Microsoft, VMware, Join Dell PowerEdge VRTX Community

Dell (DELL) said its PowerEdge VRTX, a converged IT solution purpose-built for remote and small office settings first announced in early June, is now available worldwide.

The vendor is touting the VRTX system as a “data center in a box” owing to its enterprise-class capabilities, scalability and smallish footprint. It combines up to four blade servers, features 48TB of storage and runs on standard power. Dell has positioned the VRTX as suitable for small and branch offices because it does away with excess complexity and it can be managed from a single graphical user interface.

To back the VRTX, Dell has recruited partners—for what the vendor is calling the VRTX Ecosystem—to add to the value and capabilities of the system through third-party software and services aimed at specific vertical markets and use cases. Microsoft (MSFT) and VMware (VMW) are the headliners in the VRTX partner ecosystem, which also includes ISVs, OEMs, global alliances and channel partners. Dell said it also will leverage various, existing solution portfolio offerings.

In particular, Dell and Microsoft are working on solutions for PowerEdge VRTX to enable high levels of efficiency and performance for SMBs, including the OpenManage Integration Suite for Microsoft System Center 2012 and OpenManage Cluster Configurator for Windows Server 2012. In addition, Dell said it will update the Dell DVS Enterprise for Windows Server 2012 reference architecture with VRTX sizing guidelines to enable customers in remote and small office environments to deploy Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) and Remote Desktop Virtualization Hosted (RDVH) on Windows Server 2012.

With VMware, SMB and remote branch users deploying the Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server and Dell PowerEdge VRTX with VMware vSphere will gain virtualization’s benefits in an automated, agent-free and efficient way, according to Dell.

"PowerEdge VRTX has already received rave reviews from early evaluation customers and we look forward to more customer feedback now that it's available worldwide,” said Sally Stevens, Dell Server Solutions marketing vice president.

“Designed from the ground up to uniquely address the issues of office IT, we're proud of customer-inspired innovations PowerEdge VRTX features, such as huge internal shared storage capacity and unified systems management of all resources inside the chassis," she said.  "Additionally, the VRTX Solutions Ecosystem is yet another example of how Dell is taking an omni-channel approach to bring differentiated solutions to market."