Say Hello to Pivotal Ready Architecture from Dell EMC, The Easy Button for Pivotal Cloud Foundry in Your Data Center.

Want agility in the public cloud AND in your data center? Sure, but it's mostly been an unrealized ambition on-premises. Not any longer. Scores of enterprises are modernizing how they do development with Pivotal Cloud Foundry atop VMware’s Developer-Ready Infrastructure stack.

Now you have another way to quickly and easily deploy that stack: Pivotal Ready Architecture (PRA) 1.1 from Dell EMC.

Pivotal Ready Architecture (PRA) is a reference architecture that’s purpose-built for running Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF). The stack includes PCF and VMware virtualization and networking atop Dell EMC hyper-converged VxRail infrastructure. The solution delivers a fast, simple way to deploy and run Pivotal Cloud Foundry in your data center.

PRA 1.1 is now generally available. It supports PCF’s core abstractions: the application runtime, Pivotal Application Service (PAS), and the managed Kubernetes service, Pivotal Container Service (PKS).

Enterprises opt for hyperconverged infrastructure to quickly build and deploy private clouds. With PRA, IT teams enjoy these same benefits when deploying PCF, a modern cloud platform.

PRA Brings You The Best of Many Worlds

Dell EMC, VMware, and Pivotal teamed up to make PRA the fastest way to deploy PCF on-prem. Let’s take a look at what’s inside PRA:

• Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF), a modern platform for enterprise software. Push apps to PAS, and run Kubernetes with PKS. You can add backing services to your apps and containers, using the Pivotal Services Marketplace.

• VMware vSphere, vSAN, and NSX-T networking. Use the enterprise standard for virtualization, and deliver developer-ready infrastructure to the business.

• Dell EMC’s VxRail. This is the only fully integrated, preconfigured, and pretested VMware hyper‑converged infrastructure appliance family on the market. When you use VxRail, you dramatically simplify IT operations while lowering overall capital and operational costs.

Yes, PRA includes best-in-class hardware and software, conveniently bundled into a single appliance. But we go further to reduce the burdens of day-to-day infrastructure management. The appliance comes preconfigured, tested, and validated for PCF. So you get a turnkey solution that “just works.”

What’s more, PRA can grow with you. It’s easy to start with a “starter” configuration. Over time, as you push more apps and run more containers, you can grow your deployment as needed.

What’s New in Pivotal Ready Architecture 1.1

Since the launch of PRA in March, we’ve seen lots of interest from customers. We heard two clear bits of feedback: “we want Kubernetes” and “bring in more network automation.”

You asked, we delivered! As mentioned, PRA 1.1 adds support for PKS, as well as NSX-T, VMware’s software-defined networking product for cloud-native apps. What would PKS on PRA look like in your datacenter? Something like this:

A Reference Architecture for PKS on VMware vSphere with Pivotal Ready Architecture.

There’s more good stuff in PRA 1.1. The highlights:

1. PKS is now tested and validated for both single AZ and multi-AZ configurations. Running Kubernetes at scale in your data center has never been easier!

2. NSX-T is now a tested and validated part of  the Reference Architecture for PCF on PRA. NSX-T networking provides micro-segmentation, virtual load balancing, and network traffic visibility for PCF.

3. PRA now supports PAS 2.1, the latest version of Pivotal’s app platform.

Why do customers choose PRA? Let’s consider a recent example. A large telecommunications company in Europe chose PRA for their PCF deployment. This ready-made option allowed them to get started fast, and scale consistently and reliably as needed.

Their vision, shared by the CEO is to “transform to be a digital telco and provide superior customer service”.  With PRA, a turnkey solution that includes software and infrastructure, they can spend more time modernizing apps, and reducing their time-to market in order to delight consumers.

Modernizing Enterprise IT is a Big Job. You’re Going to Have Workloads Running On-Prem and in the Public Cloud.

Most organizations are standardizing on a multicloud strategy. The reason is simple: there’s so much to transform and modernize. No single location is going to be the best fit for all your “jobs to be done.” That’s why hybrid cloud is used by 95% of organizations, according a recent Gartner keynote.

This is of course what we’ve seen in the Cloud Foundry community for some time:

All industries are being challenged by new competition. Businesses face greater demands from customers, partners, and employees. Enabling developers to design and deploy apps at startup speeds is what keeps the biggest, most valued brands at the top of their game. When you don’t want to deal with infrastructure in your data center, PRA is the right choice to help you survive and thrive in the software-defined world.

Ready to learn more? Check out the interactive demo. Learn about Pivotal Ready Architecture from Pivotal and from  DellEMC.com. And a hands-on lab is available upon request. Your Pivotal and Dell EMC account teams are standing by!

Multi-cloud will be a hot topic at the cloud event of the year: SpringOne Platform Sept 24-27 in Washington, DC. Register now!