Designing From the Home Office

A conversation with Daniel Stine from Lake|Flato Architects

Daniel Stine is a registered architect, author, blogger and educator with more than two decades of experience in the field of architecture. Passionate about architectural visualization and building performance, Dan is a leading advocate for technology and innovation in architectural planning. He’s the director of design technology at Lake|Flato Architects, a nationally renowned, award-winning architectural firm in sustainable design.

As a #DellInsideCircle member, Dell Precision workstations are integral to bringing Dan’s architectural visions to life. I recently sat down with him to discuss remote working, VR-enabled design, and the role of technology for architects.

Chris: Dan, could you share some insights into the life of an architect today?

Dan: The pandemic has accelerated the architecture industry’s trajectory towards full digital integration. Physical gatherings will no longer be considered a necessity for our practice, but as a tool to enhance contextual understanding and to facilitate relationship-building with clients.

Many of us are adapting to not being in the office daily, but the nature of architectural design still requires a lot of social collaboration and raw computing power. The office offered the ideal environment to support both needs!

How has Lake|Flato adopted different technology solutions in 2020?

As our team members moved to work from home, we provided all staff with a full technology package including PCs, dual monitors, docks, peripherals, and more. The goal was to get it as close to the office setup as possible.

Most of our team members are used to working on high-powered Dell Precision tower workstations to support different stages in the design workflow. Since all our designs are modeled three-dimensionally as well as visualized and analyzed using sophisticated software, we require a high-quality CPU, GPU, RAM and solid-state drives to support our workflows. With all this computing power initially centralized in the office, we decided to remote into the systems. Using VMWare Horizons, we could turn a single desktop into a virtual machine accessible anywhere. VMware’s Blast technology provides access to a desktop’s graphics card, unleashing tools like real-time rendering. We are even able to use remote input devices such as 3D Connexion’s 3D mouse.

We’ve uncovered that technology today allows us to be productive and balance work/life no matter where we are. We see opportunities to support a hybrid work week, with team members alternating days they work from home or the studio.

Can you tell us more about Lake|Flato’s design process and how you currently collaborate with your team and clients?

In this period of social distancing, our workstations allow us to effectively engage our clients through an interactive and collaborative virtual design process. We can align on proposed design solutions more quickly and make revisions on the spot.

It all comes down to what works best for the client. There are some clients that we are engaging with 100% over Zoom. Often they are on site and testing out and visualizing our ideas. We’ve also tested cloud-based collaboration tools on 2-in-1 devices that connect to our higher-powered workstations back in the office. We already do a lot of sketching within Miro and Zoom meetings.

Any emerging tech trends that you are excited about? Is VR playing a large role in Lake|Flato’s design process?

Yes, we are already seeing VR, AR, drones, and laser scanning play a larger role in the design process. We have been sending some clients standalone VR headsets to which we push design updates and they enjoy the experience of being immersed in our designs. I recently led a proof-of-concept using the Trimble XR10 with HoloLens 2 and Microsoft Teams, to deliver a safe and remote AR experience. For those not trained to read 2D drawings or static 3D views, it’s a great tool for making a design relatable.

We are in the process of remodeling our office here in San Antonio. To accurately capture the existing conditions, the entire building was laser scanned, resulting in a 20 GB dataset with billions of points. Our Dell Precision desktops handle this large dataset very well. We also have our own drone to capture accurate site data for new projects.

Where does Lake|Flato draw inspiration for architectural designs?

The answer to that question is suggested in the title of our new book, Lake|Flato, Nature | Place | Craft | Restraint. We strive to create unique environments that enrich communities and nurture life. Unashamedly free from convention, our inspiration comes from nature, a project’s micro-climate, and often simple yet elegant design solutions that promote the health and wellbeing of its occupants.

Any tips for upcoming student architects?

I’d recommend that students explore and embrace next-gen energy analysis tools so they can be active participants in mitigating the climate crisis. Students who have experience with these tools will likely have an advantage when seeking future roles!

What tools are most important to your role?

As someone who has written books spanning topics like Revit and architectural hand sketching, I tend to use a lot of tools. Organizational tools like Outlook, Teams, and OneNote are critical. I also use social media to connect with others and learn about new trends and important tech issues within the AEC industry.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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Driving Openness & Innovation Through the Modern Computing Alliance

We’re living through a time of rapid transformation—where technology that helps us connect, collaborate and communicate has taken center stage. We’ve been talking about this period as the “Renaissance of the PC”, where we have a unique opportunity to think and do differently to drive better customer experiences. This “renaissance” doesn’t only apply to the device itself, but how the broader computing ecosystem can come together to drive modern experiences.

Today we’re doing just that with the Modern Computing Alliance. We’ve joined as a proud founding member, alongside Google, Intel, VMware, Citrix and many other members.

