CFOs Need Mavericks to Boost Data Analytics

We are moving from an era of data scarcity to an era of data abundance. This is being driven by the Digital age we live in. But data is not made equal, some of it is far less useful or trustworthy than other data. This is a huge challenge for society and our education systems. Zooming in on what I know best – the finance function in corporations – big data can become a curse, if you allow yourself to drown in it. To turn it into a blessing, CFOs need to change a few things, starting with the kind of talents they hire …

We live a data paradox. We feel submerged by data which is all around us and omnipresent, whereas those data could make our lives so much easier are much harder to find and identify. The real problem is most data is not useful. You need to figure out where data can provide you with real insights instead of bringing more complexity or setting people going off in tangents. This is not an easy task. As a CFO, I try to stay focused on the basics (revenues, costs and profits) and build up from there starting with simple data analytics that gives me more clarity on the market opportunities, the go-to-market costs and the different scenarios to allocate business profits. It is only when I feel I have a strong understanding of these scenario’s that I then move to look at big data outputs to try and validate the scenario’s that have been identified.

I know this is easier said than done. Another good ploy is to surround yourself with the right people.

I recently stumbled across an article in Healthcare Finance, referring to a survey by WorkDay, which perfectly summarizes the promise of big data for the finance functions: data-driven decision-making (rather than intuitions) that makes the CFOs and their teams more resilient and intelligent, delivering quality insights and strategic advantages for the whole organization. But the report also indicates that many corporate finance functions are still unable to deliver these insights, due largely to:

1. difficulty integrating finance and non-finance data

2. lack of relevant skills within finance teams, and

3. ineffective collaboration among C-suite peers on data-driven decision-making.

Regarding point 1, I do not think that access to non-financial data is a problem, as such. The difficulty is to get data in a trustworthy format that you can easily embed into your own CFO story. There are so many different templates and subsets across departments and business units. This is also where a strong CFO-CIO can help getting everyone in tune.

Where I think CFOs have still a long way to go is, indeed, point 2 and the access to skills.

Chalk and cheese

To refresh the knowledge inside your finance department, I strongly encourage you to search for less traditional profiles. Besides accounting and finance champions, attract some nerdy data scientists and make them feel comfortable in your team. They are so scarce on today’s market that you had better offer these mavericks a motivating challenge, as well as a suitable infrastructure to start getting value out of artificial intelligence. Otherwise, like in this testimonial, they will not stay long in your team.

The infographics here illustrate that data scientists and business analysts are like chalk and cheese. They do not naturally work together. But it is your task, as CFO, to show leadership and make the best of both worlds.

A tactical tip? Introduce some job rotation so that each group of skilled people understands the benefits brought by the other one. There is a kind of trade-off to be found here.

If you keep data scientists and business analysts separated, the risk is that your own exploitation of Big Data may go too behind the wall, disconnected from the business realities. Data science just for the sake of it.

Conversely, if you keep them together all the time, you restrict the power of data scientists to think out of the box and to provide real insights once their job is combined with the skills of the business analysts.

In conclusion, there is not one silver bullet to make your finance department smarter and more resilient, but investing in a good mix of new talents while increasing the data analytical skills of the existing teams… is definitely a sound decision. Though, I must confess, it is based on my own intuition and experience more then on machine learning.

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PowerMax, the Modern Storage Array that Does NVMe Right, Introduces Cloud-based Analytics and CI support

This year at Dell Technologies World, Dell EMC changed the game in storage with the introduction of PowerMax. This end-to-end NVMe array transforms IT infrastructure for the most critical and demanding applications of today and tomorrow. PowerMax is unmatched in the industry offering a unique combination of powerful architecture, simple operation, and trusted innovation.

For starters, PowerMax has NVMe done right – It is end-to-end, ready for NVMeoF and SCM and is built with cutting edge, industry standard technology. With a multi-controller architecture, PowerMax can scale up and out providing flexibility to expand capacity and performance on demand. It is fully active/active and component level fault isolation ensures applications keep running without compromise. Plus, the inline, global deduplication and compression offer extreme efficiency, even at scale.

The real-time machine learning engine built into PowerMaxOS leverages predictive analytics to optimize performance with no overhead. Additionally, PowerMax achieves the highest levels of resiliency and meets the strictest security standards – no matter what – with the gold standard in replication technology, over 6 9’s availability and data at rest encryption.

And at Dell EMC we are constantly driving innovation in our products, so we are excited to share some recent enhancements to the PowerMax family. Simple operation is core to PowerMax. Businesses are able to truly consolidate everything – block, file, mainframe, IBM i and next gen applications that leverage real-time analytics – all on a single PowerMax array. And now with CloudIQ for PowerMax, storage admins can proactively monitor, analyze and troubleshoot everything from anywhere – including any browser or mobile device. CloudIQ is like a fitness tracker for your storage. It is a cloud-based application, powered by machine learning to provide a single, simple display for tracking storage health, reporting on historical trends and planning for future growth. Businesses can leverage cloud capabilities and consumption of PowerMax thanks to the addition of two new pillars to the Future Proof Loyalty program: Cloud-Enabled and Cloud Consumption.

PowerMax is also now available as part of a VxBlock System 1000. For a converged solution, VxBlock 1000 is a new generation of converged infrastructure, with support for mixed technologies all in one full integrated system, including PowerMax 2000 and PowerMax 8000.

The addition of CloudIQ and VxBlock 1000 support and expansion of the Future Proof Loyalty Program further enrich PowerMax’s many differentiated features such as end-to-end NVMe, leading performance and advanced data services.

Customers trust PowerMax as the platform to transform IT and modernize their data center. As Rob Koper, Senior Storage Consultant at Open Line B.V. explains “PowerMax is future-proof. With these arrays, we’ll be able to take advantage of NVMe and next-generation SCM drives, so we are set for years to come.”

All of these updates are available today and Dell EMC PowerMax arrays start at under $150K with CloudIQ included at no additional cost.

