Dell releases Ubuntu-powered cloud servers
February 2, 2011
Dell has released two servers in the US that have been customized to run Ubuntu-based cloud services, the company announced Wednesday.
Dell has outfitted its PowerEdge C2100 and C6100 servers with Canonical’s Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC), an implementation of the Eucalyptus private cloud software that runs on the Ubuntu Server Edition operating system.
Dell is marketing the servers to organizations developing applications to run on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Organizations could use the servers to test the applications locally before uploading them to Amazon’s paid service. The servers have a preconfigured testing and development environment. Eucalyptus duplicates the AWS APIs (application programming interfaces).
Partnering with Canonical allowed Dell to deliver an infrastructure-as-a-service product in an integrated package and based on open standards, said Andy Rhodes, executive director of marketing for Dell’s data center solutions division, in a statement.
In the suggested setup, the C2100 server acts as a cloud compute node, while the C6100 can act either as a cloud compute server or as both a server and a node.
It marks the first time that Dell has offered the Linux-based Ubuntu OS in servers, although it has used the desktop edition of Ubuntu for some of its netbooks, laptops and PCs.
In addition to the servers themselves, Canonical also offers a variety of enterprise support subscription plans, which start at $1,175 per server per year.