Dell Unleashes 6 Breakthrough Products At Dell User Forum

Live And In Color

Dell took the wraps off a blizzard of new products at its Dell User Forum that include a range of enterprise appliances in partnership with Nutanix for storage, Oracle for its Web-centric 12c database, Fusion-io for its database accelerator, and an in-memory appliance optimized for Cloudera and Hadoop workloads. Dell also unveiled SC4000 midtier storage hardware and new Windows 2003 migration services.

Dell To OEM Nutanix Software On PowerEdge Servers

In partnership with Nutanix, Dell unveiled the XC Series of Web-scale Converged Appliances around storage solutions. The software-defined appliances combine compute, storage and networking into a single package. The Dell-branded appliance will be based on Dell PowerEdge hardware.

Dell's XC Series of Web-scale Converged Appliances will be available worldwide in the fourth quarter.

Dell To Supercharge And Ease Deployment Of Oracle 12c Databases

Dell takes a big jump into the enterprise with Dell Integrated Systems for Oracle 12c Database, which is a "purpose-built" PowerEdge appliance aimed at accelerating current Oracle 12c environments. Dell said the appliance delivers ultra-high performance thanks to flash technology from Fusion-io, which provides 19.2 TB of mirrored flash storage.

Dell said its solution running on Dell hardware delivers the fastest response time at nearly half the cost of other non-Oracle appliances. Dell Integrated Systems for Oracle 12c Database will be available worldwide in the second half.

Dell In-Memory Appliance for Cloudera Enterprise

Dell's In-Memory Appliances for Cloudera Enterprise come in two flavors. One is a midmarket-focused edition based on the PowerEdge R720XD server, with a lower price point. And the second is an enterprise-focused edition based on the PowerEdge R920 server, enabling scale-out capabilities.

Dell bundles Apache Spark into the appliance, enabling real-time analytics on streaming data. Dell's pitch is either appliance simplifies and speeds up otherwise complex Hadoop cluster deployments, letting IT managers gain critical business insights faster.

Dell is betting big on Hadoop and cites IDC research that claims the market for Hadoop is expected to grow to $50.2 billion by 2020. The Dell In-Memory Appliance for Cloudera Enterprise will be available worldwide in the second half.

Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases

Dell's Acceleration Appliances for Databases are aimed at helping midmarket and enterprise customers quickly and cost-effectively boost database performance. The appliances are engineered to accelerate Oracle, MS SQL, SAP ASE, SAP HANA and MySQL databases. Performance boosts range from a 50 percent reduction in average response time and more than double the transactions per second, according to Dell.

Appliances run on Dell PowerEdge servers, coupled with Fusion-io 3.2-TB SSD drives and Fusion-io Ion Acceleration technology. They will be available worldwide in the second half.

Midtier Storage Array Puts SC8000 Features In More Affordable 2U Box

Dell is bringing its SC4000 midtier storage array to the U.S. market. In March, Dell unveiled availability of the SC4000-range storage hardware to the channel in the Asia-Pacific region. With the introduction of the SC4000 in the U.S., Dell said it is taking its flagship Compellent array and dropping pricing for the SMB market to $25,000 to $50,000.

Dell describes the SC4000 as a smaller-form-factor and more affordable version of its SC8000. Where the SC8000 features a 6U box configuration, the SC4000 has a 2U box, dual processors, supports flash and spinning disks.

The End Is Near, Again

Dell also is introducing four Windows Server 2003 Migration Services ahead of the July 2015 support deadline for Windows Server 2003. The new migration options are aimed at helping companies analyze and optimize large-seat migrations with minimum impact on day-to-day business. Dell is targeting Windows Server 2003 users looking to transition workloads to the Microsoft Azure cloud or Windows Server 2012 R2.

Dell cited Microsoft estimates that server migration takes at least 200 days and application migration can take more than 300 days to complete.