Free the Cloud With Dell Crowbar

Accelerate Cloud Deployment, Simplify Maintenance and Streamline Updates

Deploying an open source cloud can be a challenge. The correct components can help you do the job right. Expand your open source toolkit with a multipurpose tool: Dell™ Crowbar.

Crowbar is an open source software framework developed by Dell. With Crowbar, you can install cloud software across clusters and scale out systems quickly and automatically. Crowbar also provides capabilities for network monitoring and discovery, and gathering performance data, among other advantages. With Crowbar, you have a configurable, adjustable framework complete with many built-in features that can save time, streamline effort and potentially lower costs. 

Benefits

Automated bootstrapping 

Free your staff from manual network settings and bootstrapping servers by hand with Crowbar. The no-manual-intervention-required approach allows you to stand up a system from bare metal to operational in as little as two hours. 

Hardware-adaptive

Because Crowbar is not tied to a specific platform, it's customizable in your environment, which equals less scripting and faster booting.

Simple setup

Clear, quick setup and configuration is accomplished with the included user interface and remote APIs.

Integration with Opscode® Chef™

With the Opscode Chef server, built specifically for cloud automation on an open-source systems integration framework, repeatable solutions are a snap.

Modular architecture

Add, remove and extend individual components with open-source barclamps. Each barclamp has its own configuration, user interface subcomponent, deployment configuration and documentation.

Check out the barclamp library

Barclamps are available for DNS, network discovery, Nova, Swift, Nagios®, Gangalia and BIOS configuration, among others. Or, you can develop your own open-source barclamps for targeted use.

Expert information

Access expert advice, deployment guides, specifications and reference architectures for designs that incorporate the Dell OpenStack™ Powered Cloud Solution and Dell hardware.

Upgrade and maintenance 

No need to dread maintenance tasks. You can easily update BIOS and RAID configurations; automate network discovery, and track performance and alerts. 


For an even more comprehensive cloud computing solution, Dell recommends combining Crowbar with OpenStack™ or Apache Hadoop™ for a solution that's proven in real-world deployments.

Read more about Dell Crowbar, next.
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Crowbar case studies

  1. 2011-dreamhost-10009996.pdf

    DreamHost

    7/1/2011

    DreamHost expands cloud and storage services with Dell OpenStack Cloud

Getting started

  1. Dell Crowbar

    Download Dell Crowbar

    Download the Dell Crowbar open source software. Crowbar provides a framework that accelerates deployment of a multinode OpenStack cloud on bare-metal Dell PowerEdge servers, and update BIOS and RAID configurations, discover networks, and more.

  2. Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution

    Get everything you need to build and manage your open source cloud ecosystem. The Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution, based on Dell PowerEdge C servers and the OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution platform, offers you a sure road map into the cloud.

Crowbar resources

  1. Dell Crowbar Community

    Visit the Dell Crowbar Community to track code releases, ask questions and access the developer wiki.

  2. Rob Hirschfeld's Blog

    Rob Hirschfeld's Blog: Agile in the Clouds

    Get tips, hints and training material for Crowbar and OpenStack from a Dell expert on open source cloud computing.