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FeaturesectionSolutions for the virtual era“Dell Advanced InfrastructureManager software allowsIT departments to managenetworking, storage, and servers—both physical and virtual—as a single resource pool.”Best practices: Envisioning theEfficient Data CenterIn the Dell Efficient Enterprise vision, technologyinfrastructures are open, capable, and affordable.Products and services for the data center are flexibleand avoid locking organizations into using a singlevendor or proprietary technologies that contributeto increased TCO and limit future choice; productsand services have innovative functionality that meetsexisting requirements and provides the flexibility toadapt to future requirements. In addition, Dell’s visionblends new technology with existing infrastructure,existing expertise, and industry-standard approachesdesigned to drive down TCO and complexity.Dell begins with a three-step approach to helporganizations unlock enterprise efficiency andachieve significant returns on their IT investment.The first step on the journey is to optimize theexisting data center infrastructure, with the goal ofachieving uniformity and cutting costs. Commonplatforms, standards-based tools, and unifiedfabrics can contribute to these efforts. The goal: toeliminate proprietary legacy architectures, like RISCandSPARC-based UNIX ® systems, and replace themwith a scaled x86 architecture running Microsoft ®Windows ® or Linux ® operating systems to help lowercosts and reduce management oversight.The next step is to simplify the technologyinfrastructure. Using pragmatic approachessuch as virtualization and storage consolidation,organizations can consolidate or unify redundanciesto help ensure that they are getting the most outof their data center resources. Rationalizing andreducing the number of applications also enhancesthe flexibility to easily remove and repurpose servers.After the data center has been standardizedand simplified, enhanced levels of automationbecome possible. The third step is to implementbest practices that help reduce manual interventionand boost productivity, together with cloud-baseddelivery models (where appropriate) that help reduceadministrative burdens on IT staff and enhanceapplication availability. Managed service options alsoallow organizations to combine 24/7 monitoring,alerts, and reporting with expert analysis and advice.In the Dell model, the Efficient Data Center isbuilt on four key pillars (see Figure 1).Intelligent infrastructureDell’s Efficient Data Center approach can helporganizations optimize their existing data centers,virtualize on their own schedule, take advantage ofcloud technologies as they make business sense—and prepare their data centers for the future.Achieving these goals requires advanced servers,networking equipment, and storage. Intelligentinfrastructure is designed to automate frequenttasks to drive down TCO, rapidly respond to changerequests, and help administrators anticipate issuesand proactively respond. Dell offers a range ofinfrastructure products to help meet these needs.Purpose-built hardware, like Dell PowerEdge C-Series servers optimized for cloud applications,can help administrators accomplish specific tasks.An efficient fabric helps lower costs and allowsadministrators to rack and cable only once. Cloudservices enable applications to be cloud optimized.Intelligent infrastructure helps optimize the datacenter today and build the foundation for advancedEfficient Data Center services.10 2010 Issue 02 | dell.com/powersolutionsReprinted from Dell Power Solutions, 2010 Issue 2. Copyright © 2010 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.