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2012 Issue
Dell Power Solutions special edition
Dell.com/EfficientIT
Discover the power to do moreStrategy matters. Five transformational imperatives are changing the economics of success in the Virtual Era—empowering you to invest more in innovation by eliminating costly inefficiencies.
Proof positive: How Efficient IT is funding innovation for Team Lotus, AccuWeather, University of California, Irvine, and other Dell customers
Revolution or evolution: Nothing nebulous about cloud computing benefits
Embracing mobility: CIO strategies for leading in the age of consumerization
Data deluge: How Dell customers are driving data management practices to new levels of efficiency
Doug Eney
Vice President, I/S Engineering
Carnival Cruise Lines
“ Efficient IT means less room for data centers and more room for fun.”
See how we helped Carnival Cruise Lines reduce their server footprint by 60% and increase performance by 38% with Dell open virtualization and storage solutions. Learn more at Dell.com/Effi cientIT.
To view the Carnival video, scan here or text EIT to DELL4U (335548).
Standard message and data rates apply.
CIO strategies for consumerization: The future of enterprise mobilityBy Paul D’Arcy
IT consumerization of enterprise mobility is changing
the relationship between employers and employees.
Learn the five trends shaping the future of enterprise
mobility, and get nine recommendations for tackling
the challenges of IT consumerization.
18 Consumerization
As the line between business and IT strategy vanishes,
five transformational imperatives are changing the
economics of success in the Virtual Era—empowering a
highly agile workforce to collaborate on innovations that
were unimaginable a few short years ago.
By Jeff S. Johnson
4 Cover story
Discover the power to do more
2012 IssueDell.com/EfficientIT
Dell Power Solutions special edition
Up in the air? Nothing nebulous about cloud computing benefitsBy Holly Vatter, Barton George, and Janet Bartleson
Data center virtualization and consolidation
often clear the path toward private, public, and
hybrid cloud computing environments. Whether
enterprises take a revolutionary or evolutionary
approach, understanding IT infrastructure
options is the first step.
10 Cloud
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Power Solutions on ZinioDell Power Solutions offers the latest
in expert advice, solutions, and technology
for enterprise IT. Now in a new digital
format on the Zinio publishing platform,
the publication enables anytime,
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2 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Index to featured Dell customers
Customer perspectives
22 Managing data intelligently to drive efficiency in the virtual era
In nearly every industry, dynamic data management solutions are helping
deliver the right data at the right time—and the right cost.
29 Expanding business opportunities through the cloud
Cloud computing helps organizations of all sizes enhance their competitive
edge while realizing powerful cost-benefits.
33 Carnival Cruise Lines: Serious fun
Virtualized servers and storage make the most of a small shipboard footprint,
while reclaiming 7,000 hours a year for the IT team.
34 Team Lotus: On track for the checkered flag
A winning IT infrastructure is helping Team Lotus become the fastest new
competitor on the Formula 1™ racing circuit.
36 University of California, Irvine: Accelerating scientific research
with an energy-saving HPC cluster
Advanced technology in the GreenPlanet HPC cluster lets scientists conduct
150 percent more research in 50 percent of the space.
Editorial staffEditor-in-chief and publisher Tom KolnowskiManaging editor Debra McDonaldSpecial edition editor Dawn DavidsonFeatures editor Kathryn WhiteGuest editors Sara Chapman, Christine Fults, Bill Goins, and Sara SuminskiSenior editors James Hurd, Catherine Luo, and Terrence O’DonnellArt director and cover designer David ChanDesigner and illustrator Cynthia WebbBusiness operations Cissy WalkerStaff writers Jeanne Feldkamp and Greg Thomas
Contributing writers Janet Bartleson, Paul D’Arcy, Barton George, Jeff S. Johnson, and Holly VatterContributing photographers Tony Bolding, Lee Kirgan, Bryan Kuntz, and Adran Matte
Advertising salesSales director Kyle Walkenhorst (323-340-8585)Sales manager/Western U.S. and South/Central America
sales Shaun Mehr (949-923-1660)Eastern U.S. and Canada sales Steve Branda (201-483-7871)EMEA and APJ sales Mark Makinney (805-709-4745) Advertising sales assistant Cindy ElhajAd coordinator Catherine Luo
Reader servicesSubscriptions are complimentary to qualified readers who complete the online subscription form. To subscribe to the regular quarterly edition of Dell Power Solutions Magazine, visit the Subscription Center at dell.com/powersolutions. Once there, you can sign up for a new subscription, change your mailing address for a current subscription, or unsubscribe. Going mobile? Visit the digital edition online at zinio.com/powersolutions. For other subscription services, please e-mail our Reader Services team via us_power_solutions@dell.com.
About DellDell Inc., headquartered in Round Rock, Texas, near Austin, listens to its customers and delivers innovative technology and services they trust and value. Uniquely enabled by its direct business model, Dell is a leading global systems and services company and No. 34 on the Fortune 500 list. For more information, visit our Web site at dell.com.
Dell cannot be responsible for errors in typography or photography. Dell, the Dell logo, Dell Compellent, Storage Center, Dell Latitude, EqualLogic, Fluid Data, PowerEdge, and PowerVault are trademarks of Dell Inc. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this publication to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.
Dell Power Solutions is published quarterly by Dell Inc., Dell Power Solutions, One Dell Way, Mail Stop RR3-68, Round Rock, TX 78682, U.S.A. No part of this publication may be reprinted or otherwise reproduced without permission from the editor-in-chief. Dell does not provide any warranty as to the accuracy of any information provided through Dell Power Solutions. Opinions expressed in this magazine may not be those of Dell. The information in this publication is subject to change without notice. Any reliance by the end user on the information contained herein is at the end user’s risk. Dell will not be liable for information in any way, including but not limited to its accuracy or completeness. Dell does not accept responsibility for the advertising content of the magazine or for any claims, actions, or losses arising therefrom. Goods, services, and/or advertisements within this publication other than those of Dell are not endorsed by or in any way connected with Dell Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Printed in the U.S.A.
DPS-201104-EIT
AccuWeather ....................C4, 7
Ai Claims Solutions ..............24
Bing Maps ..............................C3
Boulevard Brewing Company ........................... 31
Carnival Cruise Lines ........................ C2, 7, 33
Copenhagen Airports ..........30
HDR EOC................................26
Henrico County Public Schools ...............................28
Iper ...........................................24
Niagara College ......................8
Salesforce.com ...................3, 9
Team Lotus .............................34
Tyro Payments .......................30
Uniserve ..................................32
University of California, Irvine ....................................36
University of Kentucky ......... 31
Utrecht University ................. 27
Whorton Insurance Services ...25
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
To read the full story, scan here or text EIT to DELL4U (335548).
Claus MoldtSenior VP, Technical OperationsSalesforce.com
“Dell’s cloud solutions doubled the performance of our database, so our customers can connect faster with theirs.”
See how we helped salesforce.com build the scalable cloudthey needed to accommodate rapid growth while giving their customers fast, continuous access to their data. Learn more at Dell.com/Effi cientIT.
Standard message and data rates apply.
50110454-dell-ad5.indd 1 12/6/11 11:37 AM
Cover story
4 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Cover story
As the line between business and IT strategy
vanishes, five transformational imperatives
are changing the economics of success in
the Virtual Era—empowering a highly agile
workforce to collaborate on innovations that
were unimaginable a few short years ago.
By Jeff S. Johnson
Discover the power to do more
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 5
The role of IT has undergone a massive transformation in the last
decade, and that transformation is accelerating to keep pace
with changing workplace requirements in the Virtual Era. As
technology evolves and organizations adapt, executives expect
the supporting IT infrastructure to anticipate growth, increase agility,
and—through innovation—deliver exceptional efficiencies. To achieve
this goal, organizations must increase efficiency throughout the entire IT
infrastructure, from the desktop to the data center. For many enterprises,
the dilemma is how to get there from here, when IT is often held back by
scant resources to manage complex, outdated hardware, software, skills,
and processes.
Although it has traditionally been framed as a technology discussion,
today’s conversation about IT efficiency also must encompass staffing,
budget allocation, maintenance, and management processes. The greatest
efficiency gains can be achieved by taking a comprehensive approach that
encompasses the people and processes working through the technology
to meet specific organizational needs. (See Figure 1.)
Whether the goal is to heighten business innovation, improve the
quality of health care, or help students succeed, IT is at the core of this
organizational transformation. More than ever before, today’s IT decision
makers are playing a pivotal role in helping their organization achieve its
mission. By aligning IT services seamlessly with organizational priorities,
CIOs can help improve business outcomes and accelerate growth. To that
end, decision makers are redirecting IT investments to focus on strategic
goals, from the data center all the way to secure access for remote
computing devices located anywhere in the world. To learn how Dell
increased IT efficiencies to advance innovation driving its own strategic
agenda, see the sidebar, “Reinventing IT from the inside out.”
In virtually every industry, there is an unprecedented opportunity
for IT organizations to streamline their operations and sharpen their
competitive edge by embracing the potential of mobile devices, virtualized
and cloud infrastructures, and powerful data management tools. These
transformational technologies are the cornerstone of the Dell™ Efficient
IT strategy because they create the nexus where true efficiencies can
be achieved. For more information, see the sidebar, “Transforming IT
infrastructure for innovation.”
Figure 1. An Efficient IT strategy enables organizations to unleash workforce productivity, drive innovation, and quickly reach strategic objectives
Empowerend users
Run ITmore e�ciently
Eectively partner with the organization
Unleash productivity Drive innovation Achieve strategic objectives
MobilityEnable productivityanytime, anywhere
ConsumerizationSupport any device
CloudA practical path to cloud
and IT as a service
VirtualizationCentralize and scale
Data managementAddress the data deluge
Reinventing IT from the inside outDell has a lot of firsthand experience in
transforming IT to create opportunities
through improved efficiency. Many
organizations dedicate only 20 to
30 percent—or less—of their IT budgets
to innovation. By increasing efficiency
in its own global IT infrastructure, Dell
successfully managed to change the
economics of IT, so it can now allocate
52 percent of its IT budget to innovation—
roughly just 1.4 percent of revenue.
This efficiency was gained in many
ways. For example, Dell virtualized more
than 11,000 servers and eliminated 6,000
physical servers. And these virtual servers
are running at a ratio of 30 virtual machines
to one physical server. Applications were
rationalized and reduced by 72 percent to
only 2,200 applications worldwide, helping
reduce licensing and maintenance costs.
These efforts now save Dell more than
US$300 million each year.
Dell has extended these learnings, and
an unflinching commitment to IT efficiency,
to its development and acquisition strategy.
The company has committed US$1 billion
toward building multiple cloud-computing–
based data centers and developing next-
generation services.
At the same time, Dell is broadening
the scope of its open, capable, and
affordable approaches for data center
virtualization, data management, and
desktop virtualization through recent
acquisitions including SecureWorks,
EqualLogic, Boomi, and Force10 Networks,
as well as products such as the Dell Virtual
Integrated System (VIS) portfolio. For more
information about the Dell transformation,
visit dell.com/casestudies.