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Ch-Ch-Changes: Why Flexible IT Is the Key to Explosive Growth

“The only thing that is constant is change.”

When Greek philosopher Heraclitus uttered this timeless phrase, it’s safe to say he wasn’t referring to the workloads in your data center. But here we are, some 2000+ years later, and his wisdom still rings true. Our world continues to evolve, with technology a prime example.

In the past, IT departments primarily focused on traditional workloads such as file, print, web serving and virtual desktop. Clearly these will always be important, but in today’s digital economy they are no longer enough. To remain relevant in this environment of constant change, IT departments must shift from their traditional mindset to help drive the overall business strategy. With the emergence of new, data-fueled workloads such as IoT, AI and machine learning, IT is poised to play a huge role in their company’s economic success.

“Modernized IT organizations are adopting modular infrastructure at a rate 4x greater than their aging counterparts.”

From Pre-Virtualization Era to Disaggregation Era

There is a shift underway in the world of enterprise technology. IT infrastructure transitioned from a pre-virtualization era, into a virtualization era and now toward an era of disaggregation.

In the pre-virtualization era, data centers operated mainly in silos, often leaving resources stranded. It was inefficient, complex and difficult to manage. These silos made it hard to handle multiple workloads and scale quickly – not to mention expensive to maintain.

Now, as we transition from a virtualization era into an era of disaggregation, IT departments are challenged to keep up with the accompanying demand for disaggregated compute. Unfortunately, many IT departments have not yet embraced the change, and those that are unable – or unwilling – to adapt are beginning to suffer the consequences.

However, organizations that understand the importance of adapting to change are increasingly taking actions to position themselves for success. One way they prepare is by including modular infrastructure in their data center. In fact, modernized IT organizations are adopting modular infrastructure at a rate 4x greater than their aging counterparts. Increased scalability, improved flexibility, and easier manageability are the most-commonly identified benefits of using modular servers. They can adapt quickly to changing workload demands and help break down IT silos, so that IT can focus on innovation and other tasks that help them reach their business goals.

Ultimately, the end goal of modern IT is to combine the benefit of modular design with an extended flexibility of configuration at the individual storage device and all the way to memory centric devices. Dell EMC refers to this fully disaggregated state as kinetic infrastructure. A kinetic infrastructure enables the ability to dynamically assign the right resources for the right workload.

The Dell EMC Kinetic Solution: PowerEdge MX

Transformational workloads (i.e. structured data analytics, unstructured data analytics (cognitive/AI), and cloud-native applications) require an enormous amount of data, and companies must be set up to handle it. Kinetic infrastructure helps companies capitalize on their potential by providing a flexible platform that can handle vast amounts of data and evolve in accordance with changing workload requirements.

Dell EMC recently launched PowerEdge MX, the first modular platform designed with kinetic infrastructure. It provides the flexibility, agility and responsiveness needed to bridge demands of traditional and transformational workloads. Combining compute and storage, connected by scalable fabric, this 7U chassis with integrated systems management software creates shared resources pools that can be dynamically allocated and reallocated as needed for optimum workload performance.

PowerEdge MX dynamically configures compute, storage and fabric and accelerates operations, delivering the innovation and longevity customers of all sizes need for their IT and digital business transformations. It’s flexible, agile and responsive – all key components of a modernized data center.

PowerEdge MX is designed for today’s software-defined data center and provides a solid foundation for your IT transformation. It helps IT break free from traditional boundaries to transform the IT infrastructure to a dynamic pool of instantly responding, adapting and evolving resources. With a modern IT infrastructure anchored by the PowerEdge MX, plus strategic planning and careful preparation, companies can position themselves to succeed both today and in the future.

The world is changing, ready or not. Businesses that prioritize flexibility and learn to adapt to an ever-evolving IT environment are more likely to innovate and succeed in the future. After all, in the wise words of Heraclitus, “Big results require big ambitions.”

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Modern Server Infrastructure can make a Massive Difference for Customers

See how a modernized server environment affects IT Transformation—delivering tangible benefits for businesses of all sizes

In the third of a series of blogs inspired by influential research published by industry analyst ESG, we look at how making the move to implement a modern server infrastructure dramatically accelerates IT Transformation. 

In today’s digital economy, faster IT typically results in competitive business advantage. A modern IT infrastructure is critical for customers who want to stay ahead of the game, because it comes with higher levels of process automation—which, in turn, drives increased speed, agility, scalability, reliability and cost-savings.

Implementing a modernized infrastructure is one of the fundamental steps in any customer’s journey towards transforming their IT. And you have the ability to make it an easy and effective move for your customers—because the entire Dell EMC PowerEdge server portfolio is designed to deliver IT Transformation without compromise.

Encourage customers to modernize their IT

What makes for a modern server environment? Essentially, it’s an infrastructure that focuses on operational cost-efficiency and puts automation at the forefront.

Powered by the latest generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, all PowerEdge servers are built from the ground up around three key tenets: scalable business architecture, intelligent automation and integrated security—making them the bedrock of the modern data center.

Implementing a smart server refresh to the latest Dell EMC PowerEdge technology is a decision that’s likely to pay for itself several times over in terms of operational improvements and cost efficiencies.

It’s also important for your customers and prospects to understand that a modernized server environment has a dramatic influence on an organization’s IT maturity.

How a modernized server environment affects IT maturity

Earlier this year, ESG conducted a survey of 4,000 IT executives from private- and public-sector organizations across 16 countries to evaluate their progress in embracing IT Transformation1—and rank them as ‘Legacy’, ‘Emerging’, ‘Evolving’ or ‘Transformed’.

In general, 85% of the organizations that achieved ‘Transformed’ status met the criteria for a modern server environment. In fact, ‘Transformed’ organizations were 42.5X more likely to operate a modern server environment than ‘Legacy’ organizations. That’s a quite staggering statistic.

