- New Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter beat out a competitive management solution in blind usability tests both in terms of user satisfaction and preference1
- Customers including MGM Resorts International, Catalyst2 and Rules-Based Medicine (RBM) turn to Dell to streamline IT operations with systems management solutions
- Ongoing enhancements to Dell’s systems management portfolio makes it easy for customers to securely deploy, integrate and manage their IT assets
As customers look for new ways to use their existing IT investments, the management and maintenance of deployed technology becomes increasingly important. To help customers get the most from their investments, Dell has made significant improvements to its portfolio of systems management solutions adding new capabilities such as being able to easily manage physical and virtual IT resources from a single console . Customers such as MGM Resorts International, Rules-Based Medicine (RBM), and Catalyst2 are using Dell technologies to quickly and efficiently manage, automate and provision their heterogeneous IT environments.
“IT organizations are looking for virtualization management tools that can seamlessly integrate with existing data center management tools and processes in order to improve operational productivity and coordination,” says Mary Johnston Turner, Research Director, IDC. “Dell’s modular approach to providing physical and virtual management solutions enables customers to align their management investments with the specific needs of their organization.”
Dell Systems Management Solutions
Dell’s system management tools help eliminate many manual and redundant IT tasks while offering customers robust management capabilities through fewer consoles than before, which can result in significant time savings. New innovations to Dell’s systems management portfolio include:
- Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter: With the Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter customers can provision bare metal servers, deploy hypervisors, handle firmware and BIOS updates, and manage alerts directly from VMware’s vCenter console. Unlike HP’s competitive offering that provides primarily link and launch capabilities back to its own proprietary console, Dell’s offering integrates server management functionality directly into vCenter and enables customers to work from a single, familiar console. In fact, in a recent blind usability study, Dell’s solution was the clear winner in terms of satisfaction and preference over the comparable HP-plug-in. Participants in the study appreciated the greater level of detail in the Dell plug-in and expressed that the Dell user interface provided better navigation, organization, and layout of information.1
- Dell Lifecycle Controller and Embedded Systems Management: Dell has enhanced its embedded systems management capabilities making it fast for users to perform key operational tasks, including system deployment, system updates, workload migration, and hardware monitoring and remediation. Reducing time and steps not only streamlines operational tasks, but can also reduce potential for error and enhance system uptime.
- Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller: With Dell’s latest integrated Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) users get remote management and configuration options, which are designed to reduce or eliminate the need for administrators to visit the server — even when the server is not operational. iDRAC enables “anytime, anywhere” remote management, monitoring, troubleshooting, remediation and server upgrades, independent of the OS status.
Customer Quotes
“Now we can manage all of the physical hosts in our virtualized environment from a single, centralized console within VMware vCenter. The Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter gives us the capabilities we need while helping us simplify IT management,” said Matt Callaway, Director of IT, for Rules-Based Medicine.
“Using Lifecycle Controller, it takes us just five minutes to upgrade firmware on a server. The Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) is great because it lets us troubleshoot and upgrade software in our London data center from our office in Edinburgh. Tasks such as mounting a CD can be completed in two minutes as opposed to several hours if an employee had to be present onsite,” said Paul Redpath, Managing Director, Catalyst2.
“The Integrated Dell Remote Access Card (iDRAC) enables the staff to perform maintenance remotely, which saves significant time. Our data center is 10 miles away, so not having to do a truck roll when there’s a problem or have someone there babysitting the servers is fantastic,” Chris Gebelin, Executive Director of Enterprise Management MGM Resorts International.
