Dell Technologies Accelerates AI Innovation and Strengthens Cybersecurity for Microsoft Customers

In a significant move to bolster AI innovation and cybersecurity, Dell Technologies has announced a series of new offerings designed to enhance the capabilities of Microsoft customers. These advancements, unveiled at the Microsoft Ignite event, aim to simplify AI adoption, improve data protection and strengthen cybersecurity strategies.

Accelerating AI Adoption with Dell AI Factory

Dell Technologies is expanding its AI Factory portfolio with new storage software and services that promise to accelerate AI adoption and performance. The introduction of Dell APEX File Storage for Microsoft Azure provides a Dell-managed option that allows organizations to focus on AI application development rather than hybrid cloud infrastructure maintenance. This service leverages Dell PowerScale OneFS software to offer high-performance, scale-out file capabilities in Microsoft Azure, supporting demanding AI applications with up to 18 nodes of storage capacity.

Additionally, Dell is launching several services to help customers create custom AI solutions:

• Accelerator Services for Copilot+ PCs: Enhances productivity and efficiency with advisory on new features, implementation plans, and best practices.
• Services for Microsoft Copilot Studio and Azure AI Studio: Assists in developing and implementing Copilot agents and AI solutions tailored to specific business needs.
• Implementation Services for Microsoft Azure AI Service: Supports AI application development on-premises with Azure Stack AI services on Dell solutions for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI.
• Managed Services for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI: Provides cloud-like flexibility and scalability with expert support for seamless cloud integration.

Enhancing Cybersecurity and Data Protection

Dell Technologies is also introducing robust data protection and cybersecurity services for Microsoft environments. The Dell APEX Protection Services for Microsoft Azure offers enterprise-class multicloud data protection and cyber resiliency across various locations. This AI-powered, Dell-managed solution enhances cyber resiliency with zero trust security features, including immutability, encryption, multi-factor authentication, and role-based access controls. It also provides efficient recovery options to protect against ransomware and cyber threats, significantly reducing recovery time.

Furthermore, Dell is offering new security services to help customers align their cybersecurity posture with industry standards:

• Advisory Services for Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) for Microsoft: Provides specific recommendations to align cybersecurity strategies with CMMC guidelines.
• Microsoft Extended Detection and Response (MXDR) Services: Allows customers to focus on their core business while Dell experts monitor, detect, investigate, and respond to threats 24/7.

Conclusion

Dell Technologies continues to lead the way in AI innovation and cybersecurity, providing Microsoft customers with the tools and services needed to accelerate their digital transformation. With these new offerings, Dell is helping organizations innovate faster, control costs, and protect their data more effectively.

Source: dell.com

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PowerMax Innovations Boost AI-Powered Efficiency, Cybersecurity and Multicloud Agility

Today, we’re announcing significant enhancements to Dell PowerMax that improve AI-driven efficiency, increase cyber resiliency, and deliver seamless multicloud mobility. These new capabilities for PowerMax, our continuously modern, highly secure storage solution optimized for mission-critical workloads, make it easier than ever for customers to keep pace with changing business demands.  

AI-Driven Efficiency for Mission-Critical Workloads

In today’s fast-paced digital world, businesses need storage solutions that keep pace with their demands and anticipate future needs. That’s where the power of artificial intelligence comes in. This release offers customers a range of AI-powered benefits that can help optimize performance, reduce management overhead, and prevent incidents before they occur through:  

• Performance optimization: We are using AI to accelerate performance with dynamic cache optimization through pattern recognition and predictive analytics, reducing latency and increasing speed with no management overhead.  
• Predictive and proactive management: Autonomous health checks with intelligent threshold settings provide corrective actions and self-healing capabilities, addressing issues before they arise (e.g. storage capacity levels, loose cabling).  
• Automated network fabric performance optimization (FPIN): PowerMax quickly identifies Fibre Channel network congestion (slow drain) and isolates root cause resulting in up to 8x faster incident resolution. 
• Infrastructure optimization: Dell’s AIOps Assistant, equipped with Gen AI natural language queries, enables fast and easy infrastructure optimization.  