The research showed that a modern server environment measurably affects an organization’s IT maturity – improving a spectrum of IT- and business-related performance indicators.

In its Research Insights Brief on the importance of a modern server infrastructure2, ESG states that a true modern server environment addresses several areas. Servers must have the performance to run distributed and rapidly scaling workloads. At the same time, the environment must be efficient enough to minimize the organization’s capital and operational costs. And servers should have security baked in—that is, embedded into the hardware and firmware of the device itself—preventing unauthorized changes or updates and adding a foundational layer to an organization’s defense-in-depth security posture.

Does that sound familiar? It should, because Dell EMC PowerEdge ticks all these boxes and more…

Modernized IT delivers tangible business benefits

The benefits of a modernized server infrastructure are indisputable. The ESG research found that organizations operating modern server environments (with more automated tasks than manual):

◈ Enjoy faster application deployments and are more responsive to the rest of the business.

◈ Are able to move staff away from routine management to focus on more strategic IT projects.

◈ Operate compute environments they believe are as good as or better than public cloud services in terms of cost, agility, scalability and security.

The full research findings make for compelling reading. In its study, ESG found that companies with modern, highly automated server infrastructures:

◈ Completed 14% more IT projects ahead of schedule.

◈ Were 2.5X more likely to run an on-site compute environment that is cost-competitive with the public cloud.

◈ Were more than 2.5X as likely to be more secure than public cloud services.

◈ Managed 82% more VMs per admin.

◈ Saw a 39% reduction in time spent on routine management.

◈ Were more than 3.5x as likely to operate an on-site compute environment matching or exceeding the agility of public clouds.

◈ Were 2.5X more likely to execute most application deployments ahead of schedule.

An easy way to accelerate IT Transformation

A modern, automated server environment is a key component of IT Transformation—and it’s a relatively easy way for your customers to make significant progress on that journey.

How many of your customers and prospects haven’t yet made the move to modernize their IT Infrastructure? It’s an opportunity just waiting to be fulfilled…

Read and share the full ESG Research Insights Brief >>

Learn more about the role of a modern server environment in improved operational performance and start speaking to your prospects and customers today. You can also use the free ESG online assessment tool with them to demonstrate the opportunities and value of IT Transformation.

Explore our dedicated IT Transformation campaign and marketing tools >>

1. ESG Research Insights Paper, ‘Research Proves IT Transformation’s Persistent Link to Agility, Innovation, and Business Value’, March 2018.

2. ESG Research Insights Brief, ‘Transform Your IT with Modern Server Infrastructure’, May 2018.

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New Dell EMC PowerVault ME4 Series Makes Storage Simple, Fast and Affordable for SMB Customers

When speaking with small- and medium-sized customers, there’s a consistent theme that I hear:

“We have the same needs as large enterprises, but we have to meet business expectations with a significantly smaller IT budget and staff.”

Customers need solutions that truly offer the best mix of price/performance for business workloads. That’s why the debut of our next generation entry-level PowerVault ME4 Series storage array family is great news for SMB customers.

Dell EMC’s portfolio ensures customers will always have the RIGHT solution regardless of business segment or workload. For the Entry Storage segment these workloads range from databases, VDI, backup to disk, to productivity applications requiring a solid SAN/DAS solution. This is what PowerVault ME4 Series was built for. In these highly competitive and resource-constrained environments, companies generally don’t get a second chance to make the right IT infrastructure decision – especially with data storage.

At Dell EMC we have listened to our customers to ensure we provide a storage portfolio that’s clear and simple to understand, and the best solution for their needs. Simplifying our storage portfolio is a strategy we have been executing to. Dell EMC is already delivering on the first phase of this strategy with the enterprise-class PowerMax and today, we’re announcing the next step toward achieving that vision with the new low-cost PowerVault ME4 Series, our next generation entry storage solution purpose-built and optimized for SAN and DAS. As referenced by Dell Products & Operations President Jeff Clarke, we are committed to executing on this portfolio simplification strategy and continuous product innovation.

Next generation entry storage is here

The Dell EMC PowerVault ME4 Series is our most affordable SAN/DAS storage array with impressive performance and all-inclusive software. This new storage family comes with significant enhancements over current Dell EMC entry systems in capacity, performance, simplicity, and features. It includes the ME4012 (2U/12 drives), ME4024 (2U/24 drives) and the dense ME4084 (5U/84drives) base systems. With configurations starting under $13,000 (USD), PowerVault ME4 Series arrays are purpose-built and highly optimized for entry-level SAN and DAS environments that can be configured from 0 to 100% flash, expand to 4PB, drive up to 320K IOPs[i], and include all the software you’ll need to store, manage, and protect your data.

Whether you’re taking advantage of PowerVault’s single-vendor DAS integration with leading Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers or connecting the ME4 Series arrays in a high availability SAN environment – you’ll be able to simplify the challenges of server capacity expansion providing business applications with reliable high-speed access to data.

Here are just some of the PowerVault ME4 Series highlights:

Simply all-inclusive

The built-in simplicity of the PowerVault ME4 recognizes the realities that smaller IT staffs are expected to manage a more diverse set of IT infrastructure solutions. As a result, “simplicity” requirements become essential in removing storage complexity with a “set it up and forget it” approach – whenever possible. In fact, we’ve done the testing and wrote the best practices for our customers so you will have every opportunity to be productive in the shortest amount of time. We’ve even included all the software features you’ll need to manage and protect your data as you drive your business forward – there’s nothing extra to buy or install. Best of all, ME4 arrays can be configured and ready for data center operations in 15 minutes with a new HTML5 web-based and intuitive interface for “anywhere” management. In addition to all-inclusive software, each ME4 array includes multi-protocol flexibility with options for Fiber Channel, iSCSI, and SAS host connectivity.

