Dell EMC VxRail Application Modernization
Transcript
(upbeat music) >> Hey, how's it going? It's Keith Townsend, Principal of The CTO Advisor, with another principal engineer on the other line. In this Intel sponsored video, I have Jason Marques, Principal Engineer with Dell Technologies. He's on the VxRail team. And we've been talking VxRail in this series of videos, but we're going to focus on modern application development, specifically the platform, the software platform that runs on top of VxRail to modernize your applications. Jason, welcome to the program. >> Thanks for having me, Keith, happy to be here.
>> So talk to me. We're coming off of VMworld 2020, virtual event, Dell Technology World was the week of the recording of this video. Obviously during this modern application hybrid infrastructure time, we're all focused on the ability to create cloud-like capabilities inside the data center. We've already talked to several Dell, Intel spokespersons and talked to them about the underlying value of VxRail for automating the underlying hardware infrastructure. Talk to me a little bit about this software layer that you guys are enabling.
>> Yeah, sure. So I think it's important to understand that VxRail as an HCI infrastructure platform is co-engineered with VMware, which I'm sure you're already familiar. And it is an integrated HCI system, so as a part of that, we deliver vSphere and vSAN built into every VxRail that gets shipped to our customers. So it's got vSphere and vSAN built-in. What we then are able to do as a result of that is take advantage of the great VMware innovation that they're already doing in the vSAN and VMware world, and as it relates to anything cloud native and modern application development, we've been able to take full advantage of a lot of the innovations VMware has made in the Kubernetes space.
Specifically as it relates to things like VCF with Tanzu and the latest announcement with the vSphere 7 Update 1 release, vSphere with Tanzu. And so what you get as a customer that deploys VxRail is you have those capabilities, those vSphere and Cloud Foundation capabilities, essentially fully integrated and ready to use and turn on if you choose to when deploying VxRail integrated infrastructure into your environment. >> So the industry is pretty familiar with my reputation with Kubernetes and we're taking what's pretty much a already complicated software stack in Kubernetes and putting it on top of cloud hardware infrastructure that isn't always the easiest to manage.
How is VxRail and... VCF and Tanzu making delivering this application platform easier for my operations team? >> Yeah, that's a great question. And certainly it stems from really the foundational benefit that customers get with VxRail as an HCI integrated system to begin with. Because every VxRail not just comes with the vSphere and vSAN layers for that storage and compute virtualization, but it also comes embedded with what we call VxRail HCI systems software. And that's really kind of the management and control plane software capabilities that allows us to automate and simplify operations of the full stack HCI infrastructure that I'm deploying.
So think about automating vSphere cluster deployments or automating the expansion of your vSphere cluster so that I can add additional resources needed for the workloads on top, right? When I look at deploying Kubernetes on top of any type of cloud infrastructure, it's really running on pools of compute, of storage, of networking, and ultimately you want to help simplify how customers can easily expand those resource pools as those developers who are kind of working through creating those cloud native applications and deploying those cloud native applications, we want to be able to ease that infrastructure management experience and make it faster to get those resources to your developers when they need it.
And it's all through some of that built-in automation that we do deliver through the HCI system software, but then you kind of pair that with the coolness that you get with VMware Cloud Foundation which kind of takes a similar approach to the remaining stack of software defined networking and cloud management functionality, and marries that together with the infrastructure underneath. Now, yep, good. >> So talk to me about a practical advantage because as I'm thinking through, you know, Kubernetes. and I get the VMware Cloud Foundation, Tanzu overall capability, vSAN can be a provider, CSI provider to Tanzu, so I don't have to really worry about the permanent storage perspective 'cause that's provided by vSAN.
But when I think of practical problems, I need to expand the physical underlay, like, I can't YAML away needing to increase capacity of my overall Kubernetes cluster. Someone has to physically upgrade that at that capacity from a software control plane into my Kubernetes cluster. How does VxRail make that easier or simpler? >> Yeah, that goes right to my point about the VxRail HCI systems software. And in particular, there's a component as a part of that software suite that we call VxRail Manager, that essentially is our automation and orchestration software for easily deploying the full HCI infrastructure stack.
So as I physically cable new nodes to a cluster, I can automate the expansion and all the steps necessary to add those physical resources as virtualized compute and storage resources as a part of that vSphere cluster, to make available for any type of workload that you plan to run on top. So it makes it completely seamless to any of the workloads that need that excess compute and storage set of resources. And as an administrator, we not only provide you that automation and orchestration but we deliver a way in which you can leverage it natively through your vCenter management experience with a native vCenter plug-in that controls all of it.
>> I guess my challenge is, because I've spent a lot of time in enterprise IT, and when I hear the software story, it's rare that the software story at this level is connected with the hardware story. You know, I'm thinking firmware upgrades, remediation of the control plane, the software level control plane, so vSphere, et cetera. So what I'm hearing is that the HCI manager coupled with VCF and all of the integration, that the two teams have basically automated or integrated the management of that entire stack.
And while you've said that, I just personally have a hard time wrapping my head around that that's actually real. >> It's real, it's deployed. We have many joint VMware and Dell EMC customers that have this exact, what we call Dell technologies Cloud Platform, which is essentially Cloud Foundation on VxRail, leveraging these capabilities in their data centers today. So it's very much real. >> So one of the other push backs that I get when I talk to competitors of VMware, not necessarily competitors of Dell, but definitely competitors of VMware, is that VMware customers are not always up to date on the latest stacks.
0. 0 with Kubernetes or VCF with Kubernetes. 7, because I don't need the advanced Kubernetes features, et cetera. How does Dell work with those customers? >> So certainly you have a number of choices depending upon your use case as a customer. And we have different solutions that align to those different needs. Certainly for those customers that are really looking to adopt a cloud operating model, Cloud Foundation on VxRail enables a way to have a common management and operating experience for different pods of clustered resources of the infrastructure.
We kind of look at that from the Cloud Foundation world and within the architecture of it as a workload domain. And each one of those workload domains is kind of independent in terms of being able to turn on certain functionality or even license certain VMware features of like vSAN or NSX as an example, that is independent from others. You not only have that ability, but you have the ability to lifecycle manage each of these workload domains independently of the other. 0 Update 1 features in that, you can run both simultaneously and have a common management of life cycling those or provisioning resources for those exactly the same.
And we've been able to integrate that VxRail underlay HCI infrastructure through some great co-engineering work with the VMware Cloud Foundation team to make now, at least in the cloud use case, your cloud management layer of SDDC Manager, be your new kind of day to operations console that automates the full stack for you through some of the backend API integration that we've done with SDDC Manager and VxRail Manager, to provide that full stack life cycle management experience, that includes underlying hardware firmware too. >> Wow, I did not expect that capability.
I was thinking, you know, just seriously a whole different management domain not just separation of... workload environments but actual, a whole nother pane of glass, so to speak. So it's great to see that Dell has added that. Did I miss anything? Is there anything that you want to in closing share with my audience? >> Yeah, I think certainly, one of the key topics of this conversation is how it all relates back to modern applications, right? And how it relates back to Kubernetes use cases and in particular with VMware Tanzu and their portfolio.
And it's important to understand that for Dell Technologies, we want to be able to provide our customers with a choice of infrastructure solution that meets them where they are in their cloud native application adoption journey. And so we are kind of the only vendor, or VxRail for the most part is the only infrastructure that actually provides a customer with three different types of solution offerings. One that is the ability to deploy and adopt Kubernetes through what we call a Tanzu architecture for VxRail, which is essentially like this purpose built architecture, where we've validated running TKGI or Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated on top of VxRail infrastructure.
The other is in relation to kind of more of this vSphere with Tanzu type of use case. And we kind of have Cloud Foundation on VxRail which enables customers to utilize VCF with Tanzu in more of that cloud deployment platform operating model. And then really for customers that aren't quite ready for that full cloud deployment, they're still really looking at virtualized infrastructure as a predominant way that they want to deploy their infrastructure for cloud native applications, we can now have native vSphere with Tanzu support on top of VxRail with vSphere 7 Update 1.
And their ability to have a vSphere with Tanzu embedded without the cloud VCF requirement as a result. So we really have the ability to handle reference architecture deployment options, cluster based deployment options and cloud deployment options for your Tanzu needs all on a standardized best of breed kind of VxRail HCI infrastructure underneath. >> Jason, I am pleasantly surprised about the maturity of the platform, the integration between VMware, VCF, vSphere, and by extension Kubernetes. And more importantly, you guys being able to meet customers where they're at in their journey.
com. Go to the About page and contact us and let me know what I missed. Or if this series have bought you some serious value, you can subscribe to our content via the web page and of course, on this platform. That's it for The CTO Advisor and this Intel sponsored series. If you have, again, any questions, reach out to me personally, Keith at The CTO advisor, talk to you next CTO Dose. (upbeat music)