Improved Efficiency

The latest release also introduces 92% RAID efficiency (RAID 6 24+2) to improve overall storage efficiency and industry-leading power and environmental monitoring capabilities.  

Customers can now track power usage at three levels: the array, the rack and the data center to improve power efficiency, manage energy costs, and effectively reduce energy consumption.  

Enhancing Cyber Resiliency

In an era where cyber threats are increasingly sophisticated, cyber resiliency is critical for all customers. PowerMax adds new cybersecurity features to increase the protection of customer data, reduce attack surfaces, and recover quickly from cyber-attacks with:  

• Cyber Recovery Services for PowerMax: Dell’s new Professional Service offers robust protection against cyberattacks. Using a secure PowerMax vault and granular data protection, this tailored solution ensures quick and efficient recovery while helping customers achieve stringent compliance goals.  
• YubiKey multifactor authentication: Provides a strong and convenient security solution, offering enhanced protection against unauthorized access and simplifying the user authentication process.  

Superior Performance at Scale

PowerMax continues to set the standard for high performance at scale, providing the headroom necessary for both current and future needs. Today’s announcement adds:  

• Up to 30% IOPS performance boost with PowerMax 8500
• Up to 3x faster GbE connectivity with new 100Gb Ethernet I/O modules
• Up to 2x faster FC connectivity with new 64Gb Fibre Channel I/O modules. 

In addition to these significant enhancements, Storage Direct Protection for PowerMax’s integration with PowerProtect enables efficient, secure, and ultra-fast data protection, delivering up to 1PB per day backups and 500TB per day restores.  

Achieve Multicloud Agility

In the evolving digital landscape, multicloud agility is essential for maximizing resource utilization, reducing costs, and adapting swiftly to change. This release helps customers achieve:  

• Seamless multicloud data mobility: Dell now offers simple options to move live PowerMax workloads to and from APEX Block Storage, the industry’s most resilient and flexible cloud storage—while simultaneously performing multi-hop OS conversions to modernize those workloads in one smooth process. 
• Scalable cloud backups and restores: Storage Direct Protection for PowerMax delivers simple, secure, and efficient data protection that empowers customers to choose the best backup destinations. By seamlessly integrating with major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP, and Alibaba, APEX Protection Storage enables customers to avoid vendor lock-in and select the cloud vendor that aligns with their unique requirements.  
• Simplified consumption model: With Dell APEX Subscriptions, customers pay for what they use and streamline invoicing, billing, and capacity usage monitoring for better forecasting and scaling. This model eliminates the need for large upfront capital investment, providing a modern consumption experience while simplifying lifecycle management.  

Mainframe Innovation

PowerMaxOS 10.2 improves IOPS performance and reduces latency for unbalanced mainframe workloads, enhances cyber intrusion detection for mainframe (zCID) with auto-learning access pattern detection, and leverages IBM’s System Recovery Boost for faster recovery during planned or unplanned outages.  

Source: dell.com

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Elevate Your Azure Stack HCI Experience with Dell Solutions

In today’s fast-paced world, innovation and success are crucial for staying ahead. At Dell Technologies, we believe in meeting customers where they are—empowering them with cutting-edge technology and offering choices that suit every budget.

Read More: D-PDD-DY-23: Dell Technologies PowerProtect DD Deploy 2023

That’s why we’re excited to expand our Dell Solutions for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI by offering Dell Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI on the latest generation hardware. That means you can now choose between two powerful options: the Dell Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI for a smartly priced and reliable hyperconverged infrastructure, or the Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure for even more automation, enhanced value and productivity.

No matter which option you choose, Dell is redefining what it means to deliver a Microsoft Azure experience on-premises. Let’s look at what each solution offers.

Dell’s Factory-ready Azure Stack HCI – Efficiency Out of the Box

For those seeking a Microsoft-native management experience, the Dell Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI provides preconfigured, hyperconverged infrastructure backed by Dell’s engineering expertise. This solution offers several key benefits, including easy deployment and management through Azure Management and Governance Services, along with Dell OpenManage Integration for Microsoft Windows Admin Center. It also ensures reliable updates with compatibility checks for both software and infrastructure, and maintains optimized performance through regular system assessments, offering two to four validations each year.

