked Dell to help it upgrade to VMware vSphere 4 and the VMware vCenter Server. The Dell Services team worked hard to ensure FMH’s VMware vSphere 4 project was a success, and helped set up an initial environment and test the upgrade path FMH would use for its production environment. Roy and the server engineering team have virtualized over 100 servers, with 75 being converted from physical to virtual, reducing power consumption and cooling in the data center.

Roy spent a little bit of time with us explaining their challenges and how they worked with Dell and VMware.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Virtualization Key To Dell's Future

DELL-Bruce Eric — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:30:00 GMT

This week, Reuters columnist Eric Auchard, penned an opinion piece on the future of Dell and what role virtualization will play in that.

In the blog post, Auchard says "More than other large computer vendors, it [Dell] has embraced "virtualization" technology that lets many big tasks run on the same machine rather than separate ones.

We indeed have been very focused on enabling our customers to virtualize their data centers as evidenced by recent announcements. But, not only are we talking about this with our customers, but we're also eating our own dog food. We have virtualized a significant percentage of our data centers and have seen dramatic savings - in the neighborhood of US $29 million.

Take a look at the video below, which features Buddy Holtendorf from Dell's Global Platform Services team in Dell IT. Buddy describes Dell's "virtual first" methodology in which every new deployment is looked at through a virtualization lens. Dell's internal infrastructure has about 5,800 virtual machines on the guest side with about 500 hosts. If you're interested in more details on what Dell has done, take a look at this case study.

On this same topic, Gartner earlier this year wrote an in-depth report entitled "The Great Virtualization Dilemma of the Next Decade: What You Need to Know" that outlines some of the challenges and strategic issues that IT personnel face. The report gives specific advice on how to deal with issues such as heterogeneity, resource and performance optimization, and the increasingly fragmented tool market. Take a minute to download this report and give it a read.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Windows 7 - Come and Get It

DELL-Jeremy B — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:11:00 GMT

Well, soon anyway. Microsoft has said that they will RTM (release to manufacturer) gold code to the market by the end of this month. There are several folks talking about Windows 7 (Win7), so I won't go too deep into the OS itself. Brandon and team at Microsoft have done a great job of chronicling the developments and features of Windows.

I will say however, that I have been running the Win7 release candidate on my home computer and can tell you that it is rocks! It's fast, nimble, stable, etc. Our engineering and development teams have been working really closely with Microsoft to get the OS ready. We're already working with early adopter customers to deploy Win7 and their feedback is overwhelmingly positive. I'm happy to report that I've have been accepted into Dell's Win7 early adopter program and can't wait to get it on my machine!

What we find interesting about our commercial customers is that 86 percent of commercial customers are still using XP, according to Forrester. This presents a unique challenge for IT departments as XP is now 8 years old and customers are looking at a “skip-generation” upgrade to Windows 7 (read: clean wipe of the hard drive).

The first step in any software deployment is planning. As with any software deployment it is important to look at application compatibility. Customers must be able to understand what is compatible, what isn’t and how they remediate? Do they keep low-use applications? Will the way they package their applications be compatible with the OS? These are all questions customers need to understand the answers to. We can help them with our global Application Compatibility Factory that will help them get to the answers they need.

From there we help them assess, design and implement their deployments. Rather than throwing a bunch of suits at the problem, Dell ProConsult services offerings utilize electronic discovery, Web based surveys, best practices, comparative data, reference architectures and logic to offer customers shorter, more impactful consulting engagements.

We're pumped about Win7 - I haven't run into a single person within Dell that isn't. It's now time for us to get to work and help our customers make the transition.

Government Agencies Still Keen on IT Challenges

DELL-Max P — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:00:00 GMT

With more than 95 percent of federal agencies using Dell systems, it was no surprise for us that Symantec’s annual Government Symposium conference participants were keen on discussing their IT and Security business challenges. The symposium provided a forum to listen to public sector customer’s requirements, experiences and solutions.

During the E-Records Management/E-Discovery session, I moderated, there was a lot of interest around how government agencies “get started” when the problem requires collaboration around IT, RIM and legal expertise. Approaches varied, but one consistent theme was that either as a distinct organization or as a formal cross functional team, you needed to have equal involvement and buy-in from these three domains in order to have an effective program for RIM and E-Discovery. The panelists (representing United States Postal Service, Department of Justice, Department of Interior and Government Accountability Office) also tackled interesting questions about the responsibility for record and information management in the Web 2.0 world. In short, participants recognized that as government expands use of social media (see Open Government Initiative) to reach citizens (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc.), cross-functional collaboration, decision on what the business/mission needs your solving for and a defined policy for managing it are the main ingredients for a successful program.

Cybersecurity was also a key topic of discussion with a standing room only panel session hosted by Joe Ayers, Dell Federal, Area VP, on Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. Morning and lunchtime keynotes from Virginia Senator Mark Warner and Senior Director of Cyberspace Melissa Hathaway, respectively, also offered valuable commentaries on the challenges facing government, the role IT can play and the need for collaboration between the private sector and the public sector. Melissa’s discussion about the Administration’s recently completed Cyberspace Security review laid out the challenges we face and recommendations for action and sounded the call for better public/private partnership models to protect and secure our critical internet infrastructure. Her past activity and the emphasis the new Administration is placing here were clearly evident by the pervasive nature of security discussions in presentations and in IT industry exhibits. Protecting client side computing is one step, but the overall cyber security challenge requires a comprehensive approach – an approach Dell looks at from an end-to-end process from the supply chain to the data on the laptop. One concrete step identified during Melissa presentation and picked up in the media is the creation of a national cyber security incident response plan.

Again, no surprises from the conference, however, we’ll continue to partner on the dialog and collaboration needed for progress in addressing our Public sector’s customer’s IT challenges.

Dell Launches More Servers, New EqualLogic Arrays, New Services

DELL-Bruce Eric — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:05:00 GMT

I won't cover it all here but be sure to click over to our blogging mothership, Direct2Dell, to read about Dell's Fast Track to Efficiency, the theme for Dell's announcement of a slew of new servers, a cool new EqualLogic array for small business and remote offices, and quite a few different services.

We'll also be hosting a webcast today with a number of Dell executives outlining the importance of these announcements and the impact to our customers. Following that webcast, my colleagues at Dell TechCenter will be hosting a live technical chat.

Take a look.