Dell and VMware, Inc. today announced the companies are extending a longstanding relationship to deliver solutions that will accelerate adoption of network virtualization and open networking in the software-defined data center. The expanded relationship includes a range of new networking solutions for midmarket, large enterprise and service provider customers, backed by a joint go-to-market initiative, a validated reference architecture and a global reseller agreement.

Dell and VMware are working with Cumulus Networks to deliver the VMware NSX network virtualization platform with Cumulus Linux on Dell Networking switches. Additionally, Dell is delivering a fully-tested and validated converged infrastructure solution for midmarket customers that includes VMware NSX.

VMware NSX is on the Dell price list today, and is currently available directly from Dell and Dell channel partners for purchase and deployment. Dell and VMware have partnered to train the Dell field, with thousands of representatives already completing initial VMware NSX training. Dell and VMware have also completed a validated reference architecture for the combined Dell and VMware networking solution.

Advancing the Era of Open Networking

Dell, VMware and Cumulus Networks are delivering a pre-configured solution, available from Dell, that combines VMware NSX with Cumulus Linux on Dell Networking switches. This combined solution will help enterprises and service providers achieve holistic management and provisioning of the complete data center networking environment, physical and virtual, and accelerate deployment of new applications while simplifying IT operations. The companies expect customers to achieve the following benefits:

• Transition rigid, proprietary networking solutions to flexible, open, simple and agile networking with compelling economics;
• Speed network and service provisioning time to accelerate application deployment time;
• Leverage network virtualization, isolation and segmentation to Implement application and client multi-tenancy;
• Connect physical workloads with virtual networks;
• Improve performance and quality-of-service by automatically detecting and isolating application-specific flows (known in networking as elephant and mice flows);
• Deliver micro-segmentation to embed security into data center constructs.

Converged Solutions for Midmarket Businesses

Companies with limited IT staff and budget are looking for simple, integrated and validated architectures. Dell and VMware have teamed to provide a converged infrastructure solution to meet these requirements.

The solution features the VMware NSX network virtualization platform running on top of reliable Dell servers, networking, and storage infrastructure. Dell’s converged infrastructure includes the Dell PowerEdge M1000e server blade chassis, the Dell Networking 10/40GbE MXL blade switch, S4810 Top of Rack switch and S6000 fabric switches, as well as Dell Storage iSCSI arrays. The solution is tested, validated and supported by Dell, providing customers a single trusted partner that can streamline procurement and services. To simplify deployment, Dell and VMware deliver a validated reference architecture.

Availability

Both the VMware NSX running on Cumulus Linux solution and the converged infrastructure solution with VMware NSX are available for order beginning today.