Dell Technologies has announced VMware Cloud on Dell EMC (VCDE), a grandly-titled data centre as a service.
This is part of its Dell Technologies Cloud, whereby Dell on-premises infrastructure operate private clouds. Dell supports elements of that infrastructure on AWS, Azure, Google and other public clouds.
Hybrid public-private clouds are supported with consistent management and operations. The Dell Technologies Cloud products are available under a pay-for-use, Flex on Demand model. HPE GreenLake offers this idea as well.
Dell’s VCDE in essence means VMware Cloud Foundation – VMware’s software-defined data centre (SDDC) stack, running on VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). Components include SDDC Manager, vSphere, vSAN, NSX and vRealize.
The new service will support automated deployment of VMware PKS (Pivotal Kubernetes Services) on VxRail, adding Kubernetes and containers support to the VMware virtual machine mix.
Dell has produced a number of ‘Cloud Validated Designs’ for its servers, storage and networking equipment – for instance, PowerMax and Unity XT storage arrays and PowerEdge MX servers – that integrate with VMware Cloud Foundation. These designs are less integrated than VxRail and enable compute and storage to be scaled separately.
VCDE includes VMware’s vSphere, VSAN, and is available initially to US customers. Dell said the Dell EMC version is the first to market. It also said Dell EMC is its preferred data protection partner for VCDE. VMware and Lenovo discussed beta-testing this DCaaS (data centre as a service) idea under the Project Dimension banner in November 2018.
Lastly, it is Kubernetes everywhere in HCI land. Competitor Nutanix has its Karbon product which supports Kubernetes. HPE’s SimpliVity also supports Kubernetes via a GitHub download. NetApp’s hyperconverged products also support Kubernetes.