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Cover story
6 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Cover story
Exploring Efficient IT
The Efficient IT strategy is based on the notion that standards-based
technology helps organizations of any size reduce the cost and
complexity of the data center while also creating a seamless path to the
cloud. This approach enables IT to put the right amount of computing
power at the fingertips of every worker, no matter where they are or
when they need it.
An Efficient IT strategy encompasses five core elements that reach
from the data center to the desktop: virtualization, to help reduce
complexity and enhance workload agility; intelligent data management,
to cost-effectively control the data deluge; mobility, to provide workers
with anytime, anywhere access from any device; consumerization, to
enhance individual productivity while protecting organizational assets;
and cloud computing, to help increase agility and lower costs.
Each core element in its own way contributes to self-funding by
helping to reduce costs and management overhead. All work together to
enhance IT agility and operational efficiency, freeing workers to focus on
unbridled innovation and growth.
Unlocking opportunity through innovation
Michael Dell shares his unique perspective on the changing face of IT and its future impact on global economic growth, competition, and the very nature of how we live, work, and play.
dell.to/vvb4qg
Figure 2. The cornerstone of Efficient IT in any size organization is a strategy to standardize, simplify, and automate the infrastructure
Standardize
• Achieve uniformity• Reduce number of moving parts• Slash costs
Simplify
• Eliminate• Unify• Consolidate• Virtualize• Reduce touch points• Shrink risk
Automate
• Boost productivity• Reduce manual interaction• Manage growth• Leverage cloud efficiency
Transforming IT infrastructure for innovation
The Virtual Era is changing not only
how much organizations spend on
technology, but also where they direct
their investments. With 80 percent
of fixed IT costs typically devoted to
routine maintenance, organizations are
left with few resources to implement
technological advances and support
initiatives that drive business and
operational objectives. Even a small
improvement in IT efficiency can have a
transformative impact on organizational
outcomes and budget allocations. In
addition, simplifying and automating
IT maintenance tasks can dramatically
enhance the agility of IT resources in a
budget-constrained environment.
Further, simplified operations enable
IT organizations to manage fewer touch
points, fewer steps, and fewer information
silos—helping control costs while freeing
administrators to support innovation
(see Figure 2). Through more effective
management of people, processes, and
technology, organizations can become
highly agile and cost-efficient, and much
more responsive to strategic needs.
Open and scalable Dell approaches
are designed to enhance productivity and
control while eliminating waste. These
approaches avoid the need for proprietary
architecture that leads to vendor lock-in
and allow IT leaders to capitalize on
existing infrastructure through efficiency-
boosting innovations in virtualization and
storage consolidation.
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 7
1. Leverage the benefits of virtualization from
the data center to desktop
To boost efficiency, administrators strive to reduce the number
of silos and touch points in the IT infrastructure. Virtualization
contributes significantly to this effort by helping to simplify
management, consolidate hardware and software, and increase
utilization and performance. Adopting a “virtualization-first”
strategy from the data center to the desktop enables organizations
to significantly reduce complexity and enhance agility. But
unlocking the value of virtualization can be complicated. It is
difficult to bridge existing processes across the organization.
Applications have become complicated and sometimes tricky to
connect. And many organizations are locked into an inflexible,
heterogeneous infrastructure.
Dell takes a big-picture approach designed to extend the benefits
of virtualization by addressing not just technology, but also the
people and processes engaged in it. This approach streamlines
the management of both physical and virtual resources and unifies
them as a shared resource without adding cost or complexity.
By unifying these resources in a shared pool, organizations can
accelerate deployment and improve operating performance.
60% + 38%Carnival Cruise Lines reduced its server footprint by 60 percent and increased performance by 38 percent with Dell open virtualization solutions.
Virtualization
Carnival Cruise Lines
80%AccuWeather reduced storage administration time by 80 percent using a Dell EqualLogic™ PS Series Internet SCSI (iSCSI) storage area network (SAN). Plus, the company is saving five figures a year by eliminating calls to external storage experts.
Intelligent data management
AccuWeather
2. Intelligently manage the data deluge
Data storage is often a complex aspect of IT transformation
because it is growing so fast, is so mission critical, and usually
exists in a loosely organized and haphazard structure. For these
reasons, efficiency must be built into every point throughout the
entire storage network—what data is stored, how it is stored,
where it is stored, when it is moved, and on what kind of storage
device. Simply adding another storage device is no longer viable.
The Virtual Era requires that storage be virtualized too.
The Dell Fluid Data™ strategy enables IT organizations to
efficiently orchestrate the flow of information in a way that
enhances its value as a competitive asset. To help achieve that
objective, Dell storage platforms provide intelligent, automated
storage management designed to optimize resource utilization
and deliver the right data, in the right place, at the right time,
for the right cost.
Dell also helps organizations protect critical information assets
from the client to the cloud. Outstanding data protection solutions
are available through advanced backup and restore, disaster
recovery, and archiving capabilities that are tightly integrated with
leading-edge application and virtual environments.
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Cover story
8 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Cover story
3. Enable an increasingly mobile workforce with
access anytime, anywhere on any device
As the workforce becomes increasingly mobile, the workplace requires
anytime, anywhere access to key data and applications. End users
need one digital identity that follows them everywhere. In addition, the
proliferation of personal and corporate device types—smartphones,
tablets, Bluetooth® technology, radio frequency identification (RFID)
tags, and others—can strain IT resources as workers come to expect
their employers to support these devices.
To address these issues, Dell provides simple and affordable
ways to help organizations deliver data, applications, and services
reliably and consistently through a wide array of mobile devices—
from smartphones to tablets to mobile PCs and high-performance
workstations—all designed to enable secure connections for
remote workers. A centralized approach to endpoint management
and mobility from Dell Services enables multiplatform security and
monitoring visibility through a single console, which can unify
heterogeneous systems and devices. Further, Dell provides virtual
desktop approaches to help reduce security risks, simplify management,
and improve productivity from the end-user device to the data center.
24/7In a desktop virtualization deployment, Niagara College students can use their own technology and access the software learning resources they need anytime, from anywhere.
Consumerization
Niagara College
US$6 millionDell deployed Dell PowerEdge™ servers to run unified communications applications and avoid the replacement of aging voice mail systems. The company also saved more than US$6 million in hardware acquisition and maintenance costs.
Mobility
Dell
4. Embrace the consumerization of IT while
protecting the organization
With a technology-savvy workforce demanding support for personal
computing devices, the time is now for organizations to facilitate
the move toward the consumerization of IT. With expanded
demands for access using personal devices come stepped-up
requirements to protect, monitor, back up, and provide remote
application access. This obligation calls for IT organizations to
protect the security of the network while enabling seamless access
for remote workers. It also means controlling IT management and
support costs across diverse device types. The goal, of course, is to
insulate the organization from new threats while unleashing end-
user productivity with a comprehensive array of device types and
operating systems, applications, and software.
Dell provides approaches designed to balance end-user
expectations with an organization’s ability to meet them technically,
securely, and financially. These approaches allow the IT team to
centrally and efficiently support diverse types of devices together
with operating systems, applications, and software around the
globe—and to integrate them securely and virtually on any device.
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 9
5. Consider a practical transition to the cloud to increase
workforce agility while lowering costs
Cloud computing enables organizations to leverage highly scalable,
dynamic, virtualized resources to provide IT services on demand.
Because the cloud model is designed to use computing resources
more efficiently than traditional computing infrastructures, it can play
a significant role in helping IT departments streamline management,
reduce costs, and speed organizational response—actually changing
the economics of IT to a highly dynamic and cost-effective model.
However, the path to the cloud depends on organizational
needs and infrastructure. Dell helps address these considerations
with approaches designed to leverage the IT resources already
at work in the data center. Accelerating the deployment and
operating performance of virtual resources paves the way to
increasingly advanced cloud computing environments. Dell
standards-based, interoperable cloud technologies enable
seamless portability of workloads between public and private
clouds. Plus, Dell offers a comprehensive portfolio of cloud
computing approaches that help administrators tailor the IT
infrastructure to meet specific requirements.
Optimizing business and organizational outcomes
The Dell approach to Efficient IT helps eliminate wasteful
expenditures and duplicate processes to increase IT agility. This
approach extends the life of existing technology by enhancing
flexibility and minimizing management overhead. It is also
designed to provide an open and future-ready platform, enabling
organizations to maximize transformative technologies such
as virtualization and cloud computing with minimal disruption
to operations. An on-demand, pay-as-you-go model scales
easily to heighten flexibility and advance agility in response to
emerging opportunities as they arise.
An Efficient IT strategy also enables organizations to
change the fundamental cost structure of the IT model to
focus more technology resources on strategic pursuits
than ever before. With dynamic information flow and
intelligent, automated, policy-based management, operations
can become surprisingly agile—particularly compared to
what people have come to expect from traditional data
center environments.
By adopting a practical approach that leverages
IT resources already in place, organizations can cost-
effectively evolve their existing infrastructure to achieve
successful outcomes in the Virtual Era with open, capable,
and affordable technology. As they transform IT to address
workplace realities of the Virtual Era, organizations can
create an information fabric that is flexible and responsive.
This result, in turn, enhances productivity across an
increasingly social, mobile workforce collaborating to
advance innovation and growth.
2xBy migrating its databases to Dell cloud hardware, salesforce.com achieved cost-effective scalability with twice the performance and 10 times less cost than the previous systems.
Cloud
Salesforce.com
Author
Jeff S. Johnson is a senior enterprise strategist in the
Public and Large Enterprise business unit at Dell, focusing
on efficient data center solutions and technology.
Learn more
Dell Efficient IT:
Dell.com/EfficientIT
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Cloud
10 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Up in the air? Nothing nebulous about cloud computing benefitsBy Holly Vatter, Barton George, and Janet Bartleson
Cloud
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Cloud
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 11
Despite all the attention-grabbing
headlines, cloud computing is still
a confusing concept for many
enterprise decision makers. Is it a
transformative force that will revolutionize IT
service delivery—or just more hype?
Much of the confusion over cloud computing
stems from the inherent versatility of the cloud
model. Clouds can be private, public, or a
hybrid of the two. Whichever approach an IT
organization takes, cloud computing is designed
to heighten responsiveness with outstanding
efficiency. In addition, cloud computing enables
exceptional flexibility to provide the computing
power and capacity business users need to
dynamically support products and services.
Cloud models also give IT departments the
opportunity to implement alternative deployment
strategies that help optimize costs to align with
business goals. For example, a hosted software
service can be paid for by the transaction, with no
capital investment required, or a disaster recovery
site can be maintained by a service provider,
thereby avoiding the need for a separate facility.
Still, cloud computing environments may not
suit every organization or every project. Different
types of clouds are appropriate for different usage
scenarios. Understanding IT infrastructure options is
the critical first step of any journey into the cloud.
Cloud delivery models
There are three different deployment models for
cloud computing: private, public, and hybrid. Each
has its own advantages, drawbacks, and potential
use cases.
Private cloud computing
Private cloud computing platforms are designed
for the exclusive use of a single organization.
