Dell Dell in-depth development of cloud computing services

IT professionals have long regarded Dell as a hardware vendor, but it is trying to change its image as the company steps into the cloud-computing services market.

At the same time, with the help of VMware and Microsoft, the growing interest of many corporate IT departments in cloud computing has deeply touched the Dell hierarchy.

Dell is thinking that since cloud computing providers such as Amazon are using commercial hardware, and Dell's x86 business is such a product, then it is natural that cloud computing services should be their bag. The company has made significant investments in cloud computing services this year and has used the world's first meeting this week to promote its cloud computing philosophy.

One of the latest offerings from Dell is called the Boomi integrated platform that connects software as a service (SaaS) to a local cloud and an existing system.

The company claims to have tens of thousands of users using Boomi to connect payroll services, such as an internal payroll management system such as ADP.

"It's all about getting cloud services to be more practical," said CEO Michael Dell.

Because Boomi can be very useful, it requires a certain stage in order to be able to display its function. Jason Burkett, an architect at a solution company in Louisiana, said his customers were keen to use Boomi after their assessment, but found Boomi had some limitations in their use. "In both cases, there is a lack of functionality like this or that," he said.

Other Dell IT professionals say they are interested in cloud computing services, especially applications such as email and archiving, but they are not ready to cloud critical data.

This week Dell gave its cloud customers, such as the U.S. government, a demonstration of content to try to change the stance of some cloud-computing sceptics.

Dell connections for VMware Companies

VMware CEO Paul Maritz is still thinking about the value of cloud computing. "Cloud computing is a major change in the IT industry, and its implications are far-reaching and pervasive, and its development is unstoppable," Maritz said.

The problem with cloud computing-beyond a major change in how it works-is that existing applications cannot easily be rewritten and migrated to the cloud. Server virtualization to many enterprise users to provide a way to peel data and applications from the hardware layer, the current server virtualization technology has been widely used in enterprise it. But for the same identity cloud computing, all applications and data also need to be supported on the cloud computing platform, Maritz said.

"We have to build a basic infrastructure," Maritz said. "We have to get the cloud to have new hardware, so you simply plug it in and let it run and be calm when it fails." ”

The type of platform is the VMware Company's Cloud Foundry, an open platform, a service product, that is still in beta phase. This is an extensible cloud computing platform that supports multiple frameworks, cloud computing vendors, and multiple application services.

According to Maritz, the alternative to cloud computing is to return to "build a stack and keep it going forever."

Dell hopes IT professionals will be able to select one of the following cloud computing platforms, including the Dell OpenStack private Cloud, the recent release of a public cloud dedicated to business applications, and a Dell public cloud service based on VMware Vcloud.

Dell's Cloud computing infrastructure

To support its cloud computing platform and its cloud computing services, Dell has set up two new data centers, one in London and the other in the Green data center in Quincy, Washington State. Earlier this year, the company said publicly that it planned to eventually set up 10 new data centers.

Dell has also recently launched Vstart, a "cloud of racks" that allows it people to access the preconfigured Dell server racks and use hundreds or even thousands of virtual machines to quickly build the cloud.

Conceptually, this product resembles Cisco's Unified Computing System, while the Vstart hardware rack includes Dell servers, storage devices, network devices, power supplies, and cables. Dell's Vstart offers two different versions of VMware and Hyper-V, whereas the version for Hyper-V is from Microsoft's Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition.

Dell's Vstart professional services also includes initial setup, deployment, and Dell ProSupport services for up to three years.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)