Accelerated performance

In addition to driving up to 320K IOPs and supporting 0-100% flash in any mix of SSDs and HDDs, PowerVault ME4 Series comes standard with a 12G SAS backend for performance at scale and implements advanced SSD Read Cache technologies – all optimized to maximize your storage performance and efficiency. The intelligent ME4 Series caching capabilities help accelerate the speed of any application type or data access that businesses depend on.

Data protection ready

Since no one can predict if or when disaster will occur, protecting critical data and preventing data loss should be the first rule of any IT organization since data is the lifeblood of all companies – regardless of their size or industry. Equipped with snapshots and asynchronous multi-site FC and IP replication capabilities, PowerVault ME4 arrays reliably deliver data protection and disaster recovery options for customers to achieve the recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) that their business demands.

The new PowerVault ME4 Series is just more evidence of our long-standing commitment to innovation. The PowerVault ME4 represents the quintessential entry-level storage product that accelerates and supports business growth while helping to reduce cost and remove operational complexity. This new storage family has been developed with a “set-it up and forget-it” approach, flexible scale and connectivity options, cloud-like management simplicity, and a very impressive price/performance ratio.

IDC’s Q2CY18 Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker ranks Dell as the leader in the External Entry Storage Market with a 31.6% revenue share – larger than the next six competitors combined[i]! We’re #1 because we’ve consistently been investing in this segment of the storage market with innovative technologies and products that customers of all sizes have been purchasing and using for many years. This commitment continues with PowerVault ME4 Series.

Recall from above what I’ve heard from customers – they have the same needs as large enterprises, but have to meet business goals with significantly smaller budgets and IT staffs. We can confidently say that the new PowerVault ME4 Series will affordably deliver what our customers need and without them having to make compromises with their business.

So please take a moment to discover the new PowerVault ME4 Series and join Dell EMC as we help organizations of every size push beyond the boundaries of legacy IT, compete strongly in their industries and realize better business outcomes.

[i] Based on internal and partner performance testing report, 2018

[ii] IDC Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, 2Q2018

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Simply Better: OpenManage Enterprise Update Delivers Powerful New Features

OpenManage Enterprise v3.0 includes virtual identity management and migration, increased scalability, RESTful API support, improved reporting features and centralized management for PowerEdge servers

Dell EMC launched OpenManage Enterprise v3.0, the fully supported, one-to-many systems management console that facilitates unified management for Dell EMC PowerEdge modular infrastructure, rack and tower servers. Version 3.0 introduces new features including scalability of up to 8,000 devices, support for the new PowerEdge MX7000, and provides end-to-end infrastructure monitoring capabilities for Dell EMC storage and networking devices and third-party hardware. It’s easy to install, simple to use, and integrates with OpenManage Mobile, so users can manage and monitor their workloads from anywhere.

“With OpenManage Enterprise v3.0, we focused on end-user requests for a simple, easy to manage, unified console that delivers powerful results,” explains Abhijit Pathak, Senior Manager, Software Engineering. “All of our upgrades and features are a result of customer feedback and our desire to provide the best possible solution to meet our customers’ needs.”

Pathak continues, “As we prepared to bring v3.0 to market, we spent time considering our customers’ business objectives, top priorities, and the types of improvements we could include that would help them work more efficiently and effectively – and basically make their work easier while also attaining faster results.”

One example of user-inspired design is the completely refreshed user interface. As Matt Maze, Software Principal Engineer, explains, “We worked with many of our customers and performed a good deal of end-user testing to make sure the new design is intuitive and simple to navigate. We considered everything from the placement of the buttons to how customers scroll through options as well as their preferences in usage. The result is a modern interface that is easy to use and faster to load.”

Updated dashboard provides a simple, easy-to-understand overview

The reporting features were also enhanced so that IT pros can easily capture specific data and email it to team members or managers. Having this data readily available saves time and increases efficiency.

The OpenManage Enterprise Report Builder makes it easy and faster to both capture and share data

Another example of improvements in the user experience is the ease of performing server deployments – it has very few requisites. It’s a simple, streamlined, “one click to deploy” process. And for customers already using OpenManage Enterprise, the upgrade to v3.0 is a seamless, single-click process as well.

Pushkala Iyer, Software Senior Principal Engineer, describes the benefit of another improvement in v3.0: guided templates. These templates allow end-users to select BIOS settings optimized for the workloads and services that matter most to them. It removes the guesswork in settings by enabling end-users to select from pre-configured settings.

Example of the guided template that enables end-users to select workload-based server performance options that best fit their business needs

In addition to the improved dashboard, enhanced reporting features and guided templates, OpenManage Enterprise v3.0 includes robust API support and identity pool and identity management distribution, among the many other new features (listed below).

What’s New in OpenManage Enterprise v3.0?

◈ PowerEdge MX7000 support (discovery, inventory, firmware updates, chassis templates, proxied-management, standalone / stacked chassis)

◈ Simplified configuration remediation

◈ Increased scalability to manage 8000 devices

◈ Alert reception and processing from unknown devices

◈ Guided templates

◈ Integration with the OpenManage Mobile application enables remote data center monitoring and maintenance via mobile device

◈ Expanded remote scripting tokens

◈ In-place, single click upgrade support (from OpenManage Enterprise -Tech Release to OpenManage Enterprise v.3.0)

◈ New device support for FS8600 / FD332

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Welcome to the Maritime 21st Century and the New Quest for the Golden Fleece

I remember as a child being glued to the TV, watching famous oceanographer, Jacques Cousteau navigate his way under the sea. I found myself entering this magical world, where I could join endless varieties of fish in their natural habitat and wonder at the strange beauty of the marine landscape.

The ocean’s potential

Cousteau was a true pioneer, a visionary ahead of his time. Back in the 1970s, he spoke of the oceans’ potential, predicting a time when the world’s energy crisis would be solved by harnessing tidal and temperature changes in the sea; when metal ores would be mined from the ocean bed and when farmers in diving suits would gather food from marine plantations.

