Dell on Thursday updated its Active Infrastructure converged infrastructure platform with virtual desktop and Microsoft application reference architectures as well as provisioning technology from its Gale Technologies acquisition.

The company also expanded its cloud capabilities and showed off new integration points for several of its recent acquisitions.

The Dell product and cloud launches were unveiled at Dell World, held this week in Austin, Texas.

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A big part of Thursday's Dell World news revolves around Dell's new Active Infrastructure, a converged infrastructure architecture introduced in October that combines Dell server, storage and networking resources into a solution that can be managed as a whole.

The Active System 800, Dell's first Active Infrastructure offering, is now available with reference architectures that lay out for Dell's solution providers and customers how to integrate complete solutions for Citrix XenDesktop and VMware View virtual desktop infrastructures, as well as with such Microsoft applications as Exchange 2010, SharePoint 2010 and Lync 2010.

Having reference architectures for a new offering like the Active System 800 is a good move, said Patrick Mulvee, vice president of sales and marketing at Sidepath, an Irvine, Calif.-based solution provider and Dell partner that expects to have an Active System 800 in its own lab soon.

"Reference architectures are fantastic," Mulvee said. "As an integrator, we look at solution interoperability because we want a.) a solution that works and b.) a solution that will be supported end-to-end."

Also new is integration of technology from Dell's acquisition last month of Gale Technologies, a developer of infrastructure automation software, with the Active System 800

With the integration, solution providers and customers will be able to provision new workloads on the Active System 800 within a few hours after it arrives at the customer side, Dell said. Dell also unveiled plans to provide APIs and other information to allow technology partners to take advantage of the Gale technology to provide fast provisioning of their applications on the Active System 800.

Taking advantage of the Gale technology was welcome news from Dell, Mulvee said.

"Smart move," he said. "All these new technology can only help make new applications for users available more quickly."

NEXT: Virtualization, Cloud Enhancements From Dell

Dell also enhanced its Dell OpenManage systems management software for its 12th generation (12G) server line. The enhancements provide for new remote management capabilities, new automation features for capturing server profiles and applying them to new servers and decreased service cycle downtime, Dell said.

On the cloud side, Dell said it will make a driver for its EqualLogic storage array family available for Crowbar, which is Dell's open source framework for integrating with the OpenStack cloud architecture.

Dell also unveiled plans to build Crowbar 2.0, which it said would enable customers to install cloud software across clusters while quickly and automatically scaling out systems.

Dell also unveiled a number of cloud partnerships including working with SUSE to integrate Crowbar into the SUSE Cloud, Intel to access Dell's Hadoop big data solutions in OpenStack-based clouds, and Inktank to provide that company's Ceph cloud storage solution to OpenStack-powered clouds. Inktank's Ceph helps customers build scalable object, block and file storage in a single cluster.

Also new at Dell World were plans for integrating several recent Dell acquisitions into new offering with other Dell technologies.

For instance, Dell unveiled CIO Powerboard, a new technology that allows CIOs, IT administrators and solution providers to get a simplified look at a business' entire IT environment. CIO Powerboard includes technology from Dell Quest, Kace, SonicWall, and AppAssure, all brought together with Dell Boomi.

Also new is the Dell SonicWall Security Portal, a new portal that provides information on security threats along with information for helping Dell customers and partners get trained on SonicWall technology.

For businesses looking at bring-your-own-device (BYOD) issues, Dell unveiled the Dell Kace K3000 Mobile Management Appliance. Dell said the K3000 eases the security of corporate and personal mobile devices running the Apple iOS and Google Android operating systems.

Dell also introduced a new storage appliance, the Dell PowerVault DL4000, which integrates its AppAssure software in a 1U backup appliance with 5.5 TB of storage and two standby virtual machines. The Dell PowerVault DL4000 includes Dell AppAssure snapshot, replication, deduplication and compression software.

PUBLISHED DEC. 13, 2012