APEX Cloud Platform for Azure – A Microsoft Premier Solution

The Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure is a robust choice for those seeking enhanced value, productivity, and automation. As the first Premier Solution for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI, it’s continuously validated in collaboration with Microsoft. The Dell APEX Cloud Platform Foundation Software, an integral part of the platform, provides deep, cross-layer integrations and intelligent automation that simplify initial deployments and cluster creation, in addition to ongoing operations across the complete technology stack. IT admins can use familiar tools, such as Windows Admin Center and the Azure Portal, for a simple, consistent and centralized way of operating dispersed Azure deployments.

A recent ESG report highlighted that the unique value provided by APEX Cloud Platform Foundation Software translates into significant benefits for customers, including:

• 50% more productive administrators. Enhanced automation simplifies tasks, from node addition to cluster expansion.
• 50% reduction in availability issues. Automated, non-disruptive upgrades and validated state assurance keep workloads running smoothly.
• 80% lower testing costs. Continuous joint CI/CD testing with Microsoft ensures each release is backed by extensive engineering hours.
• 40% lower support costs. Proactive, call-home support through Windows Admin Center reduces support costs and boosts reliability.

Why Choose Dell Solutions for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI?

Whichever solution you choose, Dell offers unique benefits that set us apart from other providers:

• Unique integration and automation. Opt for the Microsoft-driven management experience of the Dell Integrated System or the enhanced productivity of the APEX Cloud Platform with Dell APEX Cloud Platform Foundation Software.
• Built on the latest PowerEdge platforms. Our solutions are purpose-built for their environments, featuring intelligent systems management, cyber-resilient security, and sustainability.
• Flexible consumption options. Purchase through CapEx or modern consumption through APEX Subscriptions
• Expert support with ProSupport. Enjoy comprehensive system-level support from a single source, covering hardware, software, and Microsoft Azure Stack HCI, with Dell managing collaboration with Microsoft support.
• Available with Azure Stack HCI OEM License. Gain significant price advantages with a one-time upfront cost for Azure Stack HCI 23H2, Windows Server Data Center 2022 and Azure Kubernetes Service

In summary, Dell Solutions for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI deliver unmatched integration, automation and expert support, all built on the latest PowerEdge technology to meet your on-premises Azure needs.

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Advance Productivity: PowerScale Storage Certified for NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD

In this era of exceptional technological advancements, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force across industries. The rise of generative AI, in particular, has unlocked tremendous potential, enabling machines to synthesize and create valuable content. Announced at the NVIDIA GTC global AI conference, Dell PowerScale file storage is the world’s first Ethernet-based storage certified for NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD. This solution helps enable businesses to harness the full potential of AI-enabled applications.

Rise of Generative AI

Generative AI has marked a turning point in the technology landscape, enabling machines to create, replicate and learn from patterns in extensive datasets, with minimal human intervention. From healthcare and manufacturing to finance and entertainment, generative AI has the power to transform industries like never before. As a result, the demand for advanced storage solutions capable of handling the sheer volume of data required by AI workloads has skyrocketed.

Certification

Dell has always been at the forefront of innovation, striving to offer cutting-edge solutions that address the evolving needs of businesses. As Dell announced earlier this year, the certification of Dell PowerScale as the first Ethernet-based storage for NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD marks an advancement in storage compatibility. This solution simplifies AI infrastructure, empowering organizations to unlock the true potential of their AI initiatives.

Martin Glynn, Senior Director of Product Management for Dell Technologies, affirms, “The world’s first Ethernet storage certification for NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD with Dell PowerScale combines Dell’s industry-leading storage and NVIDIA’s AI supercomputing systems, empowering organizations to unlock AI’s full potential, drive breakthroughs and achieve the seemingly impossible.”

“To harness the transformative power of generative AI, organizations are seeking robust and scalable infrastructure that can help unlock insights and drive innovation,” said Tony Paikeday, senior director of AI systems at NVIDIA. “The certification of Dell PowerScale as the world’s first Ethernet storage to operate with NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD gives enterprises greater choice and flexibility in their implementations of scalable AI infrastructure.”

