A couple of major-league IT players, Dell Technologies and Google Cloud, this week partnered to launch Dell Technologies Cloud OneFS for Google Cloud. This is a bold attempt to assist enterprises as they move to control exponential data and application growth and smooth the flow of logs, files, images and other content across their private clouds and Google Cloud.
We say “bold attempt” because getting all of a company’s business data into a corral, protecting it from leakage, cleaning and maintaining it, and making it available to all who need access to it can be a daunting venture. Frankly, most companies are never able to completely control and protect their data at maximum efficiency.
But Dell and Google think they’re up to the challenge. Dell said it has upgraded its functionality for hybrid cloud deployments with some new improvements to its cloud offering. Thanks to this new partnership, Dell said, users now can move workloads across public and private clouds with more flexibility while adopting a hybrid cloud approach that best fits their needs.
This is a very good thing because moving data stores from Point A to Point B, integrating it from one system to another and doing it safely and without losing anything has historically been one of the thorniest problems data and storage admins face. A smooth hybrid cloud storage system that works in reliable correlation with on-premises storage is virtual nirvana for IT administrators
Dell, Google Cloud Hybrid Cloud for File Storage
Dell’s OneFS for Google Cloud deploys Dell EMC Isilon storage with Google Cloud’s analytics and compute services through a native cloud experience that uses the same core software. Users now can move and access high-performance computing and demanding workloads as large as 50 petabytes within a single file system between on-premises Dell Technologies file storage systems and Google Cloud without having to make changes or adjustments to their applications.
According to a recent report from Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), even though file data often accounts for at least half of an organization’s on-premises data, very little of it is stored in public clouds; this is largely due to performance and scale limitations.
In the media and entertainment industry, for example, video files with 4K resolution demand terabytes of storage and require high throughput and low latency file storage, which makes it challenging for production companies to manage large file workloads in public clouds. With OneFS, Dell said, they can work across private and public clouds with consistent operations and have the flexibility to scale as needed.
Containers and VMs Can Work Side-by-Side
This partnership is all about options for Dell and Google customers, and there are a lot of those folks working the front lines every day.
Dell enables them to pull in all its corresponding cloud technologies as needed for these new-gen environments. Its own Cloud Platform, working with Google Cloud, provides a path to Kubernetes orchestration from a single environment, with support for containerized workloads alongside conventional virtual machines using Dell EMC’s VxRail servers. This approach also can integrate VMware Cloud Foundation 4 and VxRails into a single package, enabling control across all cloud locations. VMware administrators can use their familiar tools to manage modern apps that combine both containers and virtual machines from a single operating environment.
Dell Technologies Cloud Platform subscription model and deployment services are available through Dell Technologies On Demand. Admins now have more choices for using cloud infrastructure and can get workloads up and running in as little as two weeks. New node configuration options include as few as four nodes, with options to add as many as needed, Dell said.
Modernized Networking With SD-WAN
In another IT news item, Dell is extending its Technologies Cloud capabilities to networking with new updates to Dell EMC SD-WAN Solution powered by VMware. Users now have more appliance and bandwidth capability options for rapid deployment of SD-WAN in a single package, Dell said. This helps improve performance for demanding workloads, such as voice over IP, video streaming and VDI, and ensure application performance and business continuity.
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