These platforms can be operated and hosted either
by the enterprise IT department or by an external
provider. Although they enable greater control
over security and data availability than public and
hybrid cloud models, private clouds may require IT
organizations to make significant up-front capital
investments. In addition, the physical infrastructure
does not offer limitless scalability.
Driven by cost, many federal agencies are
moving some functions to private clouds run by
external providers. For example, Web sites for
the Recovery Accountability and Transparency
Board (recovery.gov), the U.S. Department of
the Treasury (treasury.gov), and the Federal
Communications Commission (fcc.gov) are
hosted by cloud computing platforms, in part
because the government data centers hosting
these sites were underutilized. Moving to cloud
computing platforms promises to be more cost-
effective than maintaining data centers dedicated
Data center virtualization and consolidation often clear the
path toward private, public, and hybrid cloud computing
environments. Whether enterprises take a revolutionary
or evolutionary approach, understanding IT infrastructure
options is the first step.
Clearing the clouds
Join Barton George as he talks about open, capable, and affordable ways to drive business value through cloud computing.
bit.ly/pA7c4W
Follow Dell Cloud Computing on Twitter at @dellintheclouds
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
12 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Cloud
to each agency’s exclusive use. At the same time, maintaining these
services on private clouds within the shared data center helps protect
sensitive data.
Selected software vendors are also using private clouds to
accelerate service deployment while maintaining strict control
of their data. Delivering services rapidly can create a significant
competitive advantage. And because private clouds are designed to
make computing resources available to these services on demand
without IT administrator intervention, they also streamline IT efforts
while keeping sensitive data within the confines of their own
dedicated hardware.
Public cloud computing
Public cloud computing platforms are based on shared infrastructure
that is not dedicated to a single organization or user. They require
no up-front capital investment or associated risk, and they enable
agile, highly efficient use of computing resources—as well as virtually
unlimited scalability. However, the shared nature of the resources raises
security and regulatory concerns, and organizations must trust their
cloud providers implicitly because they work through the provider to
resolve any problems.
A public cloud–based IT infrastructure can be installed almost
overnight without capital investments. As a result, this approach
can be extremely valuable to business startups and organizational
initiatives that need to be launched with minimal ramp-up time.
And the public cloud approach allows enterprises to focus on core
competencies without the risk or distraction of building their own
data centers.
The travel industry was an early pioneer in the use of public clouds.
The Semi-Automated Business Research Environment (SABRE) airline
booking system, used by travel agents since the early 1960s, was
arguably the first widely used cloud-based application. Now, the vast
majority of air travel and hotel reservations are booked directly by
consumers through an array of sites.
Hybrid cloud computing
Hybrid cloud computing platforms allow for data and application
portability between private and public platforms. In this model, an
application requiring additional processing capacity and unable to
find it on the private cloud platform could access the public cloud
platform for resources. For example, this approach—known as
cloudbursting—relies on external public cloud platforms to handle
capacity spikes.
In general, the hybrid cloud model provides the advantages of
both private and public cloud platforms. However, all three approaches
to cloud computing create IT challenges for workload management
across multiple cloud-based infrastructures.
Accelerating the transition Virtualizing data center infrastructure is a key first
step when taking an evolutionary approach toward
implementing cloud computing in the enterprise.
However, for IT departments without in-house expertise
on the interdependencies among servers, storage, and
networking—as well as how each component should
be configured to support cloud-based applications—the
complexity of virtualization projects may threaten to
negate efficiency and cost-saving benefits.
Dell™ vStart infrastructure is designed to simplify
and streamline the path to cloud computing by
offering standardized building blocks that combine
servers, storage, networking, racks, cabling,
management software, and deployment services in
a single package. Because it is delivered pre-racked,
pre-cabled, pre-validated, and pre-configured, vStart
seamlessly plugs into existing management consoles
using extensions designed to leverage best practices.
vStart enables IT generalists to perform
tasks that are critical to laying the foundation for
cloud computing—including streamlining server
management tools and tasks, using deep device-
level detail for monitoring and alerts, deploying
hypervisors to bare-metal servers, and remotely
updating BIOS and firmware. In this manner, vStart
helps organizations accelerate deployment of cloud
infrastructure, reduce configuration errors, and
focus resources on managing workloads rather than
configuring hardware.
The Dell Virtual Integrated System (VIS) portfolio
can further help IT departments address common
data center challenges that may otherwise hamper
virtualization and cloud computing initiatives. By helping
reduce costs related to management, maintenance, and
licensing, VIS enhances agility in responding to changing
technologies and business needs. Open architecture
gives IT departments the option to leverage both
existing investments and future technologies without
being locked in to a single vendor. VIS also facilitates
real-time provisioning, which helps eliminate the need
to overprovision or overpurchase resources when
attempting to preempt unexpected growth.
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 13
Cloud
A hybrid cloud approach is gaining
popularity among institutions of higher
education. Universities typically face a
sudden burst of activity at the start of
each term that demands enormous server
capacity. But in the months between
enrollments, that capacity may not
be needed. The ability to use a public
cloud means the university can meet its
seasonal needs without investing in IT
hardware and infrastructure that it does
not need to use year-round.
Cloud computing, traditional IT—or
something in between?
Many enterprises are facing the decision
over which cloud model to use—or
whether cloud computing makes sense
at all to meet their specific business
and organizational requirements. Some
legacy applications, for example, may
not be able to take advantage of cloud
computing scalability because of the way
they are architected. Other applications,
especially mission-critical applications
that would pose significant risk to the
business if they fail to work properly
on the cloud platform, may not warrant
the time and expense of implementing
a dedicated infrastructure for a private
cloud environment.
In these cases, organizations may
find their requirements continue to be
well served by traditional IT platforms.
Still others may explore ways to take
advantage of advanced compute models
that capitalize on cost efficiencies
from data center virtualization and
consolidation as they consider the move
toward cloud computing platforms (see
Figure 1).
A practical path to cloud computing
By working closely with IT leaders
throughout the process of envisioning,
testing, and deploying a cloud computing
strategy, Dell can engage in a strategic
partnership designed to help enterprises
gain a competitive advantage in the
following three-step process:1
1. Investigate: In this phase, IT leaders
educate themselves and key executives
about cloud computing and explore
the ways it can be used to heighten
business outcomes.
2. Experiment: IT staff test the use of the
cloud computing platform in limited ways
to deepen their understanding of how it
may improve business processes.
3. Adopt: Finally, IT leaders widen the use
of cloud computing capabilities to meet
a specific business need, create new
opportunities, or enhance efficiency.
Alternatively, organizations can build
the entire IT infrastructure in the cloud.
Regardless of the approach an IT
department decides upon, the path
includes standardized building blocks,
integrated management tools, and
automated service delivery. (To learn about
how Dell PowerEdge™ C Series servers
advance cloud computing infrastructures,
see the sidebar, “Build your own cloud.”)
Revolutionary versus
evolutionary approaches
As cloud computing technologies mature
and IT infrastructure management
becomes increasingly automated, the
line separating virtualized data centers
from private clouds begins to blur. IT
leaders can take two different approaches
to setting up cloud infrastructures:
revolutionary and evolutionary.
1 For more information about making the transition to cloud computing, see “Reaching for the clouds: A three-step journey,” by Egan Christensen, in Dell Power Solutions, 2011 Issue 3, content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/d/business~solutions~power~en/documents~ps3q11-20110406-vatter.pdf.aspx.
Figure 1. Moving from traditional one-server-per-one-application IT infrastructures toward resource-efficient private and public clouds
Today
3–5 yearsfrom now
Traditional Virtualized Private cloud Public cloud
IT is expected to manage a portfolio of compute models
> Continued on page 16
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Cloud
14 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
PowerEdge C6145 PowerEdge C6105 PowerEdge C6100 PowerEdge C5220 PowerEdge C5125 PowerEdge C2100 PowerEdge C1100
Key features and
capabilities
Designed for demanding tasks that require lightning-fast results, this rack server features two four-socket AMD Opteron™ 6100 processor–based server nodes for up to 96 cores, 1 TB of memory, and 40 Gbps I/O per card—packing exceptional speed and efficiency in a 2U form factor.
A building block with excellent work-per-watt performance for cost-effective data centers, this rack server is designed to utilize low-power AMD Opteron 4100 processors, 92-percent-efficient hot-plug power supplies, and a shared infrastructure—enabling IT departments to maximize performance while minimizing TCO and power, weight, and space requirements.
Well suited for scale-out environments that require high-density, flexible, and efficient computing, this rack server supports four server nodes, each with dual four- and six-core Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series or Intel Xeon processor 5600 series, in a 2U chassis—providing outstanding compute performance in an ultra-dense package.
Geared for data centers that want to maximize the use of floor space, up to 12 single-socket microservers can be packed into a 3U PowerEdge C5000 chassis. Each is powered by two- or four-core Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 family—enabling two-socket performance on each cost-effective one-socket server.
Rightsized for lightweight applications, 12 of these microservers can be configured in a 3U PowerEdge C5000 chassis. Each incorporates up to four cores of low-power AMD Phenom™ II or Athlon™ II processors, and each is designed to run on less than 457 watts per chassis—helping increase server density, power efficiency, and serviceability.
Geared for scale-out data centers where memory and storage density are critical, this rack server features dual four- and six-core Intel Xeon processor 5500 series or Intel Xeon processor 5600 series, up to 192 GB memory, and up to 26 TB storage in a 2U form factor—helping IT departments manage high volumes of data.
Well suited for applications that cache massive quantities of data in memory, this rack server offers dual Intel Xeon processor 5500 series or Intel Xeon processor 5600 series and up to 192 GB memory—delivering exceptional performance with a large memory footprint in a 1U form factor.
Cloud
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Cloud
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 15
In scale-out IT environments for cloud
computing platforms, every inch of data
center space and every watt counts. That
calls for a different mindset—and distinctly
different requirements from general-purpose
servers in traditional data centers. At the same
time, cloud computing enables attractive
economies of scale. For example, because
high availability in cloud environments is
typically achieved in the software layer,
organizations may eliminate many system
features and components that are often found
in traditional data center servers.
Dell PowerEdge C Series servers are
purpose-built for scale-out cloud computing
environments. Features that are superfluous
in a cloud scenario—including extensive
systems management consoles, many
redundant hardware components, and
broad enterprise storage options—are absent
from PowerEdge C Series servers. Instead,
PowerEdge C Series systems are designed
to make intelligent and efficient use of
streamlined system resources, allowing IT
departments to deploy cost-effective models
equipped with only the capabilities needed
for a specific cloud environment.
Maximum hardware density is a critical
consideration when building a cloud
infrastructure. As a result, cloud computing
environments demand high-performance
systems with a dense, energy-efficient design.
Engineered to help decrease total cost of
ownership (TCO), several PowerEdge C Series
servers incorporate a shared infrastructure that
leverages chassis, power, and cooling across
compute resources to heighten density,
energy efficiency, and serviceability.
In addition, PowerEdge C Series servers
leverage Dell’s global supply chain as well as
extensive field experience gained by the Dell
Data Center Solutions (DCS) team. The result is
a comprehensive range of purpose-built cloud
server models suitable for targeted hyperscale
environments (see below).