PowerScale – Extreme Performance for Next-Generation Workloads

Dell PowerScale has gained trust and recognition for its exceptional scalability, performance and security built on over a decade of experience. Its certification for NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD further strengthens Dell’s storage solution for organizations seeking to harness the power of generative AI. Here’s why PowerScale stands out:

• Enhanced network access. Technologies like NVIDIA Magnum IO, GPUDirect Storage and NFS over RDMA are natively integrated into NVIDIA ConnectX NICs and NVIDIA Spectrum switches, accelerating network access to storage. These advanced features further minimize data transfer times to and from PowerScale storage, ensuring faster storage throughput for AI training, checkpointing and inferencing tasks.
• Maximizing performance. Dell PowerScale offers a new Multipath Client Driver that optimizes data throughput and allows organizations to achieve the high performance required by DGX SuperPOD. This innovative feature enables businesses to accelerate AI model training and inference, facilitating seamless integration with the powerful NVIDIA DGX platform.
• Scalability. PowerScale’s unique design enables effortless scaling by simply adding new nodes, delivering unparalleled agility to businesses. This flexibility ensures that organizations can adapt and grow their storage infrastructure as their AI workloads expand, avoiding any potential bottlenecks for even the most demanding AI use cases.
• Federal-grade security. PowerScale has been recognized for its exceptional security capabilities, earning the U.S. Department of Defense Approved Product List. Successful completion of this rigorous process underscores PowerScale’s suitability for mission-critical applications and bolsters protection of critical data assets.
• Efficiency. PowerScale’s innovative architecture is designed to optimize efficiency. Utilizing advanced technologies, it maximizes performance and minimizes power consumption while reducing operational costs and environmental impacts.

To accelerate the deployment of PowerScale with NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD solutions, Dell developed the following reference architecture. The whitepaper illustrates the seamless combination of PowerScale with NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD.

The certification of Dell PowerScale as the world’s first Ethernet-based storage solution certified for NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD represents a significant milestone in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. Dell’s collaboration with NVIDIA is helping to pave the way for organizations to leverage generative AI with scalability and performance. By embracing these leading technologies, businesses can unlock the full potential of AI and transform their operations, propelling themselves into an era of accelerated innovation and remarkable growth.

Source: dell.com

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Five Ways Dell Can Help Telecom Increase Cloud Sustainability

Sustainability is a non-negotiable for communication service providers (CSP). A recent study by the GSM Association tells us that CSPs spend 20 to 40% of OpEx on energy. With increasing pressure to reduce their carbon footprint, CSPs need to find innovative ways to manage their network infrastructure while keeping it reliable and efficient. Dell Technologies has a variety of products and solutions to help the telecom industry achieve their sustainability goals. And we aren’t talking about recycling – although we do that (that’s table stakes).

Dell Technologies Bare Metal Orchestrator (BMO) is a powerful software platform that automates the deployments and lifecycle management of bare-metal servers (or infrastructure network) at massive scale. BMO helps CSPs manage their network infrastructure all the way out to the edge in a more efficient and automated way, which can help reduce the time and effort required to manage infrastructure and improve overall performance.

Here are five ways BMO can help you achieve telecom achieve its sustainability goals:

1. Energy Efficiency: CSPs can use BMO to monitor and manage server utilization. By optimizing server utilization, CSPs can reduce the amount of energy required to run their data centers and, in turn, reduce their carbon footprint.
2. Resource Management: BMO can help CSPs manage their resources more effectively, which can help reduce waste and improve the sustainability of their operations. BMO can define consistency in processes around how the backup, data erase happens correctly and hence enable security and data breaches and feedback to the organization they need to plan the server procurements. For example, CSPs can use BMO to automate the provisioning and decommissioning of bare-metal servers, which can help reduce the amount of waste these servers generate. Servers that are no longer being used still use the energy and network bandwidth.
3. Data Center Optimization: CSPs can use BMO to optimize the performance of data centers, which can help reduce the amount of energy required to run these centers. This can include optimizing the utilization of bare-metal servers, improving the cooling and ventilation systems based on the telemetry collected from the servers and reducing the amount of energy required to power the data center.
4. Increased Agility: BMO can help CSPs be more agile in their operations, which can be especially important in a rapidly changing market. By automating the management of their infrastructure, CSPs can respond more quickly to changes in demand and ensure they have the resources they need to meet the changing needs of their customers. Examples include reduced downtime by enabling IT staff to respond quickly to issues and faults in the data center, deploy renewable infrastructure and adapt to changing sustainability requirements due to its flexibility and scalability. Furthermore, since BMO is software-based, CSPs can deploy servers remotely without traveling to the site, eliminating the carbon footprint of commuting.
5. Future-proofing: By implementing sustainable practices and using tools like BMO, CSPs can ensure they are well-positioned for the future. As sustainability becomes increasingly important, CSPs that have implemented sustainable practices will be well-positioned to meet the changing needs of their customers and remain competitive in the market.

