Dell’s transformation into an end-to-end solution provider is gaining momentum with the recent recognition of three of our enterprise hardware and software products.
SearchDataCenter.com released its list of finalists and top picks for the annual Products of the Year competition, including three Dell products: vStart, Dell Advanced Infrastructure Manager (AIM) and Energy Smart Containment Rack.
Our products/solutions are represented in each of their judging categories — Computing Hardware, Systems Management and Infrastructure. While Dell has been included in hardware categories in previous years, this is a first to be included in a software category.
vStart is a pre-built virtualization solution competing in Computing Hardware. The solution comes pre-racked, pre-cabled and ready to deploy. Still in its first year of existence, Dell vStart is beginning to be recognized for its design, quality and the value that it brings to our customers.
“IDEAS believes that one of Dell’s new products, vStart, is good evidence that Dell is maturing as an enterprise solution provider,” wrote Daniel Bowers in his blog, “Dell moves up the IT value chain with vStart.”
Being recognized in the Systems Management category, Dell Advanced Infrastructure Manger (AIM) gives Dell grounding in the software arena. Dell AIM provides rapid workload mobility and recovery management across physical and virtual machines in a mixed hypervisor and hardware vendor data center. It differentiates itself by being able to integrate with other software management solutions or consoles, including, Microsoft, BMC and VMware. Dell AIM further expanded its capabilities with the recent 3.4.2 release, expanding localization and partnerships.
Dell AIM is part of the Virtual Integrated System (VIS) portfolio, which is Dell’s Private Enterprise Cloud.
The Energy Smart Containment Rack continues Dell’s excellence in hardware by being a finalist in Infrastructure. “This product is usable with any air plenum raised floor, but is specifically compatible with the Tate ‘RackAire’ product. Dell claims the cabinet can achieve cooling levels of 30 kW,” writes SearchDataCenter.com. By integrating cold-side containment, the rack enclosure supports high density deployments while also making it easier to cool IT equipment more efficiently. It also simplifies the implementation of containment in a data center, which is quickly becoming a best practice.
The judges looked at innovation, performance, ease of integration into environment, ease of use and manageability, functionality, value and user feedback in considering the finalists out of 75 submissions. The winners will be announced on Jan. 17, 2012.