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Dell Cloud News: Hyper-V for OpenStack, Public Cloud Partner Program
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Two pieces of important cloud news coming out of Dell (the company I work for) today:
- Dell to Enable Hyper-V and Windows Server 2012 Support for OpenStack
Dell today announced it will enable Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V as a viable hypervisor choice for the OpenStack cloud platform. This development, which is the first instance of a leading technology vendor enabling Windows Server Hyper-V hypervisor on OpenStack for private clouds, will give customers additional flexibility and choice to run OpenStack workloads within their existing Windows Server environments.
More info here.
- Dell to Deliver Public Cloud through Partner Ecosystem
Dell is launching the Dell Cloud Partner Program to deliver public cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) through an ecosystem of partners. Acting as a single-source supplier, Dell will offer customers a choice of vendors and technology, freedom from lock-in to a single platform or pricing model and a central point of solution integration and control. Sales of Dell’s current in-house multi-tenant public cloud IaaS will be discontinued in the U.S. in favor of best-in-class partner offerings.
More info here.
Both of these announcements highlight key tenets for our cloud strategy.
- First and foremost, our customers come first when it comes to new products, solutions, and services – they are the most important element in enabling the vendor lanscape understand where the priorities should be.
- We will continue to collaborate and learn from our customers as we develop products, solutions, and services in the cloud space. It is part of our DNA – plain and simple.
- Though our tactics evolve, our commitment to enabling our customers with cloud technology remains constant. Customers are finding success in cloud when partnering with Dell, and we’ll continue to keep that our mission.
- Specifically with OpenStack, our commitment to enabling the innovative cloud technology and community remains as solid as ever. We have been vocal advocates since Day 1 (something no other hardware solutions vendor can claim), and we have no intentions of slowing down.
From the Data Center Solutions (DCS) team, who have built and enabled some of the biggest public clouds in the world, to the Dell Revolutionary Solutions Team, who have been early entrants into the OpenStack and Hadoop spaces, and to Dell’s open source community in Crowbar, we’ve proven our commitment to innovation and customer success.
That is what we are about.
And don’t expect that to ever change.
Until next time,
JBGeorge
@jbgeorge
ONE MILLION: Dell Data Center Solutions (DCS) Ships Millionth Server
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The team at Dell (the company I work for) celebrated a huge milestone last week…
The Data Center Solutions group (aka DCS) officially shipped their millionth cloud server!
As the director of DCS marketing, Drew Schulke, pointed out, DCS’s influence is all around you – “If you used a search engine, updated your status via social media, or generated a map on the internet to get from ‘point A’ to ‘point B’ today, there is a good chance that a DCS server made that possible.” (You can read Drew’s entire blog here.)
As many of you know, I lead a team of product managers and strategists on the Dell Revolutionary Cloud and Big Data team, who focus on areas such as OpenStack and Hadoop, who deliver the Dell Crowbar software framework, and lead the Crowbar open source community.
So what does DCS have to do with our OpenStack / Hadoop / Crowbar team?
Actually quite a bit.
DCS set out to meet the needs of the hyperscale customer, and as it turns out, most of those customers are looking at cutting edge technology trends like OpenStack, Hadoop, and open source toolsets.
In fact, our solutions feature PowerEdge C servers, the density optimized server line that was born out of the work done by DCS, and are being run by our solutions customers on a regular basis as they stand up cloud and big data environments.
So by pulling together integrated HW+SW+Services solutions around OpenStack and Hadoop, leveraging innovative Dell IP like Crowbar and the unique advancements coming out of the DCS group, we’re able to make our customers even more successful – which is what its all about.
Win-win-win!
It’s a great milestone for the innovative DCS team – join me in celebrating this momentus milestone!
Until next time,
JOSEPH
@jbgeorge
More info:
NOW HIRING: Dell’s Revolutionary Cloud and Big Data Team Expands
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We’re growing!
The Revolutionary Cloud and Big Data Team at Dell (the company I work for) is looking to expand our team of rockstars, so we’re putting the word out. Specifically we’re looking for architects, engineers, developers, and I’m looking to hire a few more senior product managers to join my team of subject matter experts.
