Dell’s expanded OEM relationship with Brocade that positions Dell to compete
against Cisco’s
Unified Computing initiative will enable Dell’s channel partner
resellers to sell the solutions to their end customers.
A Dell spokeswoman confirmed the channel partner play that follows the OEM
deals with Brocade, Scalent and VMware, announced at the VMworld event in San
Francisco.
The expanded Brocade relationship calls for the development of “a dynamic
infrastructure and optimization solution enabled by virtualization to allow
customers to deploy and manage an efficient data center.”
Further, the Dell/Brocade expanded relationship calls for integrated tool sets
to manage application delivery and deployment as business services on compute,
network and storage infrastructure, according to a statement from Dell. The
companies expect the solutions to provide capital and operational expense
savings through broader server and storage deployment.
Dell is the most recent technology vendor to strike such a deal with
Brocade, following IBM, Hewlett-Packard and
NetApp, all looking to fortify their competitive position against Cisco’s
Unified Computing initiative. Other
vendors likely to strike OEM deals with Brocade include EMC and Hitachi.
Dell also says it is simplifying the deployment and management of virtual
environments by delivering an OEM version of Scalent’s V/OE, an open
infrastructure management system.
And Dell says it is expanding its client/server computing and virtualization
technologies that it calls Dell’s Flexible Computing Strategy through a deeper
relationship with VMware. Dell will incorporate VMware VIEW into its Virtual
Remote Desktop solution, which Dell says will enable IT managers to run virtual
desktops in the data center while giving end users a view of all their
applications and data in their familiar environment on any device at any
location.