The beauty of the cloud for customers is you just buy a service, and use it. Should be very little fuss or muss.
Dell wants to offer the exact same thing to cloud providers themselves. The hardware giant has paired with OnApp to offer three cloud packages, already fully tested, that service providers can quickly turn into cloud services.
OnApp claims it has pretty much a service provider needs to support cloud services. OnApp Cloud, now on version 3, includes a SAN, content delivery network, load balancing, and management tools that can handle virtual machines, billing, autoscaling and service set up.
OnApp Cloud, which took two years to build, debuted nearly three years ago. The company claims that a third of all public clouds now use its software.
Two years ago the company announced a content delivery network and last rounded out the portfolio with OnApp Storage.
While OnApp feels it had a relatively complete solution, there are loads of items Dell can offer. In this case, Dell has the hardware gear, including of course, servers and the racks they run on, power and cabling, and the networking to hook it all together. This is all backed by Dell hardware support, while OnApp takes care of the software with 24x7 assistance.
The three pre-tested solutions include clouds running on Dell Compellent Fibre Channel storage systems, a distributed SAN using Dell EqualLogic storage and OnApp Cloud, or a cloud using OnApp Storage.
One service provider is already keen on this ‘cloud in a box’ approach. “This is the combination we'd been waiting for," said Peter Duggal, managing director for U.K. cloud provider nativespace. "Pre-tested hardware makes so much sense when you’re planning and building a cloud service. The new Dell and OnApp packages make deployment much faster and offer predictable stability and performance, with full support – which helps us guarantee SLAs for our cloud customers.”
For Dell, this isn’t just a deal, but an example of the new Dell. “At Dell we’ve always believed in the power of technology of help organizations of every size, location & industry do more," says Paul Brook, program manager at Dell. "To accomplish this, over the last three years we’ve undergone a company-wide transformation. In the process, we’ve accelerated the transition from being a vendor that delivers efficient & inexpensive ‘boxes’ to a partner that provides solutions addressing the end-to-end needs and shifting priorities of our customers.”
TMC recently did a video interview with OnApp about easy to build clouds, and the company has its very own cloud management software channel on TMC.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