Just for context, we’re the team that has taken to market the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution, the Dell Apache Hadoop Solution, and the Dell Crowbar software framework and open source project.
And if you’re a rockstar in any of those spaces, we’d like to talk to you.
SPOILER ALERT – If you’re interested in talking to us about a technical spot on our team, you can email us your info and resume at OpenStack@Dell.com or Hadoop@Dell.com.
What is this team about?
A few years ago, the Dell Data Center Solutions team came into being with a mission of servicing the biggest hyperscale environments in the world, which included many of the market’s top cloud providers. It has succeeded in its mission in dominating the density optimized space (check out more on that here), and in fact, just shipped it’s ONE MILLIONTH SERVER.
An extension of DCS’s mission soon became clear – as many customers were looking to accelerate into spaces like cloud and big data, providing them integrated solutions would ease their implementation of these technologies. And so our Revolutionary Cloud and Big Data Solutions team was born – to deliver integrated solutions based on cutting edge technologies like OpenStack and Hadoop (and more), as well as innovative Dell projects like Crowbar, in an effort to enable customers to grow and thrive in their businesses with our products, innovation, and expertise.
Who are we?
The team at Dell is made up of a number of people, like myself, that you’d recognize from OpenStack and Hadoop circles – folks like Rob Hirschfeld, Greg Althaus, Kamesh Pemmaraju, and others. We all come from a variety of backgrounds – some from big companies in the technology spaces and many from startups – we happen to have quite a few entreprenuers on our team! And we try to service our customers in the best way possible – agile development processes, open source friendly, community oriented, etc.
What are we trying to do?
Our mission is to develop and deliver HW+SW+Services solutions to market that will enable our customers to be successful. Clear and simple.
Here’s a sampling of what our team has done over the course of our existence:
- The first hardware solutions vendor to support OpenStack
- Released the first HW+SW+Services OpenStack solution to market – the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution
- Launch of open source project “Crowbar” to fill the void of an automated bare metal OpenStack provisioner
- Released HW+SW+Services Apache Hadoop solution to market – the Dell Apache Hadoop Solution
- Launch of the Emerging Solutions Ecosystem Partner Program to enable our customers by incorporating some of our best in breed partner technologies into our solutions, which includes Datameer, Pentaho, enStratus, Mirantis, and Canonical, with more to come
- Launch of the Emerging Solutions Platform Partner Program to enable our customers by delivering solutions focused on specific workloads and target markets
In addition, we’re big believers in the community – we regularly hold hackfests to help move these communities forward, lead community meetups in Austin and Boston working with other key vendors that co-sponsor with us (you may be surprised), are regularly active in IRC, skype discussions, conference breakout sessions, and more.
It’s a fast-paced, customer focused, ever evolving group and its a great place to deliver tanglible, difference making solutions to customers.
It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s DEFINITELY for the mover and shaker.
Who we want to hear from
We’re looking to expand in a number of areas, but specifically we’re looking for technical talent
- Developers / QA
- Technical Product Managers and Strategists
- Architects and Technical Leads
If I’ve piqued your interest, drop me a note and your resume at OpenStack@Dell.com.
Look forward to hearing from cloud / big data / open source rockstars.
Until next time,
JOSEPH
@jbgeorge
HADOOP WEBINAR: “New Business Insights with Hadoop Analytics”
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Hadoop World last week was a blast, so hopefully, you’re still on a Hadoop high and checking out all the new ideas coming from Dell (the company I work for), and others in the space.
And to keep the good times going, Dell is joining forces with our partner, Datameer, to host a webinar deep diving into Hadoop analytics.
Jeff Stacey, Dell’s Senior Product Manager of Big Data Solution (which includes our Dell Apache Hadoop Solution), will be co-hosting this webinar with Datameer as they dig into real-world examples and use cases of how companies are taking advantage of hardware and software advances to analyze data with Hadoop. They’ll take a look at numerous data sources that are being leveraged, and how this wealth of data is already providing critical new insights in industries ranging from financial services to new media.
