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Dell Introduces a Series of Appliances and Integrated Systems

by Adam Armstrong

Today at Dell User Forum 2014, Dell introduced a series of appliances and integrated systems: Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases, Dell XC Series of Web-scale Converged Appliances, Dell Integrated Systems for Oracle 12c Database, and Dell In-Memory Appliances for Cloudera Enterprise. These new appliances are designed to speed deployment, management, and time to results for companies and help businesses of all sizes quickly stand up workload-specific applications and infrastructure.


Today at Dell User Forum 2014, Dell introduced a series of appliances and integrated systems: Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases, Dell XC Series of Web-scale Converged Appliances, Dell Integrated Systems for Oracle 12c Database, and Dell In-Memory Appliances for Cloudera Enterprise. These new appliances are designed to speed deployment, management, and time to results for companies and help businesses of all sizes quickly stand up workload-specific applications and infrastructure.

Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases

Designed to accelerate leading database environments including MySQL, Sybase, Microsoft SQL and MongoDB, Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases is a pre-built, pre-packaged appliance that includes Dell PowerEdge Servers, Dell Storage and Dell Networking. The appliance leverages industry leading solutions such as acceleration technology from Fusion-io, Dell PowerEdge servers, and Fusion-io 3.2TB flash drives to improve database performance. Pre-integrated flash storage provides up to 12.8TB of flash storage for up to 9 database servers on a network. Users can expect to see a 50% reduction in average response time and 19 times the IOPS of traditional spinning disk SAN technology.

Specifically, Dell will be the first tier-one server platform vendor to offer the Fusion-io ION all flash array as a branded solution in the Dell store. This is a big move for both companies as it gives Dell a competitive high-performance storage solution for demanding aaplications that need the lowest latency storage available with HA configurations available. For Fusion-io it marks a change to their strategy to support partners with products first, rather than trying to do it all on their own. Previously ION was largely a self-assemble product using an approved list of servers. The Dell implementation runs on R720's to start, which we know from experience works well, as we have had ION running in the lab with the same configuration for months. 

Dell XC Series of Web-scale Converged Appliances

Dell also announced today a new go to market relationship with Nutanix, broadening its partner ecosystem. Powered by Nutanix, the Dell XC Series of Web-scale Converged Appliances offer customers a new series of appliances combining compute, storage and networking into a single offering. Customers seeking an integrated IT approach will benefit from the simple deployment, management and scale. Dell offers its customers multiple SDS options by delivering end-to-end data center capabilities. Dell’s broad and open approach to SDS includes integration with open source platforms and leading hypervisor vendors to provide a breadth of customer-centric SDS solutions to address various business needs. Dell views the Nutanix relationship as an important one for high-performance needs like VDI and virtual business applications. Nutanix is a widely accepted SDS platform that will help Dell reach into the high-end of the SDS market with the new combined offering. 

Dell Integrated Systems for Oracle 12c Database

Designed specifically for Oracle 12c database deployments, Dell Integrated Systems for Oracle 12c Database appliance aids customers as they migrate to and accelerate current Oracle 12c environments. Pre-bundling Dell infrastructure, with Oracle Linux, Oracle VM, Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Fusion Applications, the appliance removes the hassle of hardware integration while providing performance gains and costs savings over similar pre-packed appliances. Everyone from small businesses to large enterprises can stand up new Oracle database deployments today while having the ability to easily scale in the future.

Dell In-Memory Appliances for Cloudera Enterprise

Aimed at accelerating Hadoop deployments, Dell In-Memory Appliances for Cloudera Enterprise is built off of the expertise and relationship working with Cloudera and Intel. With the expanding market of Hadoop and business of all sizes using big-data, they need access to real-time data analytics. The unique bundling of Dell technology with Cloudera Enterprise and Intel’s performance and security optimized chipset, the Dell In-Memory Appliances for Cloudera Enterprise will help organizations capitalize on high-performance data analytics. It will speed up and simplify otherwise complication Hadoop cluster deployments. It is also scalable, using ScaleMP’s Versatile SMP (vSMP) architecture to aggregate multiple x86 servers into a single virtual machine. All types of business from small to the largest can benefit from this ease of deployment and scalability.

Availability

All the new appliances will be available from Dell channel partners and directly from Dell.

  • Dell Application Acceleration for Databases will be available worldwide in the second half of 2014. 
  • Dell XC Series of Web-scale Converged Appliances will be available worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2014.
  • Dell In-Memory Appliance for Cloudera Enterprise will be available worldwide in the second half of 2014, and will be pre-sized and pre-configured options. 
  • Dell Integrated Systems for Oracle 12c Database will be available worldwide in the second half of 2014.  

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