Dell EMC VxRail: Kubernetes at Speed of Cloud

By Chad Dunn, VP, product management, HCI, Dell Technologies, Inc.

Dell Technologies, Inc. and VMware, Inc. are dedicated to delivering integrated products that help customers get the most value out of their IT infrastructure investments.

In keeping with our 30-day synchronous release commitment, we are announcing integration with the latest VMware HCI software and Tanzu offerings.

VMware Tanzu on Dell EMC VxRail integration is substantial news for customers. There also are plenty of new features in vSAN, vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation that will benefit VxRail customers, regardless of where they are on their path to adopting Tanzu for Kubernetes orchestration and application development.

To help customers accelerate application modernization, VxRail delivers ‘Kubernetes at Cloud Speed’ with multiple, integrated HCI infrastructure options to run vSphere with Tanzu. In fact, Dell is the only HCI vendor offering an integrated Tanzu portfolio with reference architecture, cluster, and private cloud offerings – all on VxRail.

Customers can choose the best infrastructure to fit their organizations operating model and level of Kubernetes expertise. Whether customers are looking to develop on a validated Platform-as-a-Service or Container-as-a-Service platform with Tanzu Architecture for VxRail, rapidly get started with a Kubernetes deployment of vSphere with Tanzu on VxRail, or deploy Kubernetes at scale on a turnkey, fully integrated, secure private cloud deployment with VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu on VxRail, the Dell Technologies Cloud Platform, running Tanzu on VxRail delivers:

Accelerated adoption: Curated VxRail systems come integrated and ready to deploy, automated infrastructure deployment and cloud-like resource pooling, elasticity, agility/speed, and programmability accelerate Kubernetes infrastructure delivery so developers can operate at the pace of today’s digital business.
Kubernetes your way: Choice of infrastructure delivery options with consistent operations that align to your organization’s operating model. Deploy the optimal infrastructure that meets your Kubernetes readiness journey.
Rapid Kubernetes evolution: Lock step support for latest VMware Kubernetes advancements. With VxRail automated full stack lifecycle management and non-disruptive addition of next gen platforms, customers can continuously, confidently and predictably take advantage of evolving Kubernetes technology on fully integrated, automated infrastructure.

VMware Tanzu on Dell EMC VxRail flexible infrastructure options enable businesses to adopt rapidly adopt Kubernetes to keep pace with the speed of business. “Vmware Tanzu on VxRail will provide customers with immediate value – delivering an easy to deploy and manage stack that runs both modern and traditional applications,” said Krish Prasad, SVP, CPBU and GM, vSphere, VMware, Inc. “VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu on VxRail will deliver significant operational efficiency for running Kubernetes workloads at scale in the data center, cloud and at the edge.“

Whether you’re ready to jump into the world of Tanzu, or just looking for the latest innovations in HCI for data center modernization, hybrid cloud adoption, or edge deployments, VxRail has you covered through tight integration with the latest VMware HCI software releases.

With the latest vSAN and vSphere releases, there are a number of advancements in storage efficiency, security and file services. One example of storage efficiency is HCI mesh, which enables storage resource sharing across clusters. This is particularly exciting for our larger VxRail customers who may have spare capacity on one of their many clusters- if they are running low on capacity in one cluster, HCI mesh enables them to utilize spare capacity from another cluster. Customers taking advantage of our VxRail HCI System Software SaaS multi-cluster management with predictive capacity analysis can track capacity usage across all of their clusters and determine how to most effectively take advantage of HCI mesh to optimize workload performance.

Additional update benefits include:

vSAN ‘Compression only’ option for demanding workloads that typically cannot take advantage of deduplication.
Extended file services with windows file sharing through SMB v2.1 and v3. Both types of file shares are now able to use Kerberos based authentication when using Microsoft Active Directory.
New security features include vSAN In-transit Encryption and Secure Disk Wipe.
VMware Cloud Foundation also introduced remote cluster management, enabling VxRail customers to extend VMware Cloud Foundation workload domains to remote locations while maintaining consistent operations and integrated stack lifecycle management across the hybrid cloud to the edge.