Here’s all you need to know:
- Date: Wed, Nov 7, 2012
- Time: 10:00 AM Pacific / 1:00 PM Eastern
- What: Dell + Datameer webainar – “New Business Insights with Hadoop Analytics”
- Register here: LINK
Come check out how analytic use cases spanning marketing, internet security, asset risk management, product usage and IT infrastructure are already driving competitive advantages and operational efficiencies.
If you’d like to learn more about how Dell is making our customers successful with Hadoop via the Dell Apache Hadoop Solution, visit www.Dell.com/Hadoop or drop us a line at Hadoop@Dell.com.
See you at the webinar!
Until next time
JOSEPH
@jbgeorge
Highlights from the 2012 Hadoop World
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Had a great time at last week’s Hadoop World, so wanted to write up a few of my thoughts from the event.
- This year’s Hadoop World was the best attended to date – I believe I heard the attendee number to be at 2500 vs 1400 last year! It’s great to see this kind of growth among the community considering there were only 500 attendees just four years ago.
- In some similarities to what I’m seeing in the OpenStack community, this conference seemed to boast more from the “user” ranks as opposed to just developers as in the recent past. It speaks volumes to the general adoption that Hadoop is seeing in the market.
- Dell, the company I work for, and our Ecosystem Partner Datameer hosted a networking event for a number of folks at Hadoop World at the prestigious Circo NYC restaurant – great food and a great time with some innovative Hadoop implementers. Got to really get indepth how real people are implementing Hadoop in their enviornments today. Appreciate those that took the time out to attend, and for those who missed out, see you next time!
- Cloudera announced their beta project called “Impala”, which allows users to perform real-time queries of their data, a feature that a number of Hadoop users have been anticipating. According to Cloudera, Impala can process queries up to 30 times faster than Hive / MapReduce – very cool, and I look forward to checking it out.
- Finally, Dell made an announcement about our donation of “Zinc”, an ARM-based server concept to the Apache Software Foundation, with support from our partner, Calxeda, where we see ARM infrastructures as an interesting technology for Hadoop environments. The donation includes hosting and technical support for the Apache community. and we’re hosting the server concept at an Austin-based co-location. The Apache Hadoop project has actually performed more than a dozen builds within the first 24 hours of the servers’ deployment. (You can check out the full press release here to learn more.)
All in all, Hadoop World is another hit! It was a great event overall and I look forward to next year’s conference.
To learn more about the Dell Apache Hadoop Solution and more about what Dell is doing in this space, visit us at www.Dell.com/Hadoop.
And if you want to chat about how Dell can help you with your Hadoop initiative, drop me an email at Hadoop@Dell.com.
Until next time,
JOSEPH
@jbgeorge
Dell @ Hadoop World 2012: Experts, Solutions, and Networking Event
- Date: Tuesday, October 23, 2012
- Time: 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. EST
- Place: Circo NYC, 120 W. 55th Street, New York, NY 10019, (212) 265-3636, circonyc.com
- Circo: offers upscale Italian fare built upon a foundation of signature Tuscan recipes from the kitchen of Maccioni matriarch Egidiana and prepared by Executive Chef Michael Galata. The menu is served in a lively, sophisticated setting reminiscent of the old-style European circus tents which inspired the restaurant’s name.
If you’re interested in joining us, be sure to RSVP with Dianna Doan (ddoan@datameer.com) ASAP. There are only a few spots left, so be sure to RSVP now.
I’ll be there, so I hope to see you too.
Looking forward to a great week!
Until next time,
JOSEPH
@jbgeorge
I am seeking your vote(s) for the OpenStack Board
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(This blog entry is one I co-authored with my colleague, Rob Hirschfeld – www.RobHirschfeld.com)
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If registered, you have 8 votes to allocate as you wish. You will get a link via email – you must use that link.
Joseph B George and Rob Hirschfeld are asking for your vote for individual member seats on the OpenStack Foundation board.
This is a key point in the OpenStack journey and we strongly encourage eligible voters to participate no matter who you vote for! As we have said before, success of the Foundation governance process matters just as much as the code because it ensures equal access and limits forking.
We think that OpenStack succeeds because it is collaboratively developed. It is essential that we select board members who have a proven record of community development, a willingness to partner and have demonstrated investment in the project.