Build your own cloudCloud computing has inspired a fresh wave of business and technology innovation, in sometimes
surprising ways. Dell PowerEdge™ C Series servers and chassis are efficient building blocks
for high-performance, scale-out infrastructures to suit a world of opportunities.
PowerEdge C6145 PowerEdge C6105 PowerEdge C6100 PowerEdge C5220 PowerEdge C5125 PowerEdge C2100 PowerEdge C1100
Key features and
capabilities
Designed for demanding tasks that require lightning-fast results, this rack server features two four-socket AMD Opteron™ 6100 processor–based server nodes for up to 96 cores, 1 TB of memory, and 40 Gbps I/O per card—packing exceptional speed and efficiency in a 2U form factor.
A building block with excellent work-per-watt performance for cost-effective data centers, this rack server is designed to utilize low-power AMD Opteron 4100 processors, 92-percent-efficient hot-plug power supplies, and a shared infrastructure—enabling IT departments to maximize performance while minimizing TCO and power, weight, and space requirements.
Well suited for scale-out environments that require high-density, flexible, and efficient computing, this rack server supports four server nodes, each with dual four- and six-core Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series or Intel Xeon processor 5600 series, in a 2U chassis—providing outstanding compute performance in an ultra-dense package.
Geared for data centers that want to maximize the use of floor space, up to 12 single-socket microservers can be packed into a 3U PowerEdge C5000 chassis. Each is powered by two- or four-core Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 family—enabling two-socket performance on each cost-effective one-socket server.
Rightsized for lightweight applications, 12 of these microservers can be configured in a 3U PowerEdge C5000 chassis. Each incorporates up to four cores of low-power AMD Phenom™ II or Athlon™ II processors, and each is designed to run on less than 457 watts per chassis—helping increase server density, power efficiency, and serviceability.
Geared for scale-out data centers where memory and storage density are critical, this rack server features dual four- and six-core Intel Xeon processor 5500 series or Intel Xeon processor 5600 series, up to 192 GB memory, and up to 26 TB storage in a 2U form factor—helping IT departments manage high volumes of data.
Well suited for applications that cache massive quantities of data in memory, this rack server offers dual Intel Xeon processor 5500 series or Intel Xeon processor 5600 series and up to 192 GB memory—delivering exceptional performance with a large memory footprint in a 1U form factor.
Building blocks for cloud computing
Get an up-close view of Dell’s cloud computing systems as solutions architect Rafael Zamora overviews Dell PowerEdge C6100, PowerEdge C2100, and PowerEdge C1100 servers.
bit.ly/nUP3vA
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
16 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Cloud
Revolutionary approach
In a revolutionary approach, IT departments have
the luxury of beginning with a greenfield opportunity
and as a result do not need to accommodate
traditional enterprise applications. Instead, they are
able to build highly efficient cloud-native applications
from the beginning. For example, nontraditional
Web 2.0 applications that are designed to be cloud
native—including software-as-a-service (SaaS)
and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings—can
be architected from the ground up for enhanced
scalability and use across a multitude of servers. As
a result, they are able to run more efficiently and
deliver a more responsive end-user experience than
applications designed to run in traditional data centers.
Using the revolutionary model to build cloud
computing platforms typically incurs higher up-front
design and deployment costs than using the
evolutionary model to develop cloud computing
platforms from existing infrastructures. However,
the revolutionary approach can deliver a highly
flexible computing platform with the capacity to help
immediately reduce administrative burden, reduce
storage and networking costs, and enhance power
efficiency. Additionally, when applications and cloud
infrastructure are designed together, they can both be
optimized to help simplify integration with other cloud
components that may be introduced in the future.
Evolutionary approach
In an evolutionary approach, organizations start with
existing traditional enterprise applications and build on
the infrastructure they already have. They then migrate
incrementally toward cloud computing. Virtualization is
a critical first step because it facilitates resource pooling
and increased utilization. Organizations then may
achieve additional benefits as advanced tools are layered
in to help simplify management of the infrastructure and
speed the deployment of IT services on demand. (For
information on how to apply a building-block approach
to virtualization for cloud environments, see the sidebar,
“Accelerating the transition.”)
However, taking an evolutionary versus a
revolutionary approach is not an either-or question.
Organizations can use both approaches in different
situations, depending on the applications they use
and the benefits they want to achieve. Today, the
5 best practices for taking an evolutionary approach into the cloudIT organizations that adopt an evolutionary approach for developing
a cloud computing environment can benefit from the following best
practices when incrementally building out their existing infrastructures:
1. Assess the organization’s starting point. The journey to the cloud
involves three phases: information gathering, experimentation, and
adoption. Learn as much as possible about how cloud computing can
benefit the organization during the first phase.
2. Find the right path. Building a private cloud means something
different for each organization. IT leaders may develop a private,
public, or hybrid cloud—or use a mix of these models—depending on
their industry, size, and type of organization.
3. Ensure a strategic cloud computing plan is in place that spans the
desktop to the data center. Consider the impact on all areas of the
business, establish clear goals, and define plans and timelines for an
overall strategy.
4. Experiment first with noncritical workloads. Migrate test and
development projects to a public cloud. Then track results to help
convince executives to buy into a cloud computing strategy and free
up compute capacity in the data center. Or move areas of storage to
a public cloud for quick results.
5. Find a trusted partner who can help cut through the hype. An overall
cloud strategy and plan for implementation demands a thorough
understanding of the entire data center ecosystem. Dell offers an
approach to cloud computing that is designed to meet organization-
specific requirements.
> Continued from page 13
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 17
Cloud
evolutionary approach is the predominant
approach—but as additional cloud-native
applications are developed, the balance is
expected to tip in favor of the revolutionary
approach. (For more information on how to
go about building a cloud infrastructure, see
the sidebar, “5 best practices for taking an
evolutionary approach into the cloud.”)
First steps toward a cloud infrastructure
Dell Services helps organizations
determine where to start with a cloud
computing strategy—which applications
to take into the cloud first, when to
take a revolutionary or an evolutionary
approach, and which technologies to
use to build the infrastructure.
A Dell Services cloud engagement
includes three fundamental steps. Dell
Services begins by examining the business,
its IT infrastructure, and IT goals. It then
assesses how an organization may
benefit from implementation of cloud
technologies. And then Dell Services helps
the organization develop and deploy a
detailed, best-practices–based plan for
cloud computing.
For companies taking a revolutionary
approach, Dell Services helps assess
requirements, design and implement the
cloud infrastructure, and perform ongoing
data center management. Organizations
taking an evolutionary approach can work
with Dell Services to help reduce costs
through standardization, consolidation, and
automation; help optimize performance,
power efficiency, and data center
density; and help reduce IT infrastructure
maintenance costs.2
Many paths into the cloud
As IT departments increasingly take on a
service provider role across enterprises,
they are shifting from cost centers
to business units with heightened
accountability to internal customers. When
IT leaders reach an inflection point and
begin thinking about delivering workloads
rather than managing hardware, the time is
appropriate to consider making the move
to a cloud computing platform. Whether
the organization travels a revolutionary or
an evolutionary path—or a combination
of both—Dell can offer guidance, best
practices, and deployment assistance
every step of the way. And in many cases,
the potential rewards are great—enabling
organizations to reduce IT infrastructure
maintenance costs, in some cases to less
than 50 percent of IT spending.
2 To learn more about Dell cloud computing technologies in action, see “Expanding business opportunities through the cloud,” in Dell Power Solutions, 2011 Issue 3, content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/d/business~solutions~power~en/documents~ps3q11 -20110408-roundup.pdf.aspx.
Authors
Holly Vatter does portfolio strategy and
planning for Dell Cloud Services. She has
more than 23 years experience in product,
corporate, international, and field marketing.
Barton George is the director of marketing
for the Dell Web and Tech vertical. Prior
to that, he was the Dell Cloud Computing
Group evangelist.
Janet Bartleson is a director in Dell Data
Center Solutions, a group that custom
designs servers and provides custom services
for some of the world’s largest cloud
computing providers.
Learn more
Cloud computing:
dell.com/cloud
Virtualization:
dell.com/virtualization
Revolutionary approach to cloud building:
intel.ly/pUinz5
When IT leaders reach an inflection point and begin thinking about delivering workloads rather than managing hardware, the time is appropriate to consider making the move to a cloud computing platform.
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
18 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Consumerization
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
It has been a generation since the first workers
to grow up with personal computers at home
entered the workforce. Twenty years ago, this
new generation of workers helped fuel the
massive expansion of business computer use and
the productivity gains that ensued.
The year 2011 marks a similar milestone as the
first incoming knowledge workers raised with the
Internet begin graduating from college and entering
the workforce. When these workers learned to
read, the World Wide Web and e-mail were in a
period of mass expansion and commercialization.
They were in elementary school when the dot-com
boom peaked and in college as social media and
smartphone usage exploded.
Already, the expectations of a new generation
of workers are resetting the CIO agenda. As social
media becomes a foundational component of work
life and corporate collaboration, as new mobile
devices and application platforms proliferate, and as
increasing numbers of employees work from home,
traditional corporate policies on personal computer
usage, data security, and application usage are
quickly becoming antiquated.
The result is the rapid consumerization of IT.
Consumerization is the migration of consumer
technology—including electronic devices,
platforms, and applications—into enterprise
computing environments. In some instances,
home technology has become as capable and
cost-effective as its enterprise equivalents. Today,
the issue is most pronounced in the realm of
enterprise mobility, given the increased use of
consumer smartphones, media tablets, and
Internet applications in the workplace—all of
which have been intentionally excluded by IT
policies in many organizations.
With the cloud providing applications and
computing power to anyone with a credit
card, employees are increasingly bypassing
IT altogether to get the tools and technology
that they desire without the hassle of outdated
IT processes. Unfortunately, employee self-
provisioning of third-party cloud services includes
complex enterprise applications that may store
sensitive corporate data in the cloud.
In IT consumerization, corporations may be
seeing the law of unintended consequences
at work: Corporate IT policies that ban the
use of employee-owned devices in the name
of security inadvertently create new, large
security holes as users skirt IT restrictions.
In other words, locking down the employee
computing environment forces users to find
their own alternatives, undermining the very
policies that IT is trying to enforce. Often, some
of the first offenders are C-level executives who
require network access for their own personal
smartphones, laptops, or tablets.
This difficult situation is echoed by the
technology analyst firm Gartner, which advises
that “When building client computing strategies,
most organizations realize that they cannot stop
the influx of personal devices and are looking to
IT consumerization of enterprise mobility is changing the
relationship between employers and employees. Learn the
five trends shaping the future of enterprise mobility, and
get nine recommendations for tackling the challenges of
IT consumerization.
By Paul D’Arcy
CIO strategies for consumerization: The future of enterprise mobility
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 19
Consumerization
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
the post-consumerization era, seeking
ways to stop managing the devices
used by workers.”1
5 trends shaping the future
of enterprise mobility
The year 2011 will see a perfect storm
of consumerization as five trends
intersect to create an important
workplace inflection point.
