Dell Fine Tunes Servers And Services For The Cloud

The PowerEdge C-Series are part of a growing trend in the industry of offering new systems optimized for cloud computing. Most recently, Fujitsu on 17 March unveiled the Primergy CX1000, a rack server designed to offer the high performance such environments need while driving down power consumption and costs. Through a unique design that pushes the hot air from the system through the top of the enclosure rather than out the back, the Primergy CX1000 can also save on data centre space.

Wrapping around all this are Dell’s Integrated Solution Services, which offer complete cloud lifecycle management, Knafo said. The services – a combination of what Dell had on hand already and what it gained with the Perot Systems acquisition – include workshops to assess a company’s readiness to move to the cloud to offerings around design, deployment, and maintenance.

“There’s great interest in the cloud, and a lot of questions on how to get to the cloud,” Knafo said. “They want a path and a roadmap identifying what the cloud can bring.”

Mike Wilmington, a planner and strategist for Dell’s DCS group, said the services will help clear up a lot of confusion enterprises may have over what the cloud is. Cloud computing offers many of the same benefits to everyone – from greater energy efficiency and cost reductions to flexibility and improved management – but it won’t look the same to every business.

“Clouds are what the customer wants them to be,” Wilmington said.