Industry Watch: Dell Scales Out

InformationWeek editors Larry Greenemeier and Paul Travis recently met with Dell CEO Michael Dell and discussed server consolidation. Read the whole interview at informationweek.com/949/dell.htm.

InformationWeek: What's the challenge in terms of making Dell's clustering, or scaling-out, approach more appealing than using a scaled-up, Intel-based server?

Michael Dell

Dell: Scale out is really leveraging the high-volume, industry-standard economics of microprocessor chipsets, high-volume disk drives, and other components built in hundreds of millions of units per year to run large databases and applications. Oracle and SAP are really embracing this scale-out idea, not only for better price/performance but also for better availability and better scalability.

InformationWeek: Are the management tools available today to make scale-out computing a reality for businesses?

Dell: There's work to be done in aggregating all parts of the network infrastructure, from storage to servers to networking itself to application management. Really, no company anywhere today can fulfill the grand visions that are out there either for scale up or for scale out.