First OpenStack Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud solution
Dell announced the Dell OpenStack Cloud Solution, which integrates the OpenStack cloud operating system, cloud-optimized Dell PowerEdge C servers, the Dell-developed “Crowbar” OpenStack installer, and services from Dell and Rackspace Cloud Builders.
The Dell OpenStack Cloud Solution comes with a reference architecture designed to help customers quickly integrate, deploy and manage their IT resources in an OpenStack environment.
Tested, validated, and supported by Dell, the reference architecture is based on Dell PowerEdge C Series servers, which capture the efficiencies and design lessons learned from some of the world’s largest hosting and cloud providers, while being engineered to maximize revenue per-square foot within the data center.
This solution also incorporates Dell’s popular Crowbar software framework, which manages the OpenStack deployment from the initial server boot to the configuration of the primary OpenStack components, allowing users to complete bare metal deployment of multi-node OpenStack clouds in a matter of hours, as opposed to days.
Once the initial deployment is complete, Crowbar can be used to maintain, expand, and architect the complete solution, including BIOS configuration, network discovery, status monitoring, performance data gathering, and alerting.
Dell has released Crowbar to the community as open source code to enable users to build functionality to address their specific system needs, and is working with the community to submit Crowbar as a core project in the OpenStack initiative.
Dell has been part of the OpenStack community since its creation, and has worked closely with a number of key OpenStack partners, including Rackspace, Citrix, Opscode, Canonical, Intel, and others. Dell is also one of the industry’s most experienced partners to top global cloud services providers, including Facebook and Microsoft Windows Azure.
This expertise in servers, software, and services is the underpinning of the Dell OpenStack Cloud Solution, which utilizes the current OpenStack release, Cactus. With support for the two top public compute cloud application programming interfaces from Amazon and Rackspace, as well as extensive support for all of the major virtualization technologies from Citrix, Microsoft, and VMware, OpenStack and the Dell OpenStack Cloud Solution provide all the components necessary to deliver a comprehensive cloud offering.