Simple, smart, fast path to virtualization, now in a smaller package – vStart 50

While the benefits of virtualization are pretty well understood by most organizations, many struggle because of its complexity and the need for specialized skills. Additionally it takes an organization’s best resources away from building value for its customers to building infrastructure instead. One way to help these customers is to deliver pre-built, pre-configured virtualizations solutions. To address the needs of these customers, Dell released vStart 100v and vStart 200v in April 2011.

Building on the success of the vStart launches earlier this year, Dell today is releasing vStart 50, the third vStart configuration to date and also the first to offer support for Microsoft Hyper-V to offer customers choice at the hypervisor layer. Specifically designed for fewer workloads, vStart 50 comes in a half rack configuration with 2-3 rack mounted servers and over 7 TB of Dell EqualLogic SAN storage configured with 2 pairs of PowerConnect switches. vStarts have been engineered to be fault tolerant with appropriate redundancies built in. Akin to its bigger brethren, the vStart 50 solution comes pre-designed, pre-configured and pre-assembled with hardware and software and includes initial deployment services to ensure rapid assimilation and quick time to value for our customers.  Also, included with the vStart 50 is the 3 year Dell Pro-Support so the customers can get a quick resolution should any issues arise. Combined, these features make vStart a very compelling solution in the marketplace.

Below is a brief comparison of vStart versus HP’s Midrange HA Rack Bundle, the closest competitive offering in terms of price and positioning.

Available for sale in US and Canada on Sept 20th, 2011, vStart 50 will be sold in two versions – vStart 50m with support for Microsoft Hyper-V, and vStart 50v with support for VMware ESXi. Availability in additional countries will be forthcoming within the next few weeks.In addition to being an obvious choice for smaller to medium sized organizations seeking to rapidly deploy flexible infrastructure, vStart 50’s versatility allows it to be relevant with organizations of different sizes and in different verticals.  For mid-sized companies it can host their test and development environment, for larger companies it can be the infrastructure for their remote offices or branch offices, for first responders, this could be the datacenter in a box that they can quickly harness. For organization seeking to introduce new applications in a non-disruptive manner, a vStart could be a great option!

To see if a vStart solution can help get you to your virtualization goals quickly, please visit Dell.com/vStart or contact your Dell sales representative.

About the Author: Andy Rhodes