Fast forward to today and I continue to be passionate about the ocean. As the Maritime Business Development Leader with Dell EMC OEM, it’s pretty exciting that the company I work for plays an important part in marine innovation.

Revolutionising deep-sea exploration

Exactly why The Arggonauts from the Fraunhofer IOSB in Karlsruhe are using mobile robotics to revolutionise deep-sea exploration. The team is using customised Dell EMC workstation technology – the Dell EMC Precision  7910 – to power a cost-effective solution that maps the bottom of the ocean at a depth of several thousand metres.

Powered by Intel® Xeon® processors, the Dell EMC workstations control remote operated vehicles from the shore as well as capturing subsea data camera images. HPC Datacentre compute renders the images and translates data into maps while Artificial Intelligence is used to quickly classify images from the unstructured data.

Unmanned underwater technologies and advanced imaging systems

As the only German group in the prestigious International Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE competition, the Arggonauts, under the leadership of Gunnar Brink, are ranked as just one of nine successful teams from around the world, who have made it through to the final round from the original line up back in 2016. With a prize fund of $7 million, this marine competition aims to discover the mysteries of the deep by combining the power of unmanned underwater technologies with mapping and advanced imaging systems.

A modern day Jason, searching for the Golden Fleece

For me, this is Greek mythology reimagined – picture a modern day Jason on the Argo, travelling in unchartered waters, equipped with robotics in his quest for the Golden Fleece!

In the final round, scheduled for this November, the Arggonauts will go head-to-head with the other finalists in a field test. The team’s specially designed, unmanned, underwater vehicles, called, “The Great Divers” will have to measure at least 250 square kilometres of the sea bed at a depth of 4,000 metres within 24 hours, find objects and take pictures that are worthy of an award. After completing this task, “The Great Divers” will be collected by autonomously-operated catamarans. The team then has 48 hours to convert the data into a map.

The final frontier

I believe that this work is critical for the future of our planet. Did you know that we currently have better maps of the moon and the surface of Mars than we do of the bottom of our oceans? It’s amazing to think that the final frontier may not actually be in space, but right here on Planet Earth. If you think about it, most intercontinental communications use deep-sea cables – you could say that the Internet practically comes from the sea! International trade is also linked to the marine world as import and export trade depend on container shipment.

We need to accelerate innovation

Most importantly, I am reminded of Cousteau’s predictions. With the development of deep-sea exploration coupled with the increasing growth in the world’s population, natural resources from the sea are set to become increasingly important. In my view, we need to urgently accelerate innovation in order to improve the speed, scale and image resolution that is necessary to truly understand the ocean.

Protecting sustainable resources

The hope is that over the long-term this work will allow us to discover and protect new species and underwater life forms, along with safer methods of exploration. Of course, the kid in me also dreams that this work will shed new light on the ocean. As Cousteau said, “The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”

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Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Big Data

It’s a big data boom with Ready Solutions for Big Data

It has taken years, but big data analytics has evolved from the latest IT buzzword into a core part of the enterprise. While the term “big data” has been around for quite some time, the big data market is still booming with hundreds of competing technologies in every stage of the data pipeline. Organizations are starting to realize that big data success is not about implementing one application or one piece of technology, but instead requires an optimized technology stack that allows them to get more performance and flexibility out of IT investments, and to scale more quickly and cost-effectively as business needs grow.

At the same time, the perception that “everything should go into the public cloud” because it’s cheaper and easier requires a reality check. When it comes to handling big data, the public cloud is often more expensive and slower than on-premises private cloud solutions, and many times security and compliance policies dictate where data must reside. You can survive the big data boom with a big data as a service (BDaaS) solution that provides the self-service, economics and simplicity of public cloud with the on-premises security and compliance organizations demand.

Dell EMC has worked closely with customers and its partners, BlueData® and Intel® to create an elastic architecture named Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Big Data. This architecture provides self-service access to a variety of Big Data analytics and data science workloads — such as Hadoop, Apache Spark®, Kafka, Cassandra and more — at the same time, on the same infrastructure without sacrificing performance. It includes the latest PowerEdge servers with Intel® Xeon® Processors for maximum scalability and throughput. Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Big Data come with the software, hardware and services needed for IT to provide on-premises BDaaS so your team can save up to 12 months in standing up new big data analytics systems.1

How can you use Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Big Data?

Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Big Data enables the following use cases:

◉ Consolidation of multiple data analytics deployments — Multiple data analytics environments can be difficult and costly to scale while the demand for analytics grows.

◉ Create an on-demand consumption model for big data infrastructure and applications — Allow data teams to quickly and easily create big data environments while simplifying IT resource management.

◉ Enable self-service job creation — Data scientists and analysts can run a variety of jobs against their data.

◉ Leverage the right big data tools for every job — Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Big Data enable data teams to use their favorite tools for big data analytics. It supports Cloudera® Hadoop, Hortonworks® Hadoop, Spark, Cassandra, Kafka, MapR®, TensorFlow™, and custom images for other services. It’s even possible to create multiple environments using different Hadoop distributions, as well as set-up different versions of the same distribution on the same infrastructure.

The ultimate goal of Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Big Data is providing self-service data analytics, lowering costs and simplifying deployment and support.

Self-service analytics

Speed is a key element of success. Data scientists, analysts and developers require on-demand access to real-time analytics to support business needs. Siloed legacy resources can’t deliver the same on-demand access as public cloud providers, but the public cloud has trade-offs, too. On-premises infrastructure integration and deployment for big data analytics applications can be complex and can take months.

Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Big Data give data analysts on-demand access to infrastructure resources and analytics tools — such as Hadoop, Spark, NoSQL, Apache Cassandra®, Apache Kafka® and others — in minutes.2 This enables IT to provide self-service data analytics with the performance, compliance and security of an optimized on-premises solution. Data teams can quickly and easily provision their own resources, run jobs using their choice of tools, and even run multiple analytics workloads simultaneously thanks to multi-tenancy enabled by policy-based automation and management. Lines of business can create and execute their own use cases from a single pool of resources with the responsiveness required by modern big data analytics applications.

