Dell Networking has introduced new capabilities for campus and data center environments, including the launch of new cloud-managed wired and wireless solutions powered by Dell and Aerohive, Operating System 10 milestones and in-rack platforms for the data center.
“Major trends such as cloud and software-defined create a dynamically changing IT landscape, both on campus and in the data center,” said Mak Chin Wah, general manager for Enterprise Solutions, South Asia, Dell. “These new Dell Networking solutions help our customers navigate these changes with future-ready architectures, open technology and hyper-scale inspired efficiency.”
Cloud-managed wired/wireless campus solution powered
Building on its One Network campus vision, Dell Networking has collaborated with Aerohive to deliver a new cloud-managed solution that integrates and manages wired and wireless infrastructure.
The co-branded solution incorporates Dell N-Series switches and Aerohive access points into Aerohive’s HiveManager NG– a next-generation cloud-based management solution. This solution greatly simplifies end-user access, setting a new standard for wired and wireless network convergence by bringing enterprise-class management to the public or private cloud.
With a customizable user-focused interface, HiveManager NG allows for high-level or in-depth views of all facets of Dell and Aerohive networking devices including applications, users, policy management and switch port status.
Further simplifying wired and wireless converged network management, Dell has expanded its ProSupport to provide users with a single point of contact for unified network support. Through SupportAssist technology, ProSupport offers proactive and predictive automated support for issue prevention and resolution.
New community and capabilities
Dell is driving ahead with its Operating System 10 (OS10) development with community building and integration projects including Open Compute Project’s (OCP) Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC) and partners Ansible, F5 and Silverpeak.
Dell, in conjunction with Microsoft Azure and other industry leaders, made foundational contributions to the newly-announced SONiC effort. The goal is to open source all the components needed to build fully-functional networking software. SONiC is a collection of software packages/modules that can be installed on Linux on a network hardware switch which makes it a complete, functional router. Dell says it has successfully integrated its OS10 base software to serve as a foundational element for SONiC.
From app deployment to multi-tiered orchestration, Ansible Tower by Red Hat powers enterprise automation by adding control, security and delegation capabilities.
F5 with OS10 delivers load balancing over active-active clusters across network services for scale out deployments. Meanwhile, Silver Peak provides leading, optimized SD-WAN interconnects between the data center and branch offices across public and private clouds.
New in-rack platforms for the data center
Dell also announced new in-rack platforms optimized to accelerate 10G deployments to harness the latest silicon-based features. Industry analysts forecast a significant migration to 10G in the next four years as enterprise customers begin to retire 1G speeds in the data center.
Built for different needs, the S4048T-ON and S6010-ON are designed to meet enterprise, mid-size and high-performance computing requirements. They are also ONIE-compliant to provide cloud and Web 2.0 customers an Open Networking environment with fully-tested and validated third-party operating systems.
The platforms also offer advanced features for VXLAN, larger tables and expanded buffering compared to other Dell models.
Specifically, the S4048T is purpose-built 10G Base-T switch for copper-based server and storage connectivity to offer customers investment protection. The switch supports numerous, high-capacity port configurations in a compact, 1RU form factor.
On the other had, the Dell Networking S6010-ON is designed for demanding data center environments to provide optimum density and price point. The Dell S6010-ON delivers line-rate performance with a non-blocking switching fabric, improved packet buffering and reduced oversubscription.