Dell and Oracle Expand Partnership
Dell and Oracle announced an expansion of the companies’ strategic alliance, including a global sales agreement, new low-cost configurations of Dell PowerEdge servers with Oracle9i Database and jointly delivered services
With more than 22,000 Oracle-on-Dell installations, the companies have already demonstrated strong success in delivering better enterprise value to a wide range of customers, including Acuity Brands’ Lighting Group, Electronic Arts, Menasha Corporation, Mercedes-Benz Customer Assistance Centre and Precision Response Corporation. The announcement broadens the existing Dell-Oracle U.S. sales agreement for Oracle9i Database and Oracle9i Application Server to Europe and Asia, making it easier for customers to deploy Oracle software on Dell servers while maintaining a single point of contact with Dell.
The companies also introduced low-cost clusters to make it affordable for customers of all sizes to adopt Dell and Oracle enterprise solutions. Dell will offer a server/storage platform optimized for Oracle9i Database with Real Application Clusters for both Red Hat Linux Advanced Server and Microsoft Windows environments. Now small- and medium-sized businesses can benefit from the performance, availability and scalability of Dell PowerEdge server clusters backed by entry-level Dell | EMC CX200 storage arrays or Dell PowerVault SCSI disk enclosures.
In addition, Dell Services is partnering with Oracle Consulting to offer a suite of professional services. These services will reduce costs and ease deployment for customers migrating from proprietary, legacy database architectures to Oracle9i Database with Real Application Clusters on standards-based Dell server and storage platforms.
These fixed-price offerings include: migration services to “fast-track” customers from UNIX to Linux for Oracle9i Database; implementation services to help customers quickly deploy Oracle9i Database with Real Application Clusters; and performance and capacity tuning as well as database mirroring and disaster recovery planning.
Maintaining its direct accountability to customers for hardware, software and services, Dell Services, working with Oracle consultants, will help customers plan, design, deploy, and support highly available, high-performance architectures that can scale as business needs grow. These services, including training and certification, are available immediately for customers in the U.S. and Canada with support for Europe, Asia and Latin America expected later this year. Prices for the new services depend on the project requirements.
“Our growing partnership with Oracle mirrors customers’ increasing preference for standards-based solutions to address business-critical computing requirements,” said Linda Hargrove, vice president of worldwide enterprise systems marketing, Dell. “The extension of our relationship demonstrates our mutual commitment to deliver fully integrated enterprise systems backed by world-class services that can scale to meet customers’ future business requirements, while delivering lower total cost of ownership today.”