Dell Simplifies Data Center Management

Dell Simplifies Data Center Infrastructure Management

New Dell OpenManage 5.3, Certified Partner Program Give Customers More Control, Choice in Enterprise Management

SAN FRANCISCO – Nov. 13, 2007 – Dell™ OpenManage™ 5.3, the company’s enhanced systems management solution providing customers with easier yet more extensive control of data centers and virtual environments, was announced here today at Oracle OpenWorld. Dell OpenManage 5.3 will be available worldwide next week. For more information visit www.dell.com/openmanage.

Dell OpenManage 5.3 provides customers more IT management functionality with less complexity. The enhanced systems management solution reduces the number of tools necessary for Dell server deployments and updates from three to one, via Dell Systems Build and Update Utility 1.0, giving customers fewer tools to manage while providing a more holistic view and greater understanding of their IT infrastructures.

OpenManage 5.3 also addresses the power and thermal challenges of data centers. Standards-based power monitoring and alert capabilities, using OpenManage Server Administrator and IT Assistant tools, provide a variety of power usage information and enable IT managers to make timely, more informed decisions regarding server utilization and reduce overall energy consumption and costs. Unlike some competitors, Dell does not charge for basic IT necessities such as power and virtual-machine monitoring, and instead bundles these important features into its core OpenManage solution.

“Dell OpenManage 5.3 was designed to help customers run IT better by being able to do more with less,” said Rick Becker, vice president solutions, Dell Product Group. “With standard IT management functionality provided free of charge, along with more efficient processes, reduced maintenance costs and deployment time, and significantly less complexity, we enable customers to spend less time just ‘keeping the lights on’ and maintaining systems so they can commit more time and resources on the innovation front.”

New Dell OpenManage features also enable:

- The industry’s first in-line hard drive firmware update capability, significantly reducing the amount of time it takes to update without having to take a drive off line;
- Management tool reduction by two thirds with a common UI and CLI across Dell Systems Build and Update Utility, bare metal deploy, OS deploy, and platform update servers;
- New functionality to reduce both deployment and update time and costs, such as a script generator and custom update policies; and
- More control over the level of updates and improved performance through the ability to build and update the repository inside the firewall to mirror Dell Online, without each server going though the corporate firewall every time a platform needs to be updated.

Simplified IT Management Through Dell’s OpenManage Certified Partner Program

Delivering on its promise to simplify IT, Dell continues to expand its OpenManage Certified Partner Program, which helps customers reduce the complexity and costs associated with managing heterogeneous IT environments. In the past year, Dell has completed product certification with six systems management solution providers in its OpenManage Certified Partner Program: Altiris, BMC Software, Dorado Software, LANDesk, Microsoft and Novell.

Through its OpenManage Certified Partner Program, Dell provides partners with developer toolkits for embedding OpenManage components into their systems management applications. Dell then certifies this functionality, assuring customers that a partner’s implementation meets Dell standards. This provides customers with a trustworthy, simplified, and more holistic view of their IT infrastructure by allowing them to manage more from fewer consoles. With seamless integration into the most commonly used systems management consoles, Dell’s OpenManage Certified Partner Program also enables customers to reduce complexity and costs by utilizing the systems management tools they already own.

“We’re giving our customers something our competitors don’t – the flexibility to use the management tools that best fit the needs of their unique IT environments without sacrificing any control,” said Ed Reynolds, director of systems management solutions, Dell Product Group. “Our OpenManage Certified Partner Program enables customers to deploy, monitor and manage their Dell infrastructure from a systems management console of their choice, leveraging the tools they want to use.”

About Dell.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services they trust and value. Uniquely enabled by its direct business model, Dell is a leading global systems and services company and No. 34 on the Fortune 500. For more information, visit www.dell.com, or to communicate directly with Dell via a variety of online channels, go to www.dell.com/conversations. To get Dell news direct, visit www.dell.com/RSS.

# # #

© Scoop Media