Dell promotes benefits of virtualization with regional roadshow

The roadshow, which was first held in Dubai, was also in Abu Dhabi on 25th June and then will feature events for the rest of the region in early September, will focus on the efficiencies that virtualization software and virtualization optimized hardware can bring to companies in areas like server consolidation, speed to deploy and ease of management.

According to John Coulston from Dell 'Our customers regularly see 10 to 1 consolidation rates from deploying virtualisation. Combining the hardware, software and service in one package allows our customers to very quickly deploy hardware to prepare for virtualising their infrastructure. With our EqualLogic storage products you can build a SAN from scratch in less than an hour.' Dell also believe they can provide 'one throat to choke' for customers, by bringing best of breed partners, such as Vmware and Intel, together under the Dell umbrella.

Dell customer and home improvement company, Black & Decker, have recently saved over $800,000 in implementing a Dell Virtualisation solution. Tom Mendelboim, manager of network technologies, Black & Decker Hardware and Home Improvement division, consolidated 100 applications by virtualizing four pre-existing servers, eliminating 96 physical servers in the process. "Server consolidation will save us approximately US$800,000 in costs over a
three-year period. The floor space occupied by servers was reduced by almost 70%," says Mendelboim.

Server virtualization also helps reduce the time the IT team spends setting up new servers. Before virtualization, IT administrators could spend up to a full day provisioning a new server, but now they can create a new virtual server so quickly that employees can begin working with a new application in less than 20 minutes. As a result, employees are more productive, and the IT staff has reclaimed time that they can use to make other improvements to the division's IT infrastructure.

Dell in fact have 100 PowerEdge servers running their test and development environment for 1,000 virtual machines.