March 2008 - Posts

Looking for Dell Data Center Products? Talk to a VAR

Mon. Mar. 31, 2008

by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

I see evidence every week that Dell's channel business for IT products is growing. Today there was an article by Patrick Seitz in Investor's Business Daily on the progress we've been making with our channel programs.

But even more importantly (to me anyway), are the internal discussions and the willingness for people to engage channel priorities - even though the culture at Dell historically has been for direct sales. People here are sincere about learning new approaches to their traditional, comfortable direct ways of working. They are taking risks.

I haven't been at Dell very long, but I'm finding a culture of people who are smart, care a lot and are willing to change. I'll be honest with you, it's not what I expected. I expected to find inertia and bureaucracy, but its nothing like other large companies I've worked for. This company is a lot more nimble than I thought.

If you think you need more help figuring out how to get your IT projects done, we'd love to help you connect with one of our channel partners who can give you the service level you are looking for. We'll be supporting them as best we can.

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The Lone Sysadmin reports on OpenManage SUU

Mon. Mar. 31, 2008

by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

One of my favorite bloggers in Bob Plankers, the Lone Sysadmin. With all the excitement of getting this blog launched on Friday, I missed his post on the OpenManage Server Update Utility (version 5.4.0), which now works on ESX Server 3.5. Bob is always churning up interesting info that I think people that come to this blog would appreciate.

Thanks for passing this along, Bob.

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Our Global Green IT/Power & Cooling Discussion

Fri. Mar. 28, 2008

by Albert Esser, VP—Power & Infrastructure

I've been on the road in China most of this week and had a great opportunity to meet with journalists and analysts during an event in Beijing. My discussion with them focused on how we help customers address power and cooling challenges that they face in their data centers. This is a growing global issue - one that IDC refers to as the number one challenge faced by data center managers today.

Dell takes a comprehensive approach to power and cooling in the data center, taking into account the synergy between equipment, power utilization rates, cooling and software solutions. By doing so, we help customers to "reveal their hidden data centers" - essentially enabling them to identify and take advantage of previously unutilized compute capacity within the same power envelope. Analysis we've done shows that we can help customers increase data center performance by 97 percent using the same space. This holistic approach to energy efficiency enables customers to extend the life of their existing data centers and helps them avoid or postpone costly rip-and-replace infrastructure upgrades or building new facilities.

You can hear more details from my recent discussion on this topic during The Register's Green Computing Debate. I'm also interested in hearing and answering your questions related to Green IT and power & cooling. Please send your questions my way so we can help you properly address energy efficiency and take the next step toward revealing your hidden data center.

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2008, the year we all became aware of power and cooling issues

Fri. Mar. 28, 2008

by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

It's highly likely that a major disruption to corporate computing operations is going to come from increasing energy requirements and the actions we need to take in order to minimize their impact on the services we provide. It's not just that energy costs are rapidly rising, but the use of that expensive energy is rising along with it.

Large scale data center operators are already heavily engaged in these discussions as evidenced by an interview Searchdatacenter did with Jeff Lowenberg of The Planet, a hosting company in Houston, TX. Jeff talks about a number of interesting things, including how they caulk leaks in the floor to keep from losing cold air and how they maintain their diesel generators. The last part on maintaining diesel fuel probably has excellent tips that anybody depending on large generators for backup electricity needs to know.

There's going to be new concepts, vocabulary and acronyms to learn, such as air mixing, hot aisle, cold aisle, chiller, CRAC (computer-room air-conditioning system), close-coupled cooling, PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) and DCE (Data Center Efficiency).

The good news is that fairly simple things can be done to improve the situation, without having to take more extreme measures as relocating to Iceland. Dell's Dr. Albert Esser, who wrote today on Inside IT, was also featured in a recent article on the Computing site, talking about how temperatures in data centers can be kept warmer than people commonly think. This article in CIO magazine also has some fairly simple ideas for more efficient cooling.

One of the biggest hurdles we face is getting senior management engaged. This recent survey by the Uptime Institute (you've read about them if you read the other links in this post) contains fascinating information about the awareness of power and cooling as an issue. Many readers will likely identify with their findings that two thirds of those polled said their companies do not C-level sponsorship for green policy or governance mandates. FWIW, The Uptime Institute puts on seminars for high density cooling, as well as other energy topics. This podcast of an interview with Robert Sullivan is an introduction to those seminars. Not having been to one of their seminars, I don't want this post to be perceived as an endorsement of their seminars - but if readers have comments to make about them, I'm more happy to post them.

I have a feeling this is going to be a huge deal and there will be lots of confusion and many opportunities for people to help each other out. What are you seeing? Is this stuff on your radar yet? Is it front and center in your company or are you going it alone?

