- Dell Technologies Cloud Platform and Dell EMC VxRail now support VMware vSphere with Tanzu and the latest VMware Cloud Foundation, vSphere and vSAN releases, offering an easy path to Kubernetes adoption while delivering enhancements for traditional workloads
- Dell EMC PowerMax storage replication, now integrated with VMware vVols, simplifies management and improves access to mission-critical applications
- Dell EMC ObjectScale, built on VMware Cloud Foundation, allows developers to provision cloud-scale storage for modern applications
- Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager advancements include industry-first protection for VMware Cloud Foundation infrastructure layers and Kubernetes environments
These announcements made on 29 September 2020 by Dell Technologies come on the heels of rumours of a pending spinoff by Dell of its VMware shareholdings. They comes on the heels of another breaking story first reported on Bloomberg – Dell trimming its global workforce to stay competitive.
Setting aside the potential of a VMware spinoff and a yet to be confirmed workforce restructuring, Jeff Boudreau, president and general manager, Infrastructure Solutions Group at Dell Technologies said customers that are looking to accelerate their digital transformation need trusted, proven solutions that can help them navigate today’s multi-cloud landscape while managing their IT and business needs.
Integration, integration, integration
Boudreau claims that Dell Technologies and VMware are raising the bar with tightly integrated solutions, designed to help customers and partners better manage and protect traditional and modern applications.
“The demands on IT teams today underscore the need for modern, agile infrastructure. The tight collaboration between Dell Technologies and VMware delivers the feature-rich solutions organisations need to deploy, manage and protect applications everywhere, from the edge to cloud,” said Eric Sheppard, research vice president, IDC Infrastructure Platforms & Technologies Group.
Dell EMC VxRail, the only jointly engineered HCI system with VMware, is the first system to be integrated with VMware vSphere with Tanzu, allowing customers to adopt Kubernetes quickly and easily with automated deployment and provisioning. Dell’s broad infrastructure portfolio lets customers deploy VMware Tanzu in the way that best aligns with their IT strategy, whether through a validated architecture, VxRail cluster and/or the Dell Technologies Cloud Platform.
Case in point, Dell Technologies is extending support for the latest VMware releases covering vSpehere, vSAN and VMware Cloud Foundation to support Tanzu, across the Dell infrastructure portfolio, with tightly integrated solutions including Dell Technologies Cloud, Dell EMC VxRail, Dell EMC PowerProtect, and Dell EMC PowerEdge.
Dell’s “cloud strategy is primarily predicated on VMware offerings in terms of VMware’s partnership with AWS as well their partnership with the other hyperscalers,” said Sid Nag, VP of cloud services and technologies at Gartner.
He added that VMware’s recent Tanzu offering and their embracing of containers is a good strategy. However, Dell on their own has little to offer from a cloud strategy and solution perspective except for Dell Technologies Cloud Platform (DTCP), which is primarily based on VMware software running on Dell’s VxRail product. DTCP is fairly new and remains untested in the market.”