1. The rise of social media as
a business application
Underestimating the impact of social
media on not just the workplace but on
society in general is difficult. For example,
by the beginning of 2011, the average
Facebook user spent 1,400 minutes, or
23.3 hours, on the site each month.2
2. The blurring of work and
home environments
For CIOs, the blurring of work and
home environments complicates the
development of employee technology
policy. Flexible work arrangements that
encourage employees to work from
home—or any location—make it difficult
to control employee technology usage.
3. The emergence of new
mobile devices
Every decade, the world sees a new
paradigm for end-user computing. So
far, there have been distinct eras for
mainframe computing, minicomputers,
personal computing, the desktop
Internet, and most recently, devices for
mobile Internet access.
4. The need for tech-savvy workers
because of shifting models
Dramatic increase in the use of
social media and mobile devices is
changing the technology relationship
between employers and employees.
These same trends also affect the
relationship between businesses and
their customers and public institutions
and their constituents.
5. The changing employee
expectations of corporate IT
With a new generation of knowledge
workers, end-user technology is
increasingly becoming a talent
recruitment and retention issue.
Organizations that invest in end-
user technology and implement
innovative technology policies will see
advantages as they look to recruit the
next generation of knowledge workers.
Consumerization: A business
decision as trends collide
For the CIO, consumerization
represents the confluence of a
difficult set of IT challenges—security,
technology policy, data protection,
and end-user technology—and
business strategy—new business
models, talent strategy, corporate
brand, and identity. For this reason,
CIOs should take the consumerization
of IT into consideration during
business strategy development.
As organizations embrace
consumerization, a number of changes
need to occur (see Figure 1). These
changes, however, can be difficult
to execute. For most CIOs, many
questions come to mind: How do
organizations maintain security and
protect data as they loosen IT standards?
How can organizations support
heterogeneous employee devices?
Does consumerization apply to all
employees or only to certain employee
segments? What will organizations pay
for that they do not pay for today? What
CIO strategies for consumerization
Get a deeper understanding of the role consumerization plays in the changing relationship between employees and employers by downloading the Dell CIO Insight series white paper from which this article was excerpted.
bit.ly/iqA7wJ
1 “Predicts 2011: Network capacity and consumers impact mobile and wireless technologies,” by Ken Dulaney, Phillip Redman, Carolina Milanesi, Van L. Baker, Monica Basso, and Leslie Fiering, Gartner, Inc., November 18, 2010.
2 Facebook, Press room statistics, retrieved January 18, 2011, facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics.
20 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Consumerization
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
happens to employee IT platforms? Which
applications need to be modernized to work
with a broader set of employee devices?
9 recommendations on consumerization
and enterprise mobility
Nine key recommendations can provide
a road map for CIOs contending with the
challenges of consumerization in the new
era of enterprise mobility.
1. Articulate an end-user workplace and
technology philosophy, and use that as a
basis for setting consumerization strategy.
Technology philosophy, like business
strategy, is specific to the culture and
purpose of every organization. When
evaluating technology changes, CIOs
should consider seven questions that can
help them ascertain how far and how fast
their organizations can move to embrace
the new era of consumerization:
1. What are the demographics of the user
population, and what type of work do the
user segments perform?
2. Where are employees doing their work?
3. Does the organization take pride in
offering innovative benefits and policies
to attract and retain employees?
4. How strongly is the organization moving
toward flexible working arrangements?
5. Are executives advocating for expanded
device usage or trying to prevent it?
6. What regulations and security concerns
limit options?
7. How important are the Internet and social
media to driving customer engagement?
2. Recognize that IT security and data
protection policies that restrict the use
of personal devices and social media
applications may actually increase security
and data-loss risk; begin evolving
security policies to protect data in a
heterogeneous device environment.
As increasing numbers of applications
move to the cloud and devices move off
the network and out of the direct control
of IT, the framework for end-point security
can also benefit from cloud-based delivery.
Increasingly, this framework means using
managed security service providers to
offer cloud-based, end-point protection for
distributed devices. According to Gartner,
“An increasingly common scenario will be
high-value employees accessing critical
business and customer information stored
in the cloud from employee-owned PCs or
smartphones. Gartner believes that delivering
security as a cloud-based service will be a
key component of how many enterprises
will enable this scenario, while achieving a
balance of security and manageability.”3
3. Liberalize rules that prohibit business
use of employee-owned technology;
start by encouraging the business use of
employee-owned smartphones.
Why start with smartphones? There are
three key reasons to consider.
• No area of personal technology is
growing as fast. According to Ericsson,
mobile broadband subscriptions
have skyrocketed, growing from
200 million mobile Internet subscribers
in 2008, surpassing 500 million
mobile broadband subscribers in
2010, and potentially reaching 1 billion
subscribers in 2011. The company
believes that by 2015, there will
be more than 3.8 billion mobile
broadband subscriptions globally.4
• Smartphones are important tools
for managing contacts, e-mail, and
calendars, as well as accessing social
media, cloud data, and when allowed,
the corporate directory.
• Smartphones are expensive, and
most organizations do not pay for
smartphone voice and data plans
for the broad employee population.
Because employees are making these
investments and bringing their own
devices to work, expanded use can
benefit end-user productivity.
3 “Securing and managing private and public cloud computing,” by John Pescatore, Gartner, Inc., September 2, 2010.
4 “Mobile broadband subscriptions to hit one billion mark in 2011,” Ericsson press release, January 11, 2011, ericsson.com/thecompany/press/releases/2011/01/1478480.
Limited connectivity
E-mail or instant messaging (IM) communications
IT chooses the personal computer
Primary device is fixed
IT has control
One device, one task
Management and security inside the firewall
Always on, anywhere
Freedom to participate
Devices that reflect “me”
Primary device is mobile
End users have agility and freedom
One device, many tasks
Boundaryless security and manageability
Moving from… …to
Figure 1. Changes necessary for IT consumerization
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 21
Consumerization
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
4. Launch enterprise applications that
replicate the best aspects of consumer
communication and social media within
the worker community.
The Web offers an ideal vehicle through
which end users can crowd-source
ideas, collaboratively sorting information.
IT organizations can use the power of
the Web to harness the trends behind
consumerization while increasing employee
engagement and productivity.
5. Pilot media tablets with field workers
and executives to see if they can replace
other devices; look at allowing other
populations to bring personally owned
tablets to work.
The media tablet market is poised
to grow dramatically: expected to go
from 19 million units in 2010 to
208 million units in 2014.5 As a broad
selection of new devices hits the
market, tablet use is expected to
skyrocket based on convenience, high
levels of customer satisfaction, and
relatively low device prices.
6. Develop a clear point of view on
enterprise versus employee cost sharing;
develop a business case for incremental
investment by linking end-user technology
strategy with human-resource planning,
facilities planning, and business strategy.
For most organizations, the hidden
costs come from management and security
changes that can be required to support
users and protect the enterprise in a
heterogeneous-device environment.
7. Consider desktop virtualization and
other leading-edge technologies to
reduce security and data-loss risks as the
demand for consumerization grows.
Desktop virtualization is expected
to become a primary model for
organizations to securely drive
consumerization. By storing data
and applications on the server in
controlled, standardized images, desktop
virtualization combines the benefits of
corporate images, centralized storage,
centralized management, and policy
enforcement with the freedom to use
a wide variety of organization- and
employee-provided devices.
8. Understand the software-licensing
implications of consumerization.
As organization-issued smartphones
and tablets are increasingly used to
access e-mail, virtual desktops, and
server-based applications, organizations
need to look at software-licensing
agreements and practices to ensure
compliance. The introduction of
employee-owned devices further
complicates licensing because large
vendors like Microsoft make distinctions
between these categories of end users in
their licensing agreements.
9. Avoid end-user stipends.
In the end, pilots have shown poor
end-user satisfaction with the stipend
experience, negating the primary benefit
that these programs were designed to
achieve. An alternative to stipends is
to provide employees with a broader
selection of IT-supported personal
computers and work requirements.
When combined with policies that enable
employees to bring employee-owned
devices to work, this alternative enables
organizations to reap the broad benefits of
end-user consumerization.
IT consumerization:
A foundation for change
In the words of Gary Hamel, a prominent
management professor and author,
“while no company would put up with
a 1940s-era phone system, or forgo
the efficiency-enhancing benefits of
modern IT, that’s exactly what companies
are doing when they fail to exploit the
Web’s potential to transform the way the
work of management is accomplished.
Most managers still see the Internet as a
productivity tool, or as a way of delivering
24/7 customer service. Some understand
its power to upend old business models.
But few have faced up to the fact that
sooner or later, the Web is going to turn
our smoke-stack management model
on its head.”6
For organizations with knowledge
workers, IT consumerization and the
rethinking of employee technology is
the foundation for the next wave of
business, management, and employee
change. Organizations that adapt
quickly and actively to change the
relationship between IT and end users
can be better able to attract talent,
execute new business models, and
evolve management capabilities to
improve competitiveness.
Author
Paul D’Arcy is executive director, Large Enterprise
Marketing at Dell.
Learn more
Dell virtual desktops:
dell.com/virtualdesktops
Dell SecureWorks information security services:
dell.com/secureworks
Dell mobile computing:
dell.com/mobility
Dell mobile computing solution components:
dell.com/smartphones-tablets
5 “Predicts 2011: Network capacity and consumers impact mobile and wireless technologies,” by Ken Dulaney, Phillip Redman, Carolina Milanesi, Van L. Baker, Monica Basso, and Leslie Fiering, Gartner, Inc., November 18, 2010.
6 The Future of Management, by Gary Hamel (Harvard Business School Press, 2007).
22 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Customer perspective
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
The IT industry is often defined by eras of significant
innovation, such as the PC, mobile computing, and the
Internet. Today the industry is at another inflection point
driven by increased mobility demands and the explosion
of digital data. To benefit from the opportunities and overcome the
challenges presented by this virtual era, organizations are adopting an
advanced model of computing that is open, efficient, and agile. In short,
the virtual era demands efficient IT approaches that help simplify the way
technology is deployed, integrated, and maintained in today’s data centers.
Managing data intelligently to drive efficiency in the virtual era
In nearly every industry, from insurance
to engineering to higher education,
organizations are using Dell™ Fluid Data™
storage solutions to help ensure that the
right data is available to the right people at
the right times—and at the right cost.
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 23
Customer perspective
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Efficient storage infrastructure and intelligent data
management are crucial for success in a data-driven world.
However, organizations are finding it increasingly difficult
to manage, maintain, and protect their data. Many storage
approaches that have been deployed widely over the past two
decades are insufficient to handle emerging storage and data
management challenges. IT approaches that treat data as a static
entity are missing an essential truth: data is not something to be
stored; it is something to be actively and intelligently managed.