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What to Expect from the Inside IT Group Blog

Fri. Mar. 28, 2008

by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

Welcome to Inside IT. It's a blog about a range of information technology topics that matter to today's large business customers: all kinds of hardware from corporate laptops, desktops and workstations through servers and storage and blades, software and systems management, IT services and more. Take a look at the category listings on the right to get a better idea of the scope of this blog.

You can access Inside IT directly by going here: www.direct2dell.com/insideit.

If you're an RSS reader type, you can subscribe the Inside IT RSS feed here.

One person you'll be hearing a lot from is Inside IT Lead Blogger Marc Farley, who's been running the EqualLogic Storage@Work blog for over a year now. Besides being a great blogger, he's pretty passionate about customers. And that's why I'm pumped that Marc has recently become part of the Dell team since we finalized the EqualLogic acquisition. You can expect him to blog about about storage hardware and software, plus other IT-related things that are driving conversation in the blogosphere like the S3 outage. And heck, if I know him, chances are good that you can catch him doing video from his car.

Beyond Marc, you'll have a chance to converse directly with Dell employees who are dedicated to addressing the IT problems that make your life difficult. In the process, we'll work to give you an inside look at things in this part of our business. We also want to give you a chance to shape what kind of products and services Dell offers you in the future. Our ultimate goal is to make this a place where you can connect with our Dell employees who are focused on simplifying the Information Technology issues you (and other customers like you) face on a daily basis.

To prepare for the Inside IT introduction, I've made some changes to a couple of categories on Direct2Dell: Services and Simplify IT. I intend to pull all the enterprise-focused services posts into a new category here called IT Services. I also removed the Simplify IT category from Direct2Dell to place those posts in the Inside IT categories that better represented the subject matter. Still working through the migration on both fronts. In the posts that we'll carry over to Inside IT, I'll close the comments on Direct2Dell and re-open them here in the Inside IT blog. Hope to have all that finished soon.

We look forward to many more conversations here. Now, I'll turn it over to Marc.

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Dell EqualLogic Discussions at VMworld

Fri. Mar. 28, 2008

by Kerry Bridge, EMEA Digital Media Communications

I attended the inaugural VMworld Europe in Cannes, France, where Dell was a platinum sponsor discussing the future of virtualization. It was held in the same conference centre as the Cannes Film Festival. I attended the opening keynote and then joined the Dell team on the exhibition floor to see what they were sharing with customers on the Dell booth and in the breakout sessions.

Note from Lionel 2/28: This was originally published at 10am in the category area. Due to a publishing oversight, did not publish it on the main page. Re-publishing now.

During the keynote session Diane Greene, president and CEO of VMware, shared VMware’s future vision for virtualisation and we also jointly announced that Dell will begin the process of putting VMware ESX 3i hypervisor across all virtualization-certified Dell PowerEdge servers starting in early April. One thing that impressed me was that customers will be able to purchase this solution with a single click

, easing virtualization planning, deployments and management.

The other thing that really impressed me was that almost all the presenters focused on green IT. It’s great to see Dell as well as other companies putting such a focus on ReGeneration.

At the Dell booth I met with John Joseph, VP of marketing for Dell EqualLogic storage solutions, and Tim Sherbak, Dell’s manager of virtualization solutions marketing. You can hear from the vlog that there was a lot of footfall and buzz in the Dell area.

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I also attended a breakout session with John where he shared that Simplifying IT with virtualization goes beyond the server. Storage infrastructure needs to be easy to deploy, manage and scale as well.

It was great to meet our new EqualLogic team. I saw a demo of Site Recovery Manager (SRM) on the stand, an integrated snap-in to VMware VirtualCenter that provides a way to set up and test your disaster recovery strategy before you need it. Even at a first glance I could tell that with SRM, disaster recovery and business continuity are no longer expensive, complicated, uncertain processes. Another example of how Dell solutions do simplify IT.

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How is Dell addressing today's more mobile workforce?

Thu. Mar. 27, 2008

by Margaret Franco, Director—Business Client Systems

It seems like everyone and everything is going mobile, especially in business. Greater mobility in the workforce, however, is radically changing, which presents some issues for the IT people that have to manage mobile devices. IDC started talking about this a couple years ago, and the blogosphere is starting too.

You might be wondering what Dell's view is on this and what we're doing to make mobility better. It's natural to think that we focus on traditional notebook computers, but that is only a small part of the story. Mobility is more about connecting information and people, not any one type of device. When you think about it, we really have two groups to please: the people using computers and mobile devices, and the IT people that have to manage the devices.

