Back in June, the 24th to be exact, Nutanix announced their global (OEM) agreement with Dell. Here’s what Nutanix had to say about it back then “This strategic Relationship Significantly Expands Access and Distribution of Nutanix Solutions with Dell’s World-Class Hardware, Services and Marketing” Today at Dell World they revealed the new Dell XC Series, Web-scale Converged Appliances equipped with Nutanix Software. The general availability date is set for next week at November the 11th.
A potential huge impact
At this time they are expecting to target somewhere around 800+ customers world wide, everything from relatively small to some of the bigger mid-sized companies, and all that’s in between. In other words, a potential massive market share growth for both companies and Web-Scale technology in general. A good thing if you ask me. When they announced their collaboration back in June, which really isn’t that long ago, a lot still needed to be decided on, technically as well as strategically. There were some challenges, sure, but once the partnership was sealed everything worked out very smoothly according to some of the engineers involved.
Nutanix will be Nutanix
This partnership is without a doubt another big step forward for both parties. Dell will once again expand their already impressive portfolio, which will be attractive to existing clients as well as a whole bunch of potential new ones I’m sure! They are among the first server vendors to incorporate a true Web-Scale (software defined) and industry leading platform into their existing product line, providing them with a more than impressive feature set and almost endless scaling possibilities, which isn’t something every vendor can say. Of course this applies to Nutanix as well, this is their chance to accelerate the adoption of Nutanix based Web-Scale converged infrastructures throughout the enterprise, going forward Web-Scale technology will be available for all companies, regardless of size and budget!
The thing I really like about all this though, is that Nutanix didn’t change a thing with regards to their software, in fact, you can take a Nutanix node and a Dell node and you’ll have the exact same features and functionality on both, no differences, at all (except for KVM support as far as the underlying hypervisor goes, ah well…). Both nodes, either Dell or Nutanix, will run the exact same NOS versions, receive the exact same updates and are also both managed through the Nutanix Prism UI, it’s just the underlying hardware configuration that will slightly differ depending on the model you purchase, as we will see shortly.
Combined support
As far as support goes both companies will bundle their strengths and supplement each other where necessary. Customers will dial a single support number from which they will receive joint support from Dell and Nutanix, which will be led by Dell.
A note on the specifications
The thing I’d like to point out first is actually software related. When it comes to hypervisors, the Nutanix software normally supports ESXi, Hyper-V and KVM, however, with Dell the KVM hypervisor will no longer be supported. In fact, when you purchase a Dell node you will have to choose between either ESXi or Hyper-V. Your node will then be pre-configured/installed with your hypervisor of choice (including evaluation licenses) before it arrives at your doorstep.
The Dell nodes are based on the well-known Dell PowerEdge 720 series and as such they are 2U of size, which is indeed larger when compared to a single Nutanix node (four Nutanix nodes make up one full 2U appliance). Since nothing changed with regards to the Nutanix software you will still need at least three nodes to form a cluster and make use of all those really interesting and impressive features Nutanix is well know for. Here’s an overview on the models currently set to be released:
This is their first line of hyper-converged appliances, but I’m sure more will follow as time passes. Currently I’m not aware of any list prizes, but if you are interested I suggest that you contact Dell directly by going here. As with the Nutanix nodes, once received you’ll be up and running somewhere between 30 to 60 minutes max, cluster configuration and HA included, VMware as well as Citrix certified, all good to go!
To round things up, here’s a nice video to get you started, or download the PDF fact sheet here, and if you would like to read the offcial Nutanix press release go here