Lower costs

When it comes to containing costs for big data analytics, customers are caught between legacy IT that requires increasing resources to maintain, and paying skyrocketing monthly fees to a public cloud services provider. Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Big Data offer a balanced approach by providing an automated, self-service portal built on a bedrock of Dell EMC servers and networking infrastructure delivered by Dell EMC deployment experts.

Because Dell EMC has optimized and integrated the solution stack, you can reduce stand-up time from months to weeks.1 The savings continue past deployment, with reduced management complexity and no unpredictable, recurring monthly charges. The ability to scale compute and storage resources independently, as well as run multiple analytics instances on the same infrastructure helps eliminate costly cluster sprawl and maximize utilization rates while reducing cost. BlueData® reports that you can save up to 75% compared to bare-metal deployments while increasing server utilization by up to 350%.3

Simpler deployment, simpler support

Reliability and operational simplicity are critical to supporting any enterprise IT environment. Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Big Data include everything you need to provide BDaaS, including the hardware, software, consulting, deployment and support services, so you can spend more time on strategic projects. How much time? Customers report that if they tried to implement on their own, it would have taken up to 12 months longer to hire the expertise, figure out the correct configurations, and deploy a solution.1

Dell EMC consultants work with customers from the onset to identify the analytics use case that will have the most business impact, gather requirements and design the solution architecture.

Dell EMC has partnered with BlueData to deploy its EPIC™ (Elastic Private Instant Clusters) software on Dell EMC servers, networking and storage. Our teams install, configure and integrate the hardware and software into the customer’s environment for the prioritized use case, saving the months of time required to configure your own analytics environment.  BlueData enables you to spin up or down environments for analytics in minutes.2 The software provides a simple and easy way to provide self-service provisioning, policy-based automation, and push-button upgrades.

Customers also receive Dell EMC ProSupport to help ensure optimal system performance and minimize downtime through comprehensive hardware and collaborative software support.   They can also opt for ProSupport Plus to get a Technology Service Manager who serves as a single point of contact for the entire solution.

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5 Ways PowerEdge MX Can Take Your Company to the Next Level

By now you’ve heard us refer to kinetic infrastructure, which includes the benefits of modular design but extends the flexibility down to the individual storage device, as the end state nirvana. As our industry shifts from a virtualization era toward a disaggregated era, companies will have the ability to dynamically assign and reassign the right resources for the right workloads. Those that embrace the change will benefit from improved efficiency, increased profitability and overall better business results. By adopting kinetic infrastructure and working toward full server utilization, you can position your organization for success both now and into the future.

The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX is the first modular server designed with kinetic infrastructure. PowerEdge MX provides the flexibility, agility and responsiveness needed to bridge demands of both traditional and transformational workloads.

Combining compute and storage, connected by scalable fabric, this 7U chassis with integrated systems management software creates shared resources pools that can be dynamically allocated and reallocated as needed for optimum workload performance.

Servers based on kinetic infrastructure provide many benefits and can play a crucial role in your company’s IT transformation. Here are 5 ways PowerEdge MX can help take your company to the next level:

1. Process Transformational Workloads

Transformational workloads, which include new and emerging workloads, have different hardware requirements than traditional workloads.

Traditional Workloads Includes mainstream workloads such as:	Transformational Workloads Include new and emerging workloads such as:
File and print	Structured data management software
Web serving	Structured data analytics
Virtual desktop	Unstructured data analytics (cognitive/AI)
Collaborative applications	Software-defined storage
Content applications	Cloud-native application

PowerEdge MX can handle these data-intense workloads, allowing you to quickly process and translate the data into something useful. Whether it’s chatbots, automated marketing tools or another emerging application, these transformational workloads can give your business an advantage in HR, sales, R&D, fulfillment, customer service and more.

2. Position You for Growth

As a company grows, its IT infrastructure must grow along with it. PowerEdge MX enables businesses to scale efficiently, positioning your company for both short and long-term success. As workloads change, you can expand and add more chassis in the rack without the need to purchase additional servers. This “zero growth footprint” means you can add capabilities without the need to purchase additional equipment.

3. Frees up IT Potential

PowerEdge MX dynamically allocates and reallocates shared resource pools as needed for optimum workload performance. This increased density frees up existing data center space, allowing it to be used in other, more efficient ways. Because the unused resources are no longer trapped, they’re available to all existing and future configurations. You can manage spare capacity from a data center level instead of a per server level. This way, a smaller amount of reserved resources can provide the overflow capacity to more servers.

4. Easy to Manage

The PowerEdge MX integrated systems management software allows users to spend less time managing workloads, which frees up time for other critical tasks. Open Manage Enterprise Modular Edition replaces multiple enterprise-level systems management tools with one unified management platform. You can simplify and automate administration, building and managing entire data centers from that single platform. Not only does this make your life easier, but you can better control administrative costs. Win-win.

5. Improved Business Outcomes

The above benefits work together to accomplish one of the most important advantages of PowerEdge MX: helping you reach your business objectives. PowerEdge MX’s unique design helps companies improve their overall business outcomes, such as increased profitability, decreased operating costs and enhanced customer experience. The simplified deployment process reduces errors and downtime, and the increased efficiency means your employees can spend more time on the tasks that add value to your business. The ability to handle transformational workloads quickly allows you to incorporate applications that generate leads or enhance customer experience.

The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX provides a solid foundation for your company’s IT transformation. Its flexible architecture, agile management and responsive design helps you handle traditional and transformational workloads, realizing your potential now and into the future.

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Three Steps to Cloud-Enabling YOUR Edge

The edge computing frontier is a bit like the wild West—technology providers trying to stake their claim of the $70B+ edge computing opportunity (by 2022/2023 according to ACG Research), customers trying to figure how to move into this new territory, and the industry still needing to do considerable work to specify edge nomenclatures, standards and architecture blueprints.

