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Dell EMC upgrades VxRail appliances for AI, SAP HANA
As hyperconverged infrastructure use cases expand, Dell EMC adds analytics, flash and network management to VxRail platform built on PowerEdge servers.
Dell EMC today added predictive analytics and network management to its VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure family while expanding NVMe support for SAP HANA and AI workloads.
Dell EMC VxRail appliances combine Dell PowerEdge servers and Dell-owned VMware's vSAN hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) software. The launch of Dell's flagship HCI platform includes two new all-NVMe appliance configurations, plus VxRail Analytic Consulting Engine (ACE) and support for SmartFabric Services (SFS) across multi-rack configurations.
The new Dell EMC VxRail appliance models are the P580N and the E560N. The P580N is a four-socket system designed for SAP HANA in-memory database workloads. It is the first appliance in the VxRail P Series performance line to support NVMe. The 1u E560N is aimed at high performance computing and compute-heavy workloads such as AI and machine learning, along with virtual desktop infrastructure.
The new 1U E Series systems support Nvidia T4 GPUs for extra processing power. The E Series also supports 8 TB solid-state drives, doubling the total capacity of previous models. The VxRail storage-heavy S570 nodes also now support the 8 TB SSDs.
ACE is generally available following a six-month early access program. ACE, developed on Dell's Pivotal Cloud Foundry platform, performs monitoring and performance analytics across VxRail clusters. ACE provides alerts for possible system problems, capacity analysis and can help orchestrate upgrades.
The addition of ACE to VxRail comes a week after Dell EMC rival Hewlett Packard Enterprise made its InfoSight predictive analytics available on its SimpliVity HCI platform.
Wikibon senior analyst Stuart Miniman said the analytics, SFS and new VxRail appliances make it easier to manage HCI while expanding its use cases.
"Hyperconverged infrastructure is supposed to be simple," he said. "When you add in AI and automated operations, that will make it simpler. We've been talking about intelligence and automation of storage our whole careers, but there has been a Cambrian explosion in that over the last year. Now they're building analytics and automation into this platform."
Bringing network management into HCI
Part of that simplicity includes making it easier to manage networking in HCI. Expanded capabilities for SFS on VxRail include the ability for HCI admins to manage networking switches across VxRail clusters without requiring dedicated networking expertise. SFS now applies across multi-rack VxRail clusters, automating switch configuration for up to six racks in one site. SFS supports from six switches in a two-rack configuration to 14 switches in a six-rack deployment.
Support for Mellanox 100 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe cards help accelerate streaming media and live broadcast functions.
"We believe that automation across the data center is key to fostering operational freedom," Gil Shneorson, Dell EMC vice president and general manager for VxRail, wrote in a blog with details of today's upgrades. "As customers expand VxRail clusters across multiple racks, their networking needs expand as well."
Dell EMC VxRail vs. Nutanix: All about the hypervisor?
IDC lists Dell as the leader in the hyperconverged appliance market, which IDC said hit $1.8 billion in the second quarter of 2019. Dell had 29.2% of the market, well ahead of second-place Nutanix with 14.2%. Cisco was a distant third with 6.2.%
According to Miniman, the difference between Dell EMC and Nutanix often comes down to the hypervisor deployed by the user. VxRail closely supports market leader VMware, but VxRail appliances do not support other hypervisors. Nutanix supports VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V and the Nutanix AHV hypervisors. The Nutanix software stack competes with vSAN.
"Dell and Nutanix are close on feature parity," Miniman said. "If you're using VMware, then VxRail is the leading choice because it's 100% VMware. VxRail is in lockstep with VMware, while Nutanix is obviously not in lockstep with VMware."
