Definition: OEM Agreement

Buying Software-Defined Storage: Dell

Through acquisition and internal development, Dell has assembled an impressive array of storage technology over the past decade. Its SDS strategy hews closely to its core hardware competency. As such, it is partnering with SDS specialists and emphasizing the delivery of a strong hardware platform that integrates well with the overlying SDS virtualization layer.

Dell’s focus is on validating and hardening multiple SDS stacks on Dell hardware as the company has found that most new hardware doesn’t work automatically with SDS software. Problems can range from the software not recognizing the new hardware to intermittent disk failures. It can also lead to poor visibility into hardware issues.

“We have been working closely with our SDS partners to harden the software stack to run on Dell servers,” said Chandra Mukhyala, SDS Solutions Manager, Dell Storage. “In the process, we came up with Hardware Compatibility Lists (HCLs) and optimized reference architectures for various workloads.”

Dell’s Blue Thunder initiative involves partnerships with other vendors to bring together a software-defined storage portfolio. This includes integrating its hardware with open-source software as well as hypervisor and SDS vendors. This includes cooperation with VMware, Microsoft, Nutanix, Nexenta, and Red Hat. The Dell XC Series appliances, for example, are based on Dell PowerEdge servers combined with Nutanix software and Dell global services and support.

“The XC series offers customers a hyper-converged solution that integrates storage, hypervisor, and compute into a single platform and, as a result, increases overall savings and decrease time-to-value,” said Mukhyala. “After announcing our OEM agreement with Nutanix last year and delivering our first appliances in November, we already began shipping the Dell XC Series Version 2.0 appliances this February with additional models and form factors.”