As a result, the notion of the “edge” is still very much a matter of perspective:

◈ An IoT sensor gateway on an airplane helping predict engine failure(s)
◈ A low-power Bluetooth beacon in a mall (proximity-triggered couponing)
◈ A cell site or C-RAN platform Virtual Broadband Base Unit (vBBU)
◈ A universal CPE siting in a branch office
◈ Or a micro-modular data center (5G distributed Unit (DU) cloudlet) sitting below a macro cellular tower, caching UHD content, delivering zip code-specific ad insertion

All of these represent legitimate “edges” and use-cases in their own right. And all call upon a shift to a more compute-style architecture deep in the access network to transform and modernize the infrastructure.

Figure 1. Dell EMC Edge Computing Portfolio

STEP 1: Think Disaggregation – The Journey to Open Infrastructure

The advent of network function virtualization (NFV), the move to Open Networking, and the emergence of new edge standards (Akraino, CloudEdgeX, SEBA, etc.) and operating models for edge workloads have had a profound structural effect on the supply chain, ecosystems and underlying architectures. All positive developments in our mind, directionally driving towards more openness, choice as well as hardware and software “composability”.

One constant, though, is the move to a cloud-like infrastructure at the edge (from the cloud to the core and closer to the delivery point). This represents an opportunity for you, the operator, to be more in the driver seat, taking more control over your architectural destiny. The main goal is to enable a distributed cloud-like platform that allows for massive automation with granular control, visibility and security across administrative domains spanning different organizations and geographies. But how do you get there?

Fortunately, you have a number of solution options for your journey. It starts with open, standards-based infrastructure optimized for the workloads you intend to run and the place you intend to run them. From there, as you layer on software elements you have options both from commercial ISVs and open source communities. The key here is to avoid the ‘full stack,’ ‘all hardware and software engineered by the same supplier’ mentality. That is the world you came from. We want to take you to a world of true openness, choice and flexibility.

STEP 2: Think Workloads: The Journey to the Cloud-Enabled Edge

With open, standards-based compute infrastructure as a foundation, step 2 is about the workload – i.e. the various pieces of software running on the deployed edge nodes. The key goal here is to provide a quasi-ubiquitous and differentiated workload execution environment that can reflect and enforce service logic, enable sophisticated composable functions and service graphs, and enforce policies with granular workload visibility. In the case of 5G mobile edge infrastructure modernization or rollout for instance, the answer lies in bringing the best of IT, service and workload management, and distributed mobility capabilities together in one unified, validated platform that can offer extensive management and disaster recovery capabilities.

STEP 3: Think Dell EMC: Your Journey Starts Here

Our executives have been very prolific in outlining our vision of the edge and the leadership role that Dell EMC is taking in partnering with communication service providers (CSPs) globally.

At Dell EMC we embrace open, standards-based architectures with our PowerEdge and Open Networking portfolios. And we offer the widest set of software options from within the Dell Technologies family, our broader industry ecosystems and open source communities. The combinations are virtually limitless:

Consider for example our PowerEdge XR2 for ruggedized mobile edge applications, or our Edge Gateway series for industrial IoT edge, or our Virtual Edge Platform (VEP) family for enterprise edge and uCPE use-cases (see Figure 1 below). Add to these the commercial or open source software that works for you. Ultimately, this journey is a personal one…personal to your business.

There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ or one single ‘edge.’ In today’s open world, you have a lot of options. And Dell EMC is here to help.

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Accelerating Predictable IT Transformation: 10 Reasons VxRail and VxRack SDDC Are Better Than Ever

Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) has become the primary infrastructure for transformation, on-premises, and cloud-first applications and workloads that require Innovation, certainty and predictability. VxRail and VxRack SDDC not only enable organizations to continuously innovate and rapidly provide transparent service delivery on premises and across multi-cloud environments, but they also help achieve the promise of the Software Defined Data Center.

Why is right now the time to leverage known, trusted technologies from Dell EMC and VMware? Here are 10 reasons why the newest releases of VxRail and VxRack SDDC are better than ever.

1. Continuous innovation from the #1 HCI portfolio. With 2x the share of the nearest competitor, Dell EMC is the global leader in converged and hyper-converged infrastructure. New innovations to VxRail and configure-to-order flexibility for VxRack SDDC bring advancements designed to accelerate and simplify the journey to a Software Defined Data Center and multi-cloud vision.*

2. Validated designs accelerate SDDC deployment. VMware Validated Designs on VxRail and VMware Cloud Foundation at the core of VxRack SDDC, mean it’s easier to architect, implement and manage the complete software designed data center.

3. The standard for transforming VMware environments. VxRail is the only HCI appliance jointly engineered with VMware, dramatically simplifying IT operations accelerating time to market, and delivering an incredible return on investment. VxRack SDDC accelerates the path to VMware multi-cloud by delivering an engineered system that is easy to implement and operate thanks to joint engineering and automation for the VMware software stack.

4. Future-proof on-premises, cloud-ready infrastructure. With the ability to handle nearly any use case, VxRail supports predictable evolution and modernization throughout an organization’s IT transformation, while Dell EMC’s future-proof loyalty program protects VxRail investments.

5. Better together, joint engineering with VMware. VxRack SDDC’s seamless integration of Dell EMC hardware infrastructure, including 14th generation PowerEdge servers and networking, automation, and serviceability extensions, and VMware vSAN and VMware Cloud Foundation allows customers to be up and running quickly with full lifecycle assurance for business critical solutions.

6. Improve operational efficiency. Embedded health checks, automated failover, proactive phone home features and 24×7 single call support ensure uptime. Automated, non-disruptive technology updates and integration with the VMware ecosystem simplify lifecycle management.

7. Speedy and reliable delivery of services and information. VxRail and VxRack SDDC deliver an extraordinary customer experience accelerate IT Transformation with turn-key solutions that extend VMware environments on premises or in a multi-cloud environment.