Our OpenStack vision favors production operations by being operator, user and ecosystem focused. If elected, we will represent these interests by helping advance deployability, API specifications, open operations and both large and small scale cloud deployments.
Of the nominees, we best represent OpenStack users and operators (as opposed to developers). We have the most diverse experience in real-world OpenStack deployments because our solution has been deployed broadly (both as Dell and through Crowbar. We have a proven record of collaborating broadly with contributors, demonstrated skills at building the OpenStack community and doing real open source work to ensure that OpenStack is the most deployable cloud platform anywhere.
Let’s get specific about our leadership in the OpenStack project and community:
- We have been active and vocal leaders in the OpenStack community
- our team has established two very active user groups (Austin & Boston)
- we have lead multiple world-wide deploy day events (March 2012 & May 2012).
- We were the first OpenStack powered private cloud provider
- we have substantial experience in the field and know the challenges of running OpenStack for a wide variety of real-world deployments
- our first solution came out on Cactus! We’ve been delivering on Essex since OSCON 2012 (http://www.oscon.com/ ).
- We represent a broad range of deployment scenarios ranging from hosting, government, healthcare, retail, education, media, financial and more!
- We have broad engagements and partnerships at the infrastructure (SUSE, Canonical, Redhat), consulting (Canonical, Mirantis) and ecosystem layers (enStratus) and beyond!
- We have a proven track record of collaboration instead of forking/disrupting – a critical skill for this project reflected by our consistent actions to preserve the integrity of the project.
- We have led the “make OpenStack deployable” campaign with substantial investments (open source Crowbar, white papers, documentation & cookbooks.
- We have very long and consistent history with the project starting even before the first OpenStack summit in Austin.
Of course, we’re asking for you to consider for both of us; however, if you want to focus on just one then here’s the balance between us.
- Rob (bio) is a technologist with deep roots in cloud technology, data center operations and open source.
- Joseph is a business professional with experience new product introduction in cloud technology, user focus, and enterprise delivery.
Not sure if you can vote? If you registered as an individual member then your name should be on the voting list. In that case, you can vote between 8/20 and 8/24.
Thanks for your support!
Dell Cloud Happenings This Week…
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Just wanted to drop a quick blog to provide a central area on what events Dell has going on in the cloud space this week.
Here we go…
WHIR Webinar – Wed, June 20th
What: Dell / Intel / Morph Labs WHIR Webinar
Title: “Proven Innovation to Reduce Data Center OpEx by 40%”
When: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT
Who: Deania Davidson (Dell), Naveen Bohra (Intel), Winston Damarillo (Morphlabs)
More Info: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/506707474
Boston OpenStack Meetup – Thu, June 21st
What: Dell and Red Hat co-sponsor this month’s Boston OpenStack Meetup
When: Thursday, June 21, 2012, from 6:30 – 9:30PM
Where: The auditorium located at 85 Wells Avenue Newton, MA
Agenda: OpenStack Swift, Quantum
More Info: http://www.meetup.com/Openstack-Boston/events/67737262/
Austin OpenStack Meetup – Thu, June 21st
What: Dell and Opscode co-sponsor this month’s Austin OpenStack Meetup
When: Thursday, June 21, 2012, from 6:30 – 9:30PM
Where: The Austin Tech Ranch
Agenda: OpenStack Foundation with Foundation guest speakers Mark Collier, Jonathan Bryce, and Lauren Sell
More Info: http://www.meetup.com/OpenStack-Austin/events/67989692/
Look forward to seeing a big turnout at each of these! See you there.
Until next time,
JBGeorge
@jbgeorge
THIS JUST IN: Dell Announces ARM Server Ecosystem and Acceleration Programs
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If you’ve followed some of the technology advances in the processor space, you’ve no doubt heard of the ARM architecture. We’ve seen ARM processors in a number of client devices, but they’ve not been widely adopted for server use due to additional feature needs, performance, and limited software ecosystem.
Well, today, Dell (the company I work for) announced some of the work we are doing behind ARM and ARM-based servers.