Dell Fluid Data solutions are designed to help organizations
optimize data movement and management, both within and across
storage platforms. The Fluid Data solutions portfolio encompasses a
broad range of systems, software, and services that advance overall
data center agility and efficiency for heightened business response
and can enhance storage infrastructures in the following ways:
• Automate data management
• Optimize the storage footprint
• Scale seamlessly to meet fluctuating demands
• Protect data simply and cost-effectively
• Integrate efficiently into the IT environment
A fresh approach to storage based on Fluid Data architecture
helps organizations build an open, capable, and affordable
storage infrastructure that is designed to leverage their existing IT
investments—offering a clear path toward intelligent, cost-effective
data management. As a result, Fluid Data helps to reduce the
ongoing cost of maintenance in the data center while also helping
to control data volume, reduce storage and infrastructure costs,
and securely increase data availability.
The success stories highlighted here demonstrate how
different organizations are using Dell Fluid Data solutions
to help ensure that their data is available when and where
they need it. Fluid Data solutions encompass a broad range
of innovative technology, systems, software, and services
that help organizations consolidate and virtualize storage,
optimize applications, protect critical data, recover quickly
after service interruptions, and govern data throughout its
life cycle in accordance with compliance requirements. The
results these organizations have achieved show that regardless
of how they use their data, Fluid Data solutions enable IT
departments to manage data efficiently and flexibly, helping
deliver key information to stakeholders anywhere, anytime,
and on any device.
83%Using the Dell PowerVault™ DL Backup to Disk Appliance – Powered by Symantec™, Whorton Insurance Services realized an 83 percent reduction in staff time for data protection.
Whorton Insurance Services
2xThe Dell DX Object Storage Platform enabled Utrecht University research to access data twice as quickly.
Utrecht University
Using a Fluid Data–based storage solution, HDR EOC experienced 100 percent successful data recovery.
100%HDR EOC
50%Using Dell Compellent™ Storage Center™, the Italian retailer cut its capacity requirements in half compared to the previous storage environment.
Iper
80%Dell EqualLogic™ PS Series Internet SCSI (iSCSI) storage area network (SAN) arrays helped Ai Claims Solutions improve Microsoft® SQL Server® performance by 80 percent.
Ai Claims Solutions
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Customer perspective
Ai Claims Solutions: Optimizing
application performance
In the UK, insurance industry changes can
happen in the blink of an eye. Regular
legislative changes, shifts in the economy,
and rapidly evolving public expectations
mean that insurance firms must be flexible
in their approach to providing services.
Because insurance is a high-transaction,
low-margin business, improvements to
the IT infrastructure can have a significant
impact on profit margins.
At Ai Claims Solutions, a provider of a
range of non-fault accident services, rapid
growth was putting significant pressure on
its IT infrastructure supporting transaction
systems. “The company has been growing
at a rate of around 25 percent a year for a
number of years, and the IT infrastructure was
straining to support new applications that we
Iper: Shrinking the IT footprint
through intelligent data
management
Fast-growing Italian retail chain Iper
depends on real-time access to more than
400 GB of bar code tracking information
to run its day-to-day business. However,
with inactive historical data clogging stacks
of expensive, inaccessible disk storage,
the company needed a way to make the
appropriate information easier to access.
Iper made Dell Compellent storage the
basis of a fully virtualized infrastructure,
including redundant mirrored storage
area network (SAN) arrays for enhanced
disaster recovery. Leveraging intelligent,
policy-based automated tiering across
multiple storage tiers, Iper now uses the
Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN
to help maximize performance across
its application workloads while helping
minimize storage capacity and cost.
As a result, Iper cut its storage footprint
significantly. When the company moved
an Oracle® database from its previous
traditional enterprise storage environment
to the Dell Compellent SAN, it halved
the number of drives. For another
application, Dell Compellent storage
matched the capacity and performance of
a competitor’s 60-drive storage platform
with just 20 drives.
“With Dell Compellent you get less
hardware and more brainware,” says
Giovanni Oteri, ICT manager at Iper
Montebello S.p.A., a subsidiary of Gruppo
Finiper S.p.A. “All other storage technology
now seems obsolete in comparison.”
were developing,” says Andrew Robinson,
head of IT operations and data at Ai Claims
Solutions. “Our technology was five years
old and we were spending a lot of money
on warranty and lease extensions. To stay
competitive, we needed to make a change.”
Dell consultants helped Ai Claims Solutions
virtualize its infrastructure using the Microsoft
Hyper-V™ hypervisor, Dell PowerEdge™
servers, and Dell EqualLogic PS5000X
SANs—all of which combined to provide an
extremely efficient, scalable, and powerful
solution. This simplified architecture allowed
Ai Claims Solutions to reduce its infrastructure
management team by 40 percent, deliver a
reduced total cost of ownership (TCO), and
optimize database performance.
“We anticipated running out of SQL Server
capacity in the coming months due to rapid
business growth. The Dell EqualLogic SANs
have doubled our capacity, but we’ve
also seen an 80 percent improvement in
SQL performance. This was unexpected
but has given us much more flexibility,”
says Robinson.
Through virtualization and the extra
capacity afforded by the Dell infrastructure,
Ai Claims Solutions has been able to
accelerate its research and development
programs. Implementation time has also
been noticeably reduced. Robinson says,
“It used to take a week to deploy new
environments on our servers, but now it
takes half a day. Plus, with much more
capacity, we’ve been able to scale up
significantly the number of development
streams in progress at any one time. We’ve
gone from 40 to 485 databases. We’re
more productive and can release new
applications and improvements faster.”
24 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Whorton Insurance Services:
Helping simplify data protection
Managing data protection at Whorton Insurance Services used to
consume most of its operations manager’s nights and weekends. To
ease the burden and avoid adding IT staff resources, Whorton first
virtualized eight physical servers onto two Dell PowerEdge servers
running VMware® virtualization software and began backing up to
disk, but problems persisted. Verifying backups was a challenge, and
through-host backups of virtual machines sometimes stretched into
the morning, which slowed network performance.
Then Whorton decided to try the Dell PowerVault DL Backup
to Disk Appliance – Powered by Symantec Backup Exec. Backups
are now automated, and virtual machines and Microsoft application
data are continuously protected with granular recovery technology.
Off-host virtual machine backups are now performed with little or
no impact to network performance.
“The Dell PowerVault DL2000 and Symantec Backup Exec
solved our backup problems without the management complexity
and hassles of a virtual tape library,” says Chris Whorton, operations
manager for Whorton Insurance Services. “Backup Exec Agents for
Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server allow us to back up
our e-mail and databases with granular recovery technology. We
now have continuous protection—and it took me only 30 minutes
to set up out of the box.”
Without any tape-based backups to perform, Whorton now
spends 83 percent less time managing data protection, and the
company was able to avoid hiring part-time help at a cost of
approximately US$20,000 per year. Backup success rates are up to
99 percent—as compared to 50 percent using the old system.
“Between tape media and tape-related hardware costs, and
what we would have had to spend on additional IT staff, the
Dell PowerVault DL2000 paid for itself in 10 months,” Whorton
concludes. “It’s enabled me to continue to wear multiple hats—and
get some rest. Sleep is good!”
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 25
Customer perspective
HDR EOC: Bringing reliable disaster
recovery to distributed data
Engineering and environmental firm HDR EOC
(formerly e2M) manages large volumes of project
data in 12 geographically dispersed offices. Each
office was backing up all its data locally and
storing backups on site—a time-intensive process
that resulted in a mere 60 percent recovery
success rate.
With assistance from Dell, the firm designed
a centralized backup architecture built on Dell
PowerEdge rack-mounted and blade servers, two
Dell EqualLogic PS Series iSCSI SAN arrays, and a Dell
PowerVault ML6000 Tape Library. Dell then provided
data protection from Symantec for deduplication and
centralized backup. As a result, HDR EOC achieved
100 percent successful data recovery.
HDR EOC has also reduced backup windows
by 83 percent, from 48 or more hours down to just
eight hours. And thanks to deduplication, HDR EOC
is seeing a 40 percent reduction in the volume
of backup data crossing the network, which allows
the company to save on network bandwidth
and backup software licensing and reclaim
approximately 572 hours of staff time each year
for more valuable tasks.
Moreover, storing data in multiple locations
provides disaster protection, and IT can find
desired files quickly. “We’ve been able to recover
every file users have asked us for since we
implemented the Dell and Symantec solution,”
says Lloyd Cramer, system administrator at
HDR EOC.
“Data recovery used to be one of our greatest
concerns,” says Gustin Hare, corporate IT director
for HDR EOC. “Now we focus our energy on
supporting our business users, while the backups
take care of themselves.”
26 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Utrecht University: Keeping
data safe and compliant
At Utrecht University, the Biomolecular Mass
Spectrometry and Proteomics Group is
exploring new methods of protein research,
which produces vast amounts of data that
needs to be processed, safeguarded, and
easily retrieved. As a result, the department
outgrew its storage solution and was not
able to scale its platform to accommodate
the estimated 1,000 TB of new data that is
expected to be created during the next five
years. In addition, system administrators
found that backing up the department’s
existing 13 TB of data each day was time-
consuming and unreliable. The group
sought an advanced approach to storage
that would prevent bottlenecks and cut out
the painstaking backups.
As a long-standing Dell customer,
the department turned to Dell for insight
into available systems. The Dell DX
Object Storage Platform—an object-
based, clustered storage platform—was
well suited for the storage needs of the
group based on its simplicity, scalability,
integrated storage protection, and superior
information management. Instead of slow
tape backups, the IT team now relies on
mirroring and automatic replication. The
group’s system administrator now has
Learn more
Dell storage solutions:
dellstorage.com
system. Without download delays, the team’s
time can now be dedicated to analyzing
protein behavior that can change the way
medicine manages disease.
Heightening data center agility
In any industry, burgeoning volumes of
data are inducing organizations of all
sizes to consider fresh approaches to
storage and data management. These
approaches encompass critical areas
such as consolidation and virtualization,
application integration and optimization,
data protection, disaster recovery, and data
retention and governance.
Dell Fluid Data solutions enable
automated data management and
optimization of unified block, file,
and object storage resources through
Dell Compellent, Dell EqualLogic, Dell
PowerVault, and Dell DX Object Storage
Platform systems. These innovative
approaches to storage and data
management are designed to deliver
a dynamic and flexible foundation for
efficient, agile IT through intelligent
automation and simple integration—
supported by storage expertise and
worldwide service capabilities from Dell.
up to five additional hours each week
to help researchers with their IT needs.
The department also takes advantage of
the platform’s automated, policy-based
data management, adding metadata on
retention and deletion to help ensure
compliance with international standards.
“When our research is published, we
must retain and make available all the
relevant data—both raw and processed—for
five years. Using metadata as part of Dell’s
DX Object Storage Platform means we can
now specify for how long the information
must be kept and how many copies of a
file are needed. The solution does the rest,”
says Bas van Breukelen, assistant professor
of bioinformatics at Utrecht University. “This,
together with mirroring, gives us complete
peace of mind that we are complying with
international regulations and protected
against the loss of valuable data.”
The benefits of the DX Object Storage
Platform extend beyond the data center
as well. Now that researchers can attach
metadata—such as the name of the
researcher conducting the experiment—to
a file, they can retrieve relevant information
quickly and easily. Also crucial was the
capability enabling researchers to download
files twice as quickly because the platform
has higher throughput than the previous
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 27Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Eric JonesExecutive DirectorHenrico Public Schools
“Dell educational solutions help us better prepare our students for success. Lesson learned.”