8. Achieve value faster. Synchronous releases between VxRail and VMware speed time to value with adoption of the latest VMware releases within 30 days.VxRack SDDC powered by VMware Cloud Foundation delivers 15x faster cloud deployment, 4x faster delivery of workload provisioning, and 20x quicker application provisioning.

9. Meet needs in a cloud-first world. The solutions’ ability to deliver simple, granular scaling of capacity and/or performance enables IT to rapidly respond to evolving business needs in a cloud-first world.

10. Success from day one. The Dell EMC Networking Fabric Design Center, which now includes VxRail, helps ensure the most efficient and effective networking paths for HCI deployment, ensuring success right from the start.

The time to accelerate predictable IT transformation is now, and customers need to know how Dell EMC and VMware can help.

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The Journey to PowerEdge MX

I love new product launches that showcase the talent, drive and innovation from the Dell EMC server team. The new PowerEdge MX has been a particularly fascinating journey, and the story of how we arrived at the MX is quite interesting.

Dell EMC has been shipping the PowerEdge M1000e for more than eight years. The PowerEdge M1000e, for those unaware, is a traditional blade-style modular infrastructure solution. The fact that it lived thru nine CPU upgrades is a testament to the foresight of the Dell EMC PowerEdge team.

But, alas, the technologies that brought the M1000e to life and applications of the last decade brought us to a conclusion it was time for a new class of modular infrastructure. The world has shifted to software-defined, first and second-generation modular chassis were all optimized for SAN attached storage. CPU, storage and networking technologies have shifted in such a way that have required re-thinking. Infrastructure management and how it interacts with higher-level management and orchestration have become more critical than ever. Thus, the foundational ideas for MX were born—Flexible, Agile, and Responsive.

We started down the journey with many ideas, after the launch of the PowerEdge FX2, which was a new take on rack servers by adding an element of flexibility in a 2U modular chassis. But as we learned, and branch predicted, a horizontal half-width style modular infrastructure would have serious limitations in the future.

You see, to have lasting value, the PowerEdge MX, didn’t just need live for multiple generations of technology advances—it needed to thrive for generations. As we looked at the constraints on computer architecture, the growing number of cores, the need for memory bandwidth and capacity, along with a looming competitive situation due to lithography technology process differentiations that continued to shrink toward equality, we concluded a few things would happen:

1. Socket size and pin count would explode toward 8+ memory channels

2. During times of competition the one knob all CPU vendors throw is power

3. NVMe would be mainstream soon to keep up with growing core count

4. Different fabrics would emerge in the future

5. SDS would rise in popularity, as would the need for high density local storage per node

We concluded modular in a horizontal half-width displacement was short lived, and we had to go back to vertical. With that in mind, we departed from the PowerEdge FX2 horizontal 2U back toward a vertical orientation.

But we also gained a huge advantage in being able to add enough local storage to pull off vSAN in a can. By getting to six drives per two socket node, plus internal boot drives, we could support any SDS erasure coding scheme from vSAN, ScaleIO, Spaces, CEPH, etc.  This was a huge plus.

But we still had a problem. The expected rise in CPU TDP, due to the competitive landscape, plus sheer adder of power, due to anticipated memory channel gains and NVMe drives, presented a challenge. We had to dig deep and come up with a new approach to modular infrastructure. What happened? Dell EMC invented the first and only no-midplane modular system by creating a direct orthogonal connector. Now we had vertical compute sleds plugging directly into horizontal I/O modules in the rear. This alleviated any future worries about midplane bandwidth constraints. Figure 1 shows a typical modular infrastructure with a midplane. As you can see, a midplane style architecture leaves little room for airflow and you are locked into the capabilities of the midplane for life.

Figure 1 Traditional Modular Chassis with Midplane

The no-midplane design gave us a huge advantage in terms of airflow for these new high power CPUs/memories/NVMe. Plus, by removing the midplane, we didn’t have to worry about signal loss and future I/O speeds due to limitations of a midplane. It also removed a possible failure domain. With the new PowerEdge MX, you can actually put your arm all the way thru the chassis when empty (if you have really long arms). Try that on the competition. (Perhaps something we should consider for a Las Vegas magic show?) You can see a prototype below in Figure 2—do you see what’s missing?  Yep, no midplane. Figure 3 is a detailed view of our new direct orthogonal connector.

Figure 2 Orthogonal Direct Connect Between Compute and Fabric

Figure 3 Orthogonal Connector

Now we have true flexibility and independence on the front compute/storage and rear I/O. We can start with Ethernet IOMs, we can add Gen-Z in the future or whatever new I/O widget comes out. Let’s just say, if the future is silicon photonics, you had better not have a midplane.

From these anticipations and design enhancements, we now have a new style of modular infrastructure optimized for today and tomorrow. If you want traditional virtualization and shared storage, load up the PowerEdge MX with the MX740c compute sled and the MX9116n Fabric Switching Engine with native 25Gb Ethernet, or the MXG610s 32Gb Fibre channel switch and connect to attached shared storage. If you want HCI style virtualization with vSAN, load up the PowerEdge MX with disk-heavy compute sleds. If you need to increase local storage, then add a MX5016s storage sled and assign drives to compute sleds. If you have high in-memory compute needs, add the MX840c, a no compromise 48 DIMM 4-socket server. Due to the design foresight, the PowerEdge MX is a no-compromise platform equivalent to rack servers with a full complement of DIMMs and CPU TDPs. Many of our competitors have limitations around configurations; number of DIMMs, limited local drives, limited CPU stack due to power.

PowerEdge MX is as composable as can be done given the technology available today. As we go forward with the PowerEdge MX, we are already working to complete the journey towards a fully composable kinetic architecture using next-generation fabrics like Gen-Z. We already have POCs in-flight, working with silicon partners across the industry toward this kinetic future using industry standards.

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