Utility computing? Not yet, says Dell

Dell will pass on so-called utility computing for now, one of the company's top executives said on Wednesday.

Although the concepts behind utility, or on-demand, computing are appealing, the technology for assembling disparate servers and storage systems into coordinated networks that can serve up data almost instantaneously or automatically adjust to spikes in demand doesn't exist in a practical form yet, said Joe Marengi, general manager of Dell's Americas division.

"The picture is nice, but it is not a reality yet. The vision of on-demand, if you will, is three or four years away, maybe longer," he said during a conference call.

Under the utility computing vision, computing power will be served up like electricity or water. Ideally, outages will become less frequent and corporations will be able to use their installed base of hardware and software in a much more efficient manner through automated equipment provisioning and servers that can warn of impending equipment failures. Both IBM and Hewlett-Packard have sketched out strategies for providing large corporations with computing on demand.

Sun Microsystems has a similar program called N1, but executives have said the "pay-by-the-minute" plans associated with some utility computing strategies aren't tenable.

Although some large financial institutions already are installing some types of on-demand computing systems, Dell will wait until utility computing becomes more formulaic.

"At some point it will be a reality, but right now you have to put in a massive amount of consulting hours to make it work," Marengi said.

Michael Kanellos writes for CNET News.com