Dell and VMware combine to release new NVMe/TCP protocol to speed infrastructure for modern apps

Enterprise servers and storage will now discover each other more efficiently as the result of a new offering jointly released by Dell Technologies Inc. and VMware Inc.

The two firms announced a NVMe over Fabrics solution using Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol to deliver faster software-defined connectivity for data on demand in on-premises, edge or multicloud environments.

“It provides performance and latencies that new modern applications need, and provides it in a way that is disaggregated,” said Vijay Ramachandran (pictured, left), vice president of product management at VMware Inc. “What we are delivering together with Dell is the combination of NVMe plus TCP/IP to bring both worlds together. The industry is changing, and this will become the de facto way to deploy infrastructure in our datacenters.”

Ramachandran spoke with Lisa Martin, host of SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming video studio theCUBE. He was joined in the interview by Ihab Tarazi (pictured, right), senior vice president and chief technology officer of networking and solutions at Dell, and they discussed key features of the new release and the need for a combined automation and high-performance storage solution. (* Disclosure below.)

Connecting hosts to storage

The joint release includes enabling automated storage connectivity through a new Dell product called SmartFabric Storage Software, or SFSS.

“That software product will automate the discover, provisioning and setup of all storage networking,” Tarazi said. “It’s how you connect all of the hosts to the storage targets in a fully automated way. This is something that has been very complex and hard to do manually.”

The NVMe solution has been integrated with Dell EMC PowerStore arrays and customers can implement Dell EMC SmartFabric Services and PowerSwitch to automate switch configuration.

“We’ve been collaborating for over two years on this project,” Tarazi noted. “The new direction here is we’re putting a lot of energy and investment into making NVMe over TCP/IP automated and high performance. This is an easy, automated lift.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations. (* Disclosure: Dell Technologies Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Dell nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE