Dell Storage, PowerStore, PowerFlex PowerMax & PowerScale, Virtualization & Containers Technologies
Dell has a 23-year partnership with Red Hat that started shipping Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Dell hardware in 1999. Red Hat is one of Dell’s Top 5 partners participating […]
Dell has a 23-year partnership with Red Hat that started shipping Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Dell hardware in 1999.
Red Hat is one of Dell’s Top 5 partners participating in Dell’s Software Partner program.
Dell Technologies holds the highest level of partnership with Red Hat – Red Hat Premier Global Partner.
In September, 2022, we announced our plans to expand our strategic collaboration (Dell Technologies and Red Hat Expand Strategic Collaboration to Accelerate DevOps in Multicloud Environments | Dell Technologies)
Today we are announcing a major expansion of our long-standing partnership with Red Hat that simplifies the deployment and management of containerized infrastructure, helping accelerate application development and delivery in today’s multicloud environment. And just as we give customers flexibility when it comes to using the cloud stack of their choice, we are also giving customers flexibility and choice when it comes to deploying and managing this technology with 3 new options:
OpenShift is an open source container application platform by Red Hat, based on OCI formatted containers and enterprise-ready Kubernetes container cluster management.
200+ validated integrations, Certified container ecosystem 9-year enterprise life-cycle management
Red Hat is a leading Kubernetes contributor since day 1
Automated, full-stack installation from the container host to application services, Seamless Kubernetes deployment to any cloud or on-premises environment autoscaling of cloud resources. One-click updates for platform, services, and applications
Container solutions are growing rapidly year over year since Google launched Kubernetes 1.0 in July of 2015.
It was originally designed by Google, and is now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
Red Hat existed several years before the introduction of Kubernetes.
Even though OpenShift was announced in May 2011, it was proprietary technology and did not become open-source until May of 2012. Up until v3, the container technology and container orchestration technology used many custom developed technologies.
This changed in v3 with the adoption of Docker as the container technology, and Kubernetes as the container orchestration technology. The v4 product made many architectural changes – a prominent one being a shift to using CRI-O
as the container runtime (and Podman for interacting with pods and containers), and Buildah as the container build tool, thus breaking the exclusive dependency on Docker.
(Source: Red Hat)
Today we are announcing a major expansion of our long-standing partnership with Red Hat that simplifies the deployment and management of containerized infrastructure, helping accelerate application development and delivery in today’s multicloud environment. And just as we give customers flexibility when it comes to using the cloud stack of their choice, we are also giving customers flexibility and choice when it comes to deploying and managing this technology with 3 new options:
This automated solution will integrate Red Hat OpenShift and Dell software defined infrastructure, making it easier for our customers to build applications once and run them anywhere with a common operating model.
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift provides complete integration of the leading Kubernetes orchestration stack across any public or private cloud service and an on-premises environment. Where your apps and data reside, the APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift gives you the ability to extend those environment on premises for enhanced security, performance, efficiency, and control of an on-premises solution. Automated management and operations and integrated full stack lifecycle management capabilities frees your IT teams to focus on their applications rather than their infrastructure.
Leveraging our 23-year partnership, our engineering teams have worked closely to bring the best of what we do, container orchestration and automation-driven infrastructure, into a purpose-built solution that allows you to optimize how you’re using OpenShift, wherever you’re using OpenShift today, on-premises.
With broad configuration options, the APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift can address a range of workloads and use cases. These configuration options include nodes with embedded GPUs to handle multiple parallel processing of huge amounts of data. And embedded, linearly scalable software defined storage, it can handle the vast amounts of data required to train AI models. OpenShift, with its integrated DevOps capabilities (e.g. OpenShift Pipelines, OpenShift GitOps, and Red Hat Quay) enables better collaboration between data scientists and software developers, accelerates the roll out of intelligent applications across a multicloud footprint.
APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift:
Meets you where your apps and data reside and helps bridge the cloud divide with a bare metal platform purpose-built for OpenShift.
Helps you get the most value from your applications and data with a common SDS and advanced data services like encryption, snap-shots and duplication.
Gives you the control of an on-premises solution with multi-layer security and compliance capabilities built-in for sensitive workloads.
There are many advantages for tis common platform:
Eliminates virtualization layer
Automated with continuously validated state
Common and consistent storage to eliminate silos across OpenShift ecosystem
From a storage perspective, Dell PowerFlex is driving the workloads, it’s THE SDS out there and is perfectly suitable for running containers workloads, in fact, it’s already running a LOT of OpenShift based deployments out there and I’m talking about some of the largest I’ve seen. but if you are still on the fence as to the why:
Flexibility: PowerFlex is designed to adapt to changing workload demands. It allows you to pool and allocate resources dynamically, ensuring that storage can be efficiently utilized by containerized applications. PowerFlex supports various storage options, including solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs), allowing you to configure the storage infrastructure according to your specific needs.
Scalability: PowerFlex enables linear scalability, which means you can easily expand your storage infrastructure as your containerized environment grows. It leverages a distributed architecture that allows you to add new nodes seamlessly without disrupting ongoing operations. This scalability is particularly beneficial in Kubernetes environments where the number of containers and their associated data can rapidly increase.
Performance: PowerFlex provides high-performance storage capabilities that are crucial for running containers and Kubernetes workloads. It leverages advanced caching techniques, data tiering, and parallel I/O processing to deliver low-latency access to data. This ensures that containerized applications can access their data quickly, resulting in improved performance and responsiveness.
Data resilience: PowerFlex employs data protection mechanisms such as data replication and erasure coding to ensure high data availability and durability. In a Kubernetes environment, where containers are constantly being created, moved, and terminated, it is essential to have a storage solution that can handle data resiliency effectively. PowerFlex’s resilience features help minimize the risk of data loss and ensure that containerized applications can operate without disruptions.
Integration with Kubernetes: Dell PowerFlex integrates seamlessly with Kubernetes through the Container Storage Interface (CSI). The CSI standardizes the interaction between Kubernetes and storage systems, allowing for easy provisioning and management of persistent volumes (PVs) within a Kubernetes cluster. PowerFlex’s CSI driver enables efficient and dynamic provisioning of storage resources to support stateful applications running in containers.
Management and automation: PowerFlex provides a comprehensive management framework that simplifies the administration of storage resources in a containerized environment. It offers centralized management capabilities, including monitoring, reporting, and automation, which help streamline storage operations and improve overall efficiency.
In summary, Dell PowerFlex offers the flexibility, scalability, performance, data resilience, Kubernetes integration, and management capabilities required to effectively support storage for running containers and Kubernetes workloads. Its software-defined architecture and advanced features make it a robust choice for organizations seeking a storage solution optimized for containerized environments.
Configurations of ACP Storage cluster include:
Disaggregated storage and compute, Allows scaling compute and storage independently
Keeps up with security fixes and critical patches through continuous validated state
Seamless Day-2 LCM operations through integrated compute and storage management
Lets looks at some of the deployment / day2 operations screenshots:
Day 1 – Installation
Day 1: Overview
Inventory
Alerts:
APEX Cloud Platform Foundation Software
Single Cluster Management with OpenShift Web Console
Dell Monitoring Integration
Hybrid Multi-cluster Management via RedHat Advanced Cluster Manager (ACM)
Cloud based observability using CloudIQ
Health & cybersecurity notification & recommendations
Platform Management thru iDRAC
Integrated Support thru SRS
You can seee more details and the shared video annoucment, below https://www.dell.com/en-us/dt/apex/cloud-platforms/index.htm#tab0=1