See how we helped Henrico County Public Schools improve academic performance using Dell professional learning services and educational solutions. Learn more at Dell.com/Effi cientIT.
To read the full story, scan here or text EIT to DELL4U (335548).
Standard message and data rates apply.
50110454-dell-ad4.indd 1 12/6/11 11:35 AM
With reliance on IT growing and IT budgets leveling off, it is
no surprise that many business and technology strategists
are setting their sights on the cloud. By providing cost-
effective, on-demand access to powerful IT resources,
cloud computing helps organizations boost flexibility, productivity,
and scalability while avoiding IT expenditures and complexity. And the
deployments can be as diverse as the specific requirements they serve. For
example, some enterprises are migrating workloads to large-scale public
clouds; others are building private clouds that capitalize on pooled, in-
house server, storage, and networking resources.
The success stories highlighted here show how organizations in a
wide range of industries have already drawn upon approaches such as
Dell Cloud Computing Solutions to advance business and technical goals
while controlling IT budgets. Whether they are operating airports, brewing
beer, or delivering integrated voice and data services, these companies
understand that a cloud computing–based strategy can be instrumental
in achieving impressive results—helping to reduce power consumption,
secure client systems, increase worker productivity, improve agility, and
reach new customers.
Expanding business opportunities through the cloud
Large enterprises and small businesses alike are
realizing powerful cost-benefits by implementing
cloud-based computing environments. Dell™ cloud
computing technologies enhance agility, broaden
opportunities, and streamline IT management.
Copenhagen Airports
Reduced carbon emissionsCopenhagen Airports reduced carbon emissions by approximately 200 tons per year after implementing a private cloud with virtualized Dell PowerEdge™ servers.
Tyro Payments
Tight PC SecurityTyro Payments uses the cloud-based Dell Distributed Device Management (DDM) software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to help keep PCs secure without adding IT complexity.
Boulevard Brewing Company
Increased productivity Boulevard Brewing Company reclaimed more than 3,790 productivity hours per year by managing spam and stopping viruses with cloud-based Dell Email Management Services (EMS).
University of Kentucky
Maximized IT efficiency The University of Kentucky Information Technology (UKIT) group anticipates a 17 percent total cost of ownership (TCO) reduction over five years for its private and hybrid cloud SAP environment.
Uniserve
Fresh business opportunitiesUniserve offered new products to existing customers and is reaching previously untapped verticals by adopting the turnkey Dell Cloud Solution for Web Applications approach.
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 29
Customer perspective
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
30 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Copenhagen Airports: Landing in the cloud
As the owner and operator of Kastrup and Roskilde airports
in Denmark, Copenhagen Airports is responsible for running and
maintaining all airport buildings and service facilities. Its IT group
sought new ways to streamline IT management and reduce power
consumption to support continued organizational growth while
meeting carbon emission targets set by the Danish government.
Achieving those goals required the overhaul of an aging, power-
hungry IT infrastructure that comprised 330 servers and several
disparate, proprietary storage systems.
Following consultation with Dell, the IT group pooled IT
resources by creating a private cloud with VMware® virtualization
software, Dell PowerEdge blade servers, and Dell EqualLogic™
PS Series storage. After virtualizing just half of its servers, the
organization cut IT power consumption costs by approximately
DKK 800,000 per year and reduced carbon emissions by
approximately 200 tons per year. Virtualizing servers also helped
the company avoid 75 percent of previously planned hardware
acquisition costs.
Meanwhile, the private cloud approach has helped streamline
management. “Thanks to our simplified Dell cloud infrastructure, we
save around 50 percent on management time,” says Michael Øst
Larsen, back office IT manager for Copenhagen Airports. “It’s a new
approach to running IT.”
In addition, the IT group is able to respond much more quickly
and flexibly to service requests; virtualization has helped cut the
time to launch new services from one month to just one hour. “This
means that the company can get going on projects faster, which
contributes to overall growth,” says Øst Larsen.
Tyro Payments: Tightening PC security
Tyro Payments, an independent Australian banking
organization, is focused on producing innovative, enterprise-
level payment processes for small and medium-sized retailers,
hospitality businesses, and health care providers. Protecting the
security of its client systems is critical for Tyro. Yet the near-
continuous work of distributing third-party security patches and
antivirus updates to employee PCs was challenging for the small IT
group. Administrators needed to streamline software deployments
to help ensure that updates would reach client systems before
problems arose.
After evaluating several options, the IT group at Tyro decided
to adopt the Dell Distributed Device Management (DDM) software-
as-a-service (SaaS) platform. The cloud-based solution enables
administrators to manage client systems in real time through an
online portal that is designed to be accessed by any PC connected
to the Internet. Administrators can fix software problems remotely,
avoiding time-consuming deskside visits and helping employees to
reduce downtime.
By deploying DDM, the Tyro team also can capitalize on
automated third-party patch management capabilities to roll out
antivirus software and security patches to the entire organization
in minutes. “Deploying the SaaS solution has increased the security
of our systems,” says Timothy Kersten, security specialist at Tyro
Payments. “The updates process has been simplified and is much
more effective. We now have peace of mind that we are protected
at all times.”
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Customer perspective
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 31
Boulevard Brewing Company:
Keeping communications flowing
A pioneer in the craft beer revolution, Boulevard Brewing Company
is today the largest specialty brewer in the Midwestern United
States. Like most U.S. breweries, Boulevard needs a way to ensure
smooth communication with distributors. However, a large volume
of e-mail spam was hampering employee productivity, introducing
security risks, and causing the IT group to spend thousands of
dollars on spam filtering software every year. Finally, a hardware
failure on the server used for the Microsoft® Exchange Server
messaging application forced the company to rethink messaging.
Boulevard adopted Dell Email Management Services (EMS), a
comprehensive suite of cloud-delivered messaging applications,
to manage spam and virus filtering and to handle e-mail archiving
and continuity. Now e-mail passes through Dell EMS Email Security
servers before it is delivered to the company’s network. Boulevard
also refreshed its hardware with a Dell PowerEdge server to host
Exchange 2010 and implemented Dell EqualLogic PS Series storage
area networks (SANs) for primary storage and data replication.
Using the cloud-based solution for spam and virus filtering has
helped Boulevard reclaim more than 3,790 productivity hours per
year, refocus IT staff on other tasks, eliminate expenses for spam
filtering software, and avoid significant e-mail outages. Using cloud-
based e-mail archiving, Boulevard also reclaimed 30 percent of disk
space and achieved a 100 percent return on investment.
“If you’re not using a perimeter-based spam and virus filtering
solution like Dell EMS Email Security, you’re essentially paying for
extra bandwidth to allow spam to travel across your network,” says
Tony Lux, purveyor of technology at Boulevard Brewing Company.
“For us, that’s a lot of data, and Dell EMS is stopping it before it even
hits our mail server.”
University of Kentucky: Journey to the cloud
University of Kentucky Information Technology (UKIT) is exploring
a new approach to IT to address multiple challenges and build an
infrastructure for the future. The campus data center, which houses
mission-critical applications used across the university and part of the
university health care system, is located in an aging building that leaves
applications too vulnerable to catastrophic outages. Meanwhile, the
data center’s large-scale SAP environment, which helps manage student
information, procurement, human resources, and financials, uses
proprietary systems that have become too costly and complex.
UKIT needs to make changes quickly. UKIT is under pressure
from the university to identify recurring cost savings and to return the
prime campus real estate used for the data center to academic use. A
dwindling budget resulting from the economic downturn means that
building a new data center is not a financially viable option.
UKIT is evolving to cloud computing as a way to help mitigate risks,
reduce costs, return data center space to the university, and redirect IT
staff to focus on strategic organizational goals. As a first step, UKIT worked
with Dell Services to design a private and hybrid cloud solution for the SAP
applications that includes Dell PowerEdge servers, Dell Compellent™
storage, and the Dell Virtual Integrated System (VIS) portfolio. Through a
multi-phased proof of concept, UKIT learned that the cloud approach could
help reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the SAP environment by
nearly 17 percent over five years. If the pilot is successful, UKIT ultimately
plans to migrate the SAP environment and other mission-critical applications
to a Dell public cloud to help further reduce risks and costs.
“Cloud computing helps us address several of our immediate
challenges by improving business continuity, reducing operating costs,
freeing up campus real estate, and simplifying management,” says Vince
Kellen, CIO, University of Kentucky Information Technology. “In the long
term, moving to a cloud environment will enable us to create a much more
dynamic, agile infrastructure that can support a full range of academic and
administrative functions, from scientific research to desktop computing.”
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
32 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Customer perspective
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Uniserve: Evolving into the cloud
As one of Canada’s first Internet service providers, Uniserve
takes pride in being at the leading edge of technology. Founded in
1988 as a computer retail store and dial-up bulletin board system,
the company has grown into an industry leader in the integration
and delivery of voice and data services. Today Uniserve has 50,000
residential subscribers and more than 3,000 commercial customers
throughout Canada.
Offering cloud computing services was a natural step in the
company’s evolution. Commercial customers were increasingly
requesting hosted business applications such as Microsoft Office
SharePoint® Server collaboration and document management,
Microsoft Exchange Server messaging, and BlackBerry applications
to help increase flexibility and reduce costs. Uniserve decided to
build a data center to accommodate that demand.
Uniserve then sought a proven, secure platform that would
allow the company to launch its cloud computing offering quickly,
provide the flexibility to meet on-demand needs, ensure the
security that business customers require, and provide scalability
for future growth. The company selected the turnkey Dell Cloud
Solution for Web Applications, which combines Joyent Cloud
Control software with Dell PowerEdge C Series servers, Dell
Services, and Dell ProSupport in a pretested and preassembled
platform with comprehensive support.
“This cloud solution gives us credibility,” says Mike Schmidt,
president and CEO of Uniserve. “It’s established, it’s proven,
it’s reliable, it’s scalable. It has everything our customers
need to deliver Web applications.” With its cloud computing–
based strategy, Uniserve is offering new products to current
customers while growing opportunities in other areas and
vertical business segments.
Learn more
Dell Cloud Computing Solutions:
dell.to/r13hBs
Dell Distributed Device Management:
dell.to/n2PcTx
Dell Email Management Services:
dell.to/nSENDP
Dell Cloud Solution for Web Applications:
dell.to/owpYYp
Navigating cloud computing
Dell Services helps answer a variety of fundamental questions about cloud computing and provide navigation assistance for those organizations that are ready to explore.
dell.to/rcnD6K
Serious fun
Carnival Cruise Lines
Customers of Carnival Cruise
Lines want to get away from
it all. Whether they choose to
dance into the wee hours, play
miniature golf with the kids, or just read a
great book by the pool, most are looking
for a vacation from the complexities of
everyday life.
These fun and carefree cruises rely on
a cutting-edge IT infrastructure—one that
poses unique challenges. Because each
ship is its own floating island, efficiency
and reliability are crucial. Looking to get the
most out of the available footprint, Carnival
engaged Dell to determine how it could use
virtualization to consolidate its servers.
