Server Den Q&A: Dell CTO Elucidates Efficient Enterprise

Virtualization is not just about servers, it's also about thinking about storage. We've been saying that Ethernet-based iSCSI storage is a great strategy, because now you have the IT infrastructure to redirect packets, as you're trying to get from server to storage. [Dell has a long history developing iSCSI internally, which it took it to the next level by acquiring iSCSI vendor Equilogic for $1.4 billion in early 1998.]

After storage, the next step is, how do I make the domain that I'm virtualizing across larger than just a sub-net of the data center? I've got to start thinking about routers and workloads crossing router boundaries. This leads to switches getting closer to servers. In the last year or so, people have begun talking about virtual switches which live inside the server, inside the [server's] hypervisor.

Now, you can't rid of those routers and the switches from the domain across which you want to virtualize. So we're up to another tier in the discussion of virtualization.

You end up realizing that virtualization was supposed to solve problems, but now, for every physical resource I used to have--which was by itself a challenge to manage--I've got 10 to 40 times as many virtual resources. The management challenge becomes a hugely growing problem.

People who came into the process without thinking ahead now have a nightmare of a management problem on their hands. The customers who are savvy about this are the ones who've thought through the management issue as they've evolved through the strategy.

InformationWeek: This leads into a discussion of management tools.

Prince: It's a big marketplace and there's no one size which fits all. In general, most customers-- medium and large enterprises--have something they've already invested in for their management infrastructure. They may be using BMC, IBM WebSphere, IBM Tivoli, HP Openview, or Microsoft SystemsCenter. The latter is getting a very large footprint out in the marketplace.

At a strategic level we've been talking about the virtualization ready infrastructure. VRI is about us doing things which look upward towards the virtualization infrastructure and plug in seamlessly.

InformationWeek: Let's talk about servers themselves. It's always seemed to me that, with everyone using the same Intel and AMD processors, differentiation is difficult to achieve.

Prince: I think you've nailed it. The differentiation in server hardware is not sexy. Power efficiency is a big deal, and we spend a lot of energy on this. I use the analogy that servers today are like notebooks were five years ago. Today, power efficiency [in servers] is as important as the feature set. There's no silver bullet in power efficiency. Again, the analogy to notebooks holds. It's a collection of dozens of items, which you get 100-mW of savings here and 30-mW there, which eventually adds up to something that matters.

We're in our eleventh generation of servers. As Dell has evolved, we've gotten the reputation that we're the pickiest on quality and validation. Frankly, every time we get toward a launch, we drive Intel and AMD crazy.

Balancing that, I will say that, more and more, the industry is headed toward a model where the blocking and tackling of design is capable of being done by ODMs. [As long as you pick] the right way and the right place, with the appropriate oversight at the product level. Then you move the engineering focus upstream, into areas such as, how do you make something virtualization ready?; how do you integrate it with consoles? What's the overall solution? How are we going to integrate at a customer level the strategy for networking with our servers?

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