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Dell Announces Enhancements To Its End-To-End Solutions For VMware

by Adam Armstrong

Today at VMworld 2015, Dell Inc. announced several enhanced end-to-end solutions for VMware. These announcements ran the gamut of helping to integrate physical and virtual environments, updated EVO:RAIL infrastructure, and updates to Dell's thin clients. These enhancements add more VMware capabilities to Dell's portfolio while helping customers on the path to virtualized environments and the cloud.


Today at VMworld 2015, Dell Inc. announced several enhanced end-to-end solutions for VMware. These announcements ran the gamut of helping to integrate physical and virtual environments, updated EVO:RAIL infrastructure, and updates to Dell's thin clients. These enhancements add more VMware capabilities to Dell's portfolio while helping customers on the path to virtualized environments and the cloud.

As more and more enterprise IT are moving to the hybrid cloud, Dell and VMware and working together to accelerate the adoption. Dell's latest version of Active System Manager (ASM), version 8.1.1, will integrate with VMware vRealize Suite cloud management platform. This integration will enable customers using ASM to seamlessly integrate physical and virtual environments, and end-to-end dynamic cloud provisioning within the VMware vRealize Suite. Also included is a plugin to vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) and vRealize Automation (vRA). vRealize and ASM also make the foundation of another technology Dell will be previewing at VMworld, Dell Hybrid Cloud Platform Reference Architecture with VMware vRealize.

Benefits include:

  • Allow a business analyst or IT architect to embed highly efficient ASM templates and automation methods into vRO workflows, for seamless integration into existing business processes, such as requests, approvals, help desk, and self-service – saving time and manual effort, and improving responsiveness and consistency
  • Support pre-built and best-practice infrastructure and workload templates, designed by administrators in ASM, to be easily and quickly deployed on-demand by users from the vRA service catalog with just a few clicks

Dell was the first qualified partner with Vmware's EVO:RAIL, now dell has enhanced its VMware EVO:RAIL Horizon and Infrastructure Editions with improved density, functionality and additional configurations. The new EVO:RAIL solutions are built on Dell's PowerEdge C6320 server and provide 60-80% increase in density from 250 to 440 users for VDI workloads, while decreasing the starting cost per seat for the appliance from $400 to $210. The latest version of Dell's EVO:RAIL solutions can support 16 hyper-converged infrastructure appliances and now supports VSAN 6.0.

Dell has updated the operating system for its Wyse Thin Client, ThinOS 8.1. Dell calls this OS "virus immune" and states that it delivers the latest high-performance desktop virtualization protocols, including VMware Horizon.

ThinOS 8.1 features include:

  • Expanded Security Features: The lightweight firmware offers zero attack surface for complete immunity to viruses and malware, and includes improved 802.1x wired and wireless authentication, from all EAP connection types to robust LAN-based authentication.
  • Better Connected: Providing expanded peripheral support, ThinOS 8.1 includes support for USB 3.0 along with a greater array of leading keyboards, mice, webcams, headsets, printers and monitors. It offers VPN connectivity and faster WAN connectivity over the previous version.
  • Enhanced Support for Healthcare: ThinOS 8.1 supports Caradigm single sign-on, which allows users such as healthcare clinicians to tap a badge to quickly and securely authenticate to a personal roaming desktop on select Wyse thin and zero clients throughout the healthcare facility.
  • Easy to Manage: The latest version makes it easy to manage a fleet of Wyse thin clients either on premise with “hands off” file server, Dell Wyse Device Manager, or cloud-based with Wyse Cloud Client Manager. Providing the broadest desktop virtualization protocol support, ThinOS 8.1 gives customers the choice in how they integrate Wyse thin clients into their VDI environment and offers enhanced management capabilities over the previous generation.

Along with updating the Wyse OS, Dell introduced the latest version of its Wyse Cloud Client Manager, CCM release 8. CCM is a cloud-based management platform that manages thin clients, mobile devices, and Enterprise Mobility Manager (EMM) workspaces from a single console. The latest release expands the availability of CCM to thin clients based on Windows Embedded Standard (WES) and SUSE Linux, in addition to Wyse ThinOS. This makes Dell currently the only provider of cloud and device management for Thin Clients.

Wyse Cloud Client Manager 8 features include:

  • Greater Control: Granular Role Based Access Control (RBAC) introduces a group administrator level. The global administrator can delegate administration to a group supervisor to manage at the group level, which allows for more efficient client management.
  • Efficient Location Delivery: Faster and more efficient client updates save time and money by reducing WAN traffic sending thin client updates and images, especially at peak times.
  • Deeper platform integration: CCM release 8 features Wyse Device Agent, a unified agent to support all thin client management solutions including Wyse Device Manager (WDM), Wyse Client Manager (WCM), Cloud Client Manager (CCM), and next gen solutions. This provides cross-platform, policy-based hot fixes and faster time to market features, which means greater IT productivity. 

Availability

  • ASM 8.1.1 will be available in September 2015
  • The Dell Hybrid Cloud Platform Reference Architecture with VMware vRealize will be available later in 2015
  • Wyse ThinOS 8.1 and Cloud Client Manager release 8 are now available for Wyse thin clients worldwide

Dell main site

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