PowerEdge & VMware: Better Together at VMworld 2019

This year, there are tons of new and exciting things to look forward to at VMworld US – and not just the new location. While we’re all excited to take a selfie with the Golden Gate bridge and see the home from Full House (oh that’s just me?) the real excitement of the week lies in the latest technology and innovation, networking, and learning that will permeate the Moscone Center in San Francisco August 25-29th.

Dell EMC and VMware have partnered for over 17 years, and today we’re doing more exciting work together than ever before. VMworld is always a highlight for us, because we get to see so many of our customers and partners face-to-face. We love to interact directly, hear feedback, answer questions, showcase our joint solutions and preview the new products and solutions that are coming soon.

As industry leaders in servers[1], virtualization[2], and HCI software[3], Dell EMC and VMware continuously work together to develop new joint solutions that enable our customers to efficiently reach their business objectives. There is always something new and exciting to highlight, and VMworld 2019 is no exception.

From a PowerEdge perspective, we have plenty of cool things up our sleeve that we’re excited to share with you. I don’t want to spoil the fun, but here’s a preview of what’s happening with PowerEdge at VMworld:

Breakout Sessions

PowerEdge will be represented in the following breakout sessions:

Power Composable Hybrid Cloud with VMware Cloud Foundation on PowerEdge MX

Speakers: Shanthala Gorur Ashwath, Senior Product Manager – Cloud Foundation VMware and Roger Foreman, Sr. Product Manager, Dell EMC

Monday, August 26, 02:30 PM – 03:30 PM

In this talk, we will detail how VMware Cloud Foundation made it possible to take advantage of the PowerEdge MX composable platform to provide on-demand allocations of physical resources for workload domains. Composable infrastructure is an exciting new area where customers have the flexibility to create their own purpose-built infrastructure on the fly, leading to greater fluidity in resource allocation and usage. In this session, you will learn how to reduce CapEx and OpEx through quicker deployments and application provisioning through automation, and how to utilize the flexibility and agility provided by the PowerEdge MX platform’s kinetic infrastructure to run virtualized workloads in a hybrid cloud environment. We will also go on a technical deep dive of this joint solution between VMware Cloud Foundation and the Dell MX platform.

Take IT to the track!! Self-Driving Datacenter, seatbelts required!

Speakers: Aaron Chaisson, Vice President Portfolio Messaging, Dell Technologies & Brian Lewis, Director VMware Portfolio Messaging, Dell Technologies

Tuesday, Aug. 27, 11:00 AM –12:00 PM

With a demo intensive experience, come see an insider’s look at the product innovations from Dell Technologies expansive portfolio of hardware, software and solutions that make the self-driving, software defined datacenter a reality. See our latest innovations and learn how we dramatically simplify and power more VMware deployments than anyone else through deeply integrated servers, storage, networking, data protection, converged and hyper-converged systems and vertically integrated cloud platforms built to deliver you the automated IT experience you desire, from the edge to the cloud, and anywhere in between.

Dell Technologies Booth # 1027

If you’re here in San Francisco, come see us in the Dell Technologies booth! We’ll have experts ready to talk and answer questions, in-booth theater presentations and a PowerEdge MX on display. Yes, we know this is a software show, but we like to throw in a subtle reminder that all this cool software runs on hardware. Plus, everyone seems to love the chance to see and touch a real live server – and the PowerEdge MX740C doesn’t disappoint.

We’ll also have demos of the latest cloud solutions on PowerEdge infrastructure and management system advances with OpenManage. This is fantastic opportunity to learn more about our joint PowerEdge and VMware solutions and align on your workload strategy. Highlights include:

VMware Cloud Foundation for PowerEdge MX – Wondering how to make hybrid cloud work for you? Leverage the industry’s most advanced hybrid cloud platform, VMware® Cloud Foundation™, to drive a consistent, simple experience with a single operating environment across multiple clouds. Based on VMware technologies including vSphere (compute), vSAN (storage), NSX (networking and security), and vRealize® Suite (cloud management), Cloud Foundation delivers enterprise-ready services for both traditional and containerized apps – in private or hybrid cloud environments.

PowerEdge and VMware vSphere – We’re introducing an easy button for PowerEdge and vSphere! Soon the entire PowerEdge server portfolio will be available with vSphere Standard preinstalled and the license pre-activated straight from the factory. This new offer is unique to Dell EMC and saves customers up to 40 minutes per server for deployment and up to 67% fewer steps for activation and installation of vSphere[4].

OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter (OMIVV) – OMIVV allows you to configure, deploy, update and monitor Dell PowerEdge servers — all within your vCenter console. Swing by the booth to see a demo and find out what new features will be available in OMIVV v5.

vSAN Ready Nodes – Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes built on Dell EMC PowerEdge servers have been pre-configured, tested, and certified to run VMware vSAN. Each Ready Node includes just the right amount of CPU, memory, network I/O controllers, HDDs, and SSDs that are best suited for vSAN. We’ll have demos and presentations and experts on hand to answer questions.

Booth Presentations

There will also be several presentations at the booth to highlight PowerEdge & VMware joint solutions:

              Monday @ 5:30 pm – Managing VMware VCenter Environments with OpenManage

              Tuesday @ 11:30 am – vSAN Ready Nodes

              Wednesday @ 3:45 – Dynamic Storage Provisioning with VMware VCF and PowerEdge MX

Exclusive Technology Preview

PowerEdge & AMD will host a Technology Exclusive Preview event at 6:30 pm Tuesday evening. This event requires an invitation, VMworld event badge and signed NDA to attend. If you have a signed NDA and would like to join, please stop by our booth #1027 for more details and an invitation. You won’t be disappointed.

Customer Appreciation Celebration

We love our customers and the chance to celebrate with them! We’re hosting a customer appreciation event following the Exclusive Technology Preview at Waterbar Tuesday evening from 8-10 pm. Stop by our booth #1027 for an invitation and join us for good food, drinks and conversation (VMware badge and invitation are required for this event, but NDA is not).

PowerEdge and VMware work together to help you simplify your IT and prepare you to meet changing workload demands – both for today and the future. With over 1800 VMware-certified Dell EMC support professionals, one call can handle almost all your support issues.

To learn more about PowerEdge and VMware Solutions, visit our new solutions page.

Hope everyone has a great and productive week at VMworld! Rest up, and we’ll see you again at VMworld Europe in November!

To learn more about PowerEdge, visit dellemc.com/servers, or join the conversation on Twitter @DellEMCservers.

[1] IDC WW Quarterly x86 Server Tracker, 2018Q4, Mar. 6, 2019 – Units & Vendor Revenue

[2] Network World, Feb. 20, 2019

[3] IDC WW Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, 2018, Q4, April 4, 2019 – Vendor Revenue

[4] Only applicable to new customers and based on internal VMware comparison of the typical vSphere installation and activation process as compared to the situation when vSphere is preinstalled and pre-activated at the factory. Typical installation and activation requires 9 steps, while the preinstalled and pre-activated process requires 3 steps.

About the Author: Emily O'Shaughnessy

Emily is a Technical Marketing Manager for Dell PowerEdge and VMware, where she works to highlight the many unique benefits of running VMware software on PowerEdge servers. Prior to her current role, Emily was a content storyteller for Dell EMC and used her extensive marketing background to bring the PowerEdge brand to life. Before joining Dell, Emily worked in digital marketing where she handled inbound marketing, strategy, content creation, social media and marketing automation for a wide range of clients. She has written for a variety of industries including finance, business, higher education, tech and healthcare. She received her MBA at Tulane University in New Orleans where she also enjoyed her fair share of po’ boys and crawfish. Emily lives in Georgetown, TX, and loves spending time outdoors with her husband, three daughters, and two sweet but mischievous spaniels.