When it comes to mobility, we're seeing the power curve radically changing. End users are demanding that their mobile devices be easier to use, more secure, more powerful, always on, and more connected. This includes PCs, phones, PDAs, notebooks, tablets, email devices, RFID and others. IT management is trying to make this happen, while at the same time trying to manage it all and protect the company. So we expanded our thinking and developed a set of core beliefs about mobile computing. These core beliefs shape not only what we offer to end users and IT management today, but also what we are developing in the future.

Seamless Platforms: Expectations and use of devices is fundamentally changing, and are often diverging. Devices and the platforms that support them are going to evolve to meet these changing needs. Email, phones, IM, contacts, blogs, and data need to be interchangeable and accessible irrespective of the platform. This is why Dell is developing, partnering, and working with the ecosystem that makes it easy to manage and use all types of information across all types of devices.
Always on: Users expect to be wirelessly connected at all times. Technologies that know where you are and how you are connected are revolutionizing mobility. We're simplifying things like unified communications, and adding technologies like RFID and GPS to the ever broadening wireless connectivity to ensure that every device is connected all the time.
Natural interface: Keyboards are great, but people want other interfaces too. Sometimes that means things like pen devices on tablet computers or touch screens. Or it could mean ultra small computers or even extra wide models. Choice of interface will be critical because it needs to match the user, not have the user match the interface. We're developing some technologies that will surprise you. One example is the Tablet XT which featured capacitive touch technology, a truly addictive capability that users soon expect to be in every panel device, not just their tablet computer.
Always secure: Users want security to be both transparent and strong. That's why Dell is simplifying security so IT can easily protect the infrastructure, yet still make it easy for users. We already offer tools for physical, identity, and data security, but these will be made even easier for users with things like fingerprint ID, facial identification, and other user-friendly methods.
Single Identity: Users will demand a single identity for all devices, which means that physical and logical access methods will converge. We're driving ways to simplify how companies manage identities on every device that provides needed security and meets end-user demands. Dell is leading here too in the development of proximity devices and software that makes it easy to manage credentials.
Choice of devices: No one device is going to be right for every user, so the standard notebook will evolve into a flexible device allowing multiple usage-based operating modes. Each individual needs to work in different ways. Sometimes wirelessly connected, sometimes in power saving mode and sometimes plugged into a stationary environment. The focus is to take one singular powerful computing platform and that can specialize the usage modes for the needs of the users.
Greener: Today we're delivering devices that are designed to use less power, are manufactured in more eco-friendly ways, and that offer easy ways to offset the carbon footprint. Dell is leading here too, not only in our Energy Smart products and services, but in our policies, procedures, recycling, and company goals.
Customizable: The old way was for company IT to deliver the same notebook to everyone. The new way is that users want computing devices that meet their needs and reflect how they use them, not to be forced to use only the standard issue. So the old model of total cost of ownership (TCO) will go out the window. Return on investment -- and the productivity you get from your workers -- will rule.
Simpler: IT is demanding smarter and simpler solutions to minimize the mundane and help their businesses innovate. So Dell is focusing on not only hardware, but the management layer of new devices too, to minimize the amount of time IT spends on maintenance and free resources for innovation.
Work/Life Enabler: Perhaps the most interesting change is that computing and communications devices have become tools of life. As such, they will need to fit better with the places they are used. Rather than just making a newer or faster device, we take more time to listen to customers and understand their usage. That way, we're developing solutions that satisfy and delight them.

I'm not asking you to simply take my word for it. In fact, I'm more interested in what you think and what you need. Please share your thoughts here.

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Always nice to see a customer saying good things

Wed. Mar. 26, 2008

by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

This was originally posted here, on the EqualLogic Storage@Work blog

A customer of ours, John Wilder, talks about his experiences working with our iSCSI SAN products. Besides liking the ease of use and installation features of his PS series array, he is using thin provisioning and snapshots too. Here is a quote from his post:

Here’s a real life example- currently we have a thin provisioned volume which is taking up 96 GB of actual disk space (the host OS sees it as a 500 GB volume), and we have taken 10 daily differential snapshots of this volume which are currently utilizing 1.36 GB of space.

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I have a feeling this is going to be big

Wed. Mar. 26, 2008

by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

This post originally appeared here on the EqualLogic Storage@Work blog.

Yesterday, Dell and Egenera announced that Dell would be selling Egenera's PAN software to manage Dell's PowerEdge servers. I've been hearing about Egenera for years (all positive) - and so I'm excited to find out more in the months to come. Partnering with excellent software companies makes a lot of sense. The Register seems to think it's a good idea too.