Carnival began implementing
VMware® vSphere™ virtualization on Dell
PowerEdge servers and EqualLogic storage,
and quickly saw the results. “Now that
we’ve gone virtual, we’re saving floor space,
saving power, and getting better airflow,
which keeps the servers cooler,” says John
Staker, senior information systems manager
on the new ship Carnival Dream.
The standardized infrastructure has
simplified management and increased
reliability, including saving Carnival’s
information systems managers up to
7,000 hours a year. “The storage arrays
have been rock-solid,” Staker says. “At
Carnival Cruise Lines, we do everything
possible to ensure that our guests enjoy
their vacation. By providing a highly
reliable server environment, our virtual
machines on Dell servers and EqualLogic
storage support that mission.” Carnival is
now planning to move its shoreside data
warehouse onto a similar platform that
uses hybrid EqualLogic arrays with both
solid-state drives and spinning disks.
“We have a true partnership with
Dell,” says Doug Eney, vice president
of information systems engineering at
Carnival. “Many vendors have walked in
here and said they’re our partner, but then
we’ve had a problem when the presales
period was over and the partnership went
out the window. Dell delivers cost-effective
and reliable solutions, and whenever
we’ve brought up issues with the Dell
team, they’ve determined the root cause
and worked with us on the solution. They
always show a commitment to actually
being our partner.”
Deploying virtualized Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers and EqualLogic™
storage helps Carnival Cruise Lines make the most of a small
shipboard footprint, maximize reliability, and reclaim 7,000 hours
per year for its information systems managers.
Cruising to efficiency
In this video, learn more about how the efficient Dell platform is helping Carnival deliver an unforgettable vacation experience to 3 million guests every year.
youtube.com/watch?v= iS8_AlcYdQA
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 33
Customer perspective
34 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Customer perspective
Every business in the world hones
its systems for peak performance
and competitive advantage—but
few can say that the difference
between success and failure comes down
to millimeters or hundredths of a second, as
is the case with Formula 1 (F1) racing teams.
To get an F1 car to peak performance and
keep it there takes hundreds of people,
multiple infrastructures, and constant
monitoring—plus an IT environment that
can move seamlessly to a different country
each week.
This undertaking is a huge challenge
for teams competing in the F1 season,
but especially for the newly formed Team
Lotus. In a sport where time is precious,
Bill Peters, head of IT at Team Lotus, was
given a matter of months to build the IT
infrastructure needed to run a competitive
racing team. “We found out quite late on
that we’d been accepted into the 2010 F1
season,” says Peters. “We had less than
22 weeks to build everything from scratch.
I knew we needed a tier-one IT partner to
work with us at every stage.”
Designing enterprise-grade
IT environments
Building an enterprise infrastructure in a
few months is no simple task. “The Dell
Consulting team came in and listened to
Working with Dell to rapidly create and deploy a
high-performance computing cluster, design environment,
and network and trackside infrastructures helps speed
Team Lotus toward its ultimate goal—to become the
fastest new team in Formula 1™ (F1™) racing.
Team Lotus
On track for the checkered flag
Rocket on the road
Rapid IT deployment and trackside support anywhere in the world translate into superfast ground speed for Team Lotus. Watch this video to learn more.
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Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Dell.com/EfficientIT | 2012 Issue 35
Customer perspective
our requirements, quickly turning them
into a statement of work,” says Peters. Dell
consultants held a series of workshops
covering the design and implementation
of servers, storage, networks, and
infrastructure applications.
The team had requirements specific
to the F1 industry, and Dell’s experience
with other F1 teams was invaluable. Peters
explains: “We soon realized that Dell
understood our industry—everything from
the technology needed to design an F1 car,
to our requirement for trackside laptops
and storage that could withstand extreme
temperatures and vibrations.”
Team Lotus also needed a high-
performance computing (HPC)
environment for computational fluid
dynamics—a way of accurately simulating
wind tunnels in virtual space. The
team selected an Intel® Cluster Ready
HPC, which provides a preconfigured,
production-ready system including the
Linux® OS and Platform and independent
software vendor (ISV) applications. The
cluster consists of 186 Dell™ PowerEdge™
M610 blade servers with the Intel Xeon®
processor 5570 series housed in energy-
efficient PowerEdge M1000e modular
blade enclosures and connected to Dell
PowerVault™ MD3200 and MD1200 storage
arrays. “The cluster is critical to the success
of the team,” says Peters. “It works around
the clock simulating aerodynamics and
helps us design the cars. It gives us our
competitive edge.”
The team’s HPC environment helps
prepare the cars for each competition,
but on race day the team needs a
completely different infrastructure. The
trackside environment must deliver all the
functionality and performance expected of
an enterprise-grade IT infrastructure. Not
only must it be highly resilient, but—most
importantly—it must also be mobile because
the team travels around the world.
Once again, Dell consultants’ expertise
and experience within the F1 industry
helped ensure that Team Lotus deployed
the right infrastructure quickly. Dell
designed an environment comprising four
PowerEdge R710 servers connected to a
Dell EqualLogic™ PS6000S Internet SCSI
(iSCSI) storage area network (SAN) with
solid-state drives (SSDs). The servers are
virtualized with a VMware® vSphere™ 4
virtualization platform, and the team’s
data is protected with Symantec™
Backup Exec™ backup and recovery
software. As a result, the team’s overall
IT footprint is designed to be half that of
most competitors, which saves traveling
space that can be used for spare car parts
and other necessities.
The trackside network plays a key role
in the team’s success as well. “We pull huge
amounts of data out of the cars because
they’re racing every lap, so high performance
and stability is paramount,” says Peters. The
team uses Dell Latitude™ E6500 and E4300
laptops with Intel Core™2 Duo processors.
These systems are extremely powerful, but
they are also tough—built with magnesium-
alloy chassis and display backs that meet
rigorous standards for durability.
Pulling ahead of the pack
The F1 season currently consists of circuits
across 20 countries. To help ensure
maximum reliability and performance,
Team Lotus has a Dell ProSupport
Enterprise-Wide Contract. This support,
which has proved invaluable already,
offers the team a four-hour response in
any country. “Regardless of where we are
in the world, we see the same high-level
response within a few hours—even in the
middle of the night when we’re preparing
the car,” says Peters.
Peters is adamant that the world
championship is within grasp in the
next few years. “We want to win a
world championship, and we think it’s
achievable. We’ve got the right team
to do it, and, thanks to Dell, the IT
infrastructure too,” he says.
Where the rubber meets the roadTeam Lotus is focused
on speed—and rapid IT
deployment and support
services from Dell are
helping the F1 race
team achieve its goals.
4 hoursWhen Team Lotus is on the racing circuit, it receives trackside IT assistance within 4 hours, thanks to its Dell ProSupport Enterprise-Wide Contract.
22 weeksAfter Team Lotus was accepted into the 2010 F1 season, it had to build everything from scratch within 22 weeks—including a mobile HPC cluster, networking and trackside infrastructures, a design environment, and storage.
186 serversTeam Lotus selected a production-ready HPC cluster configuration consisting of 186 Dell PowerEdge M610 blade servers, pretested with the Linux OS and ISV applications.
Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Accelerating scientific research with an energy-saving HPC cluster
University of California, Irvine
Home to Nobel Prize–winning scientists and top-
ranking research programs, the University of California,
Irvine (UCI) prides itself on a distinguished history
of scientific research. Yet until a few years ago, UCI
lacked the compute power to support its researchers in such areas
as atmospheric chemistry, bioinformatics, biopharmaceutical
engineering, and other disciplines that focus on chemistry and
synthetic chemistry. It had to outsource data to high-performance
computing (HPC) labs throughout the United States, experiencing
weeks and even months of lag that slowed the pace of research.
Realizing a need for its own HPC cluster, UCI turned to Dell and
Intel. “They put us in a position where we could get their advanced
tools and their advanced products by opening their engineering and
design-build processes to us and ultimately allowing us to do work that
we couldn’t have done without their help,” says Ronald D. Hubbard,
senior director of development for the UCI School of Physical Sciences.
The resulting cluster, GreenPlanet, encompasses over 350 Dell
PowerEdge™ servers. A QLogic TrueScale InfiniBand interconnect
provides high-throughput, low-latency connectivity among the
nodes. Dell PowerVault™ MD1220 and PowerVault MD1000 direct
attach storage arrays deliver rack-dense, scalable storage.
“We’re seeing great energy and space savings per amount
of work done,” says Dr. Nathan R. M. Crawford, modeling facility
director of the UCI chemistry department. “In fact, with the
advancements that Dell has embedded in the PowerEdge C6100
servers running Intel Xeon processor 5600 series, we can get
150 percent of the work in 50 percent of the space.” The Dell and
Intel solution also saves 28 percent in energy consumption.
“We run very diverse software across more than 30 different
professors and their research groups, with many simulations that
take days or weeks to run,” says Crawford. “Through Dell’s and
Intel’s expertise, we’ve been able to integrate all these into the
cluster by using the Intel Cluster Ready Program and Dell Hardware
Customization services. This has helped us to monitor and manage
all these divergent activities on an open platform.”
Rommie Amaro, assistant professor of pharmaceutical science
and computer science, uses GreenPlanet to study infectious diseases.
“In my lab we are using different computational simulations to try to
understand how enzymes and biomolecules within these diseases
behave and how we can come up with new drugs to target these
specific enzymes,” she says. “We study systems with hundreds
of thousands of atoms and simulate their behavior. So, it’s very
important for us to have access to a large number of processors that
have very fast interconnect. That allows us to get results much more
quickly. And the great thing about GreenPlanet is it satisfies those
constraints for us.”
At the University of California, Irvine,
researchers race toward innovative cures for
diverse diseases. Introducing an HPC cluster
powered by Dell™ servers with Intel® Xeon®
processors enabled 150 percent more
research in 50 percent of the space.
Transforming science
The speed and power provided by high-performance computing opens the door to new scientific discoveries. Learn how the GreenPlanet cluster helps researchers at the University of California, Irvine, study diseases and their cures.
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Reprinted from the 2012 Dell Efficient IT special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.36 2012 Issue | Dell.com/EfficientIT
Customer perspective
See how we helped Bing Maps from Microsoft increase computing density fi vefold, while decreasing power consumption 80% using Dell modular data centers that can be delivered and deployed in just a few weeks. Learn more at Dell.com/Effi cientIT.
To read the full story, scan here or text EIT to DELL4U (335548).
Brad Clark
Group Program Manager
Bing®
Maps from Microsoft®
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“We needed to process geographic data for the entire earth—while minimizing
our environmental impact upon it.”
See how we help AccuWeather manage the incredible
data growth associated with providing weather
forecasts to hundreds of millions of mobile devices with
Dell storage solutions, featuring Fluid DataTM technology.
Learn more at Dell.com/Effi cientIT.
“ This deluge of data isn’t stopping. But with Dell’s storage solutions, our system was able to absorb it.”
To read the full story, scan here or text EIT to DELL4U (335548).
Steven Smith
CIO
AccuWeather, Inc.
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