Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Updates Help You Taste the Sweet Life

Wouldn’t it be nice if managing your IT infrastructure was as simple as using an app on a mobile device??  Whether it’s Google Home or the Amazon Echo, teching out your home is as simple as a voice activated command.  We don’t spend too much time thinking about where our phone contacts or music preferences reside. We trust that the cloud will deliver it to at the touch of a button.  We even get prompted by our devices when we take a picture to save it to the cloud. It’s disaster recovery gone mainstream!

We long for the same simplicity at work. Technology complexity can make it challenging and time consuming to get different components working together.  When it finally works well it could be time to upgrade or phase out something.  The process starts again. It’s an endless cycle.

This year at Microsoft Ignite, Dell EMC is announcing some exciting new advancements to Dell EMC XC Series powered by Nutanix to simplify ecosystem complexity. HCI promises IT simplicity, and we’re continuing to innovate and make advancements that continue to carry out this promise.

Enhanced Data Protection for XC Series Deployments

Simplified management console: First up is the XC Series Data Protection Management Console, which is a big step towards the simple life.  This latest advancement in the XC Series ecosystem is huge when integrating Dell EMC Data Protection Solutions like Avamar and Data Domain with the XC Series. Launched as an application from within Prism, the XC Series’ central management interface, the XC Series Data Protection Management Console offers users one click access to monitor and manage the back-up of multiple XC Series clusters. Sharing a common look and feel with Prism, this new addition will prove to be very intuitive for anyone.

Simplified lifecycle management: We know your time is valuable, so we’ve streamlined processes at every stage.  Customers will receive solution level engagement from Dell EMC team members throughout the entire lifecycle…one quote, one order, one deployment to schedule, and one support number to call. Once deployed, new built in automation features, like VM detection, mean that you’ll spend less time managing backups and more time moving your business forward. Imagine automatically being asked if you want to create a backup when you create a new VM.

Simplified and integrated data protection: Let’s also address cloud storage, considering that it’s on everyone’s mind. The Data Domain piece of the overall XC Series data protection solution includes native cloud tiering.  You don’t have to worry about the cost or complexity of adding a virtual appliance or cloud gateway. It also automates cloud storage and ensures that only new unique data is sent and stored to the cloud, saving you on backup times and cloud storage costs.

Simple life for data protection – check.

Microsoft Hyper-V 2016 and Azure Become Even Simpler

Imagine a world where your current expertise in Microsoft including Hyper-V could be combined effectively with a trusted HCI solution – one that is modern, affordable, scalable and has the flexibility to support Microsoft Hyper-V and additional industry leading hypervisors.

New XC Series advances support the newest version of Nutanix 5.5, which builds on existing Hyper-V capabilities, including SCOM integration, by adding support for Hyper-V 2016. In keeping with the overall strategy of simplicity (one-click), the software includes unique capability to upgrade to Hyper-V extremely simply for customers still on older Hyper-V versions.

Plus, we recognize Microsoft’s Azure cloud is important to many customers. To simplify a hybrid cloud environment with XC Series on premises working with Azure Cloud, we are introducing the XC Series Azure Log Analytics Solution. It provides integration of XC Series into customers’ OMS-based data center automation tools, enabling insights such as trend analysis and behavioral anomaly detection.

Dell EMC has been approved by Microsoft to deliver Azure through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) for both direct and indirect (channel) worldwide. Our trusted partners and we, Dell EMC, can facilitate purchases and on-going support.

Simpler life for Microsoft environments – check.

XC Series is extending the turnkey HCI experience across the full data center ecosystem, enabling you to completely and simply include this HCI solution into your environment using technologies you chose. Availability for these advancements is planned for Q4 of this year.  If you’re at Microsoft Ignite this week, please drop by our booth (#459) and talk with our experts! We hope to see you here.

About the Author: Dan McConnell

Dan McConnell is Vice President of Hyper-Converged Solutions for Dell|EMC within the Converged Platforms and Solutions Division. He has worked at Dell|EMC for 18 years, holding positions in Dell’s Office of the CTO, Engineering, and Product Management for the Server, Storage, and Converged lines of business. Dan has over 22 years of experience in IT product development including Engineering and Marketing roles and holds a Bachelor of Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.