Using Dell’s Bare Metal Orchestrator can help CSPs optimize the utilization of bare-metal servers, manage resources more effectively and improve the performance of data centers, thereby reducing their impact on the environment and ensuring the long-term sustainability of their operations.

Source: dell.com

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For CSPs, the Chatbot Discussion Heats Up Around AI

Let’s talk about chatbots for a moment. We’ve all used them before and, by now, most of us have accepted their limitations as the lesser of two evils (the greater evil being stuck in an endless IVR loop). Many users report at least some level of satisfaction with chatbots, particularly when handling common issues such as password resets, basic account information and other frequently asked questions. Yet the fact remains that traditional chatbots struggle with replicating a human interactive experience when the conversation goes off script. In those cases, it’s often necessary to call in the live troops to resolve a customer’s issue.

And that would be the end of our conversation about chatbots, except for the disruptive potential that AI brings to the discussion.

AI-powered chat agents have the potential to take automated customer service to another level. The ability to apply dynamic, human-like intelligence and real-time machine learning to customer experiences (CX) is what every chatbot has always dreamed of being. It is not, however, just a simple matter of bolting AI onto your existing chatbot app and waiting for better outcomes. There’s a lot of business process integration and customization around industry-specific large language models (LLMs) that need to take place before a chatbot becomes an AI chat agent. Fortunately, that work is being done right now in an industry that can desperately use it: telecommunications.

Dialing Up AI for better Customer Experiences

Dell Technologies is honored to be part of an initiative led by SK Telecom to develop an AI chat agent application for communications service providers (CSPs). In addition to SK Telecom, which is developing the application, there is a critical middleware component being developed by Compax (on the business integration side) and Matrixx Software (on the billing integration side) to bring everything together. Dell’s contributions center on three solution aspects: the cloud foundation for the application (via Dell Telecom Infrastructure Blocks), the underlying AI infrastructure (via Dell and Nvidia’s AI Factory) and the multivendor solution integration and validation, which is being hosted in Dell’s Open Telecommunications Ecosystem Lab (OTEL).

Part of the challenge of building an LLM-based AI chat agent for CSPs is the language itself. Telecommunications has its own set of industry-specific terms, from roaming fees to family plans. SK Telecom is currently building a customized LLM for CSPs that is capable of understanding the nuances of telco terminology. Beyond that, there is the challenge of integrating these conversations with back-office and billing systems that are often highly complex and, in some cases, have been in place for decades. And, finally, the entire solution needs to be deployed in a cloud-native architecture featuring AI-ready infrastructure. It’s these individual components that brought SK Telecom, Dell, Compax and Matrixx together, with Dell’s OTEL being the logical place to integrate and validate the entire solution.

Once completed, SK Telecom plans to roll the solution out to other CSPs around the world. For an industry that thrives on communication, AI chat agents are a potential game changer for telcos. Imagine, for example, being able to get real-time recommendations on plan changes and shop for new devices with an intelligent shopping assistant. Or get AI advice on choosing the best roaming plan right before you leave for your European vacation. These are the kinds of complex tasks that AI chat agents can perform and—here’s the key—get better at over time by learning your preferences. Even human agents often struggle to connect on that kind of personal level.

We’ve come a long way from switchboard operators, and the best is yet to come. Want to talk about developing your AI app for telecommunications? Talk to Dell or check out more on the AI Chat Agent we are working on with SK Telecom. We’re here to keep the AI conversation moving forward.

Source: dell.com

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