ARM, which stands for “advanced RISC machine,” is a 32-bit RISC instruction set architecture developed by ARM Holdings. In the server context, it can allow systems to be deployed at the chip level to reduce space, power consumption and cost.
Dell has been testing with ARM since 2010, and has been working with customers to understand how they could benefit from the ARM architecture, as well as what their expectations were regarding ARM-based servers.
Dell “Copper” ARM-based server
Today, we announced development of “Copper”, an ARM-based microserver, optimized for the current maturity of the ARM server market, which is primarily focused on test / dev and ARM-based technology to test and optimize code. And for this predominant use case, the Copper server is a great fit in terms of size and costwith its lightweight design, low-power-consumption and excellent density.
Dell’s Copper server is specifically designed for this market, with a small acquisition size and price, lower power consumption, and ease of use, and if you’ve followed our open source solution to date, you know that enabling open source development is important to us.
Enabling customers and the ecosystem
Testing to date has found compelling performance per dollar and performance per watt advantages for workloads like LAMP stack based web front ends and Hadoop applications. In that vein, we’ve partnered with TACC, the Texas Advanced Computing Center to help work through workloads, use cases, etc. We are also working with key open source partners like Canonical and Cloudera to help drive this space as well.
And for those who follow our Cloud and Big Data solutions (like the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solutions, the Dell Cloudera Hadoop Solution, and Crowbar), you’ll be happy to know what our team intends to enable ARM in Crowbar as well. It has proven to be a great tool in deploying our solutions on bare metal and managing the overall solutions that we see a great fit for it in the ARM use case.
We’re obviously very excited about this announcement, so I’d welcome you to check out the links on the ARM / Copper announcement at the end of this blog and in the video below.
Until next time,
JBGeorge
@jbgeorge
More info:
- Learn more about what Dell is doing with ARM and the new “Copper Server” – www.Dell.com/ARMserver
- Learn more about ARM (Wikipedia)
- Learn more about Dell and Hadoop – www.Dell.com/Hadoop
- Learn more about Dell Crowbar – www.Dell.com/Crowbar
Highlights from the Open Source Business Conference 2012
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Last week I had the pleasure to head (back) to San Francisco to spend a few days with other open source believers at this year’s Open Source Business Conference. I was there on behalf of Dell, the company I work for.
Here are some of my thoughts from the sessions / keynotes I sat in on this past week.
- Jim Whitehurst of Red Hat spoke at a keynote and highlighted how the innovation that will be built on IaaS is where the revolution will reside, and that the role vendors will play in this new open source friendly enterprise will focus more on support and services.
- There was a great open source panel with personnel from Yahoo, Warner Music, Blackduck, Acquia, and NorthBridge that talked through real use cases at Yahoo and Warner, plus feedback on their annual open source survey which talked through the rise of open source adoption in the enterprise, how quality and cost is driving that, and how many companies are viewing open source software as a starting point for projects now, rather than an alternative option.
- HP’s Biri Singh talked through their cloud strategy including their tiered strategy of Iaas + ecosystem + marketplace. Turns out they’re using quite a bit of open source as they are building out their public cloud with focus on web services at scale.
- A panel on “Amazon vs the world”, panelists from Canonical , Eucalyptus, and Citrix talked about open private cloud with the backdrop of Amazon’s dominance as a public cloud provider. AWS API compatibility came up a lot, as well as the need to productize open source technologies more. Some opportunities that were highlighted included the need to have vendors who know more than just software, but also the “wiring” of actual working systems, and the importance of staying open as we are just starting to see adoption by the enterprise.
- CloudScaling hosted a great session on why open cloud is winning – how internet companies drove cloud technologies and how they were built with open source, the differences between the “Enterprise IT cloud” and the “Next Gen IT cloud”, and how “no lock-in” + flexibility + scale are the key tenets of open cloud.
Obviously there was a lot more at the event that I was not able to get to – You can check out a few of the presentation slides at https://www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/31601/50199/?&
If you were out there last week, be sure to leave a comment with your thoughts.
I enjoyed the few days out there – looking forward to the next open source event – likely in San Fran again. 🙂
Until next time,
JBGeorge
@jbgeorge
The JBGeorge Tech Blog 