What is our goal with the Modern Computing Alliance? It’s simple: to drive an open and innovative ecosystem so customers can get the most from their Chrome OS experiences.

Take our Latitude Chromebooks as an example. We already give IT departments the flexibility to easily integrate the Chrome OS into their ecosystem while still enjoying the global availability, scale and features that our Latitude devices offer.

The Modern Computing Alliance will further build on this idea.

We will collaborate with everyone from software partners to Silicon Valley start-ups to drive more value and innovation for Chrome OS in the broader IT ecosystem. Looking beyond devices, we’ll explore things like data security, insights and multi-factor authentication to create more value and innovation for people like you and me. People that use our devices every day.

If there’s anything I’ve learned this year, it’s that our diverse viewpoints and collective strengths can bring about amazing changes – a “renaissance” – for customers and for ourselves. Our goal for our work with the Alliance is that we bring even more innovative, flexible experiences to you.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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Is This the Renaissance of the PC?

Around the year 2000, the term “tablet PC” was coined. Ten years later, in 2010, we saw the first headline – “The PC Officially Died Today” – and a near decade long debate began, with most tech pundits convinced that the PC would be extinct by 2020.

Fast forward to today and the narrative has changed. Worldwide PC shipments increased 17.1% Y/Y in 3Q20 while smartphone shipments are projected to decline 1.3% Y/Y in the same quarter. While the PC has always helped us connect, collaborate and communicate, 2020 has proven the value it brings to our lives more than any other time I can remember. This is a popular opinion – nearly everyone will agree – but I’d take it a step further. I believe we’re witnessing the renaissance of the PC. Not a resurgence, as that would imply a period of little activity, but a renaissance. An entirely new way to think about something.

We’ve been designing innovative PCs that can help you “work from anywhere” for years, but we’ve been given a rare opportunity to step back, rethink and use this time as a catalyst for positive, innovative change.

IT Doesn’t Touch the PC

It’s mind-boggling what IT teams have accomplished this year. Digital transformation initiatives went from multi-year projects to turning on like a light switch in a matter of days.

We have always put the needs of people at our core, with support available at every stage of a company’s journey to provide a productive and connected digital workforce. With solutions like Unified Workspace, we provide ready-to-work PC experiences for employees, regardless of location. Our approach protects from security vulnerabilities, lightens and automates workloads, provides management options from DIY to managed-for-you, and provides support for the unexpected.

But how does this evolve in our renaissance phase? Think of PCs that self-heal to keep you working instead of looking for help. Think how the combination of AI, analytics, the cloud and improved connectivity will make remote management of PCs a breeze. And how the promise of predictive maintenance means problems fix themselves before they manifest.

A future where IT never physically touches a PC again? That’s a revival that could benefit us all.

With AI, PC Now Stands for Personal Companion

With ever-increasing demands, we need PCs that do more than just work. PCs that are more intelligent, self-aware and user aware. We recently introduced Dell Optimizer, our AI-based software that learns and adapts to how you work and provides faster app launches, extended battery life, and easier log-on and secure lock-outs.

Future AI capabilities will benefit us in ways we haven’t yet imagined. . AI will make PC usage more seamless, customized and hassle-free. It will hurdle common tech challenges, like connecting to the local network or setting up a printer. Imagine ubiquitous connectivity and a continuous experience that translates across all your preferred devices so you can always pick up where you left off. Think about having a personal AI assistant on your PC to help manage your work and home life. Setting calendars appointments or making recommendations based on contextual data will be simple tasks completed in the background for you. A PC that becomes a trusted and reliable assistant, or personal companion, while you manage work and play from anywhere.

Beyond Form Factor: Collaboration and Connectivity take the Spotlight

The industry has long focused on offering the smallest and lightest devices possible. At Dell, we’ve balanced the demand for compact form factors against the convenience of a variety of ports, long battery life and the connectivity options remote workers need. The themes of “work from anywhere” won’t change (think collaboration and connectivity), but the way they manifest will.

As your PC gets more intelligent, it understands when you want to be seen and when you don’t. If you’re participating in a video conference but get distracted – it could be a phone call, or your officemate/partner/child/dog needs you – you can trust your PC to turn off the camera until you choose to re-engage.

The space that you occupy at any given moment shouldn’t limit your productivity. Mobile PCs may offer expansive, adaptive screens so you can be more productive wherever you are. Think of workplaces that are completely wireless and turn on by detecting your presence, so you stay productive as you transition from on-the-go to at-the-desk.

Remote workers need baseline internet connectivity and 5G availability is expanding. The Latitude 9510 is the first PC available on T-Mobile’s 5G network. However, we still need more PCs that can leverage 5G for anywhere, secure connectivity or that can default to 5G when Wi-Fi is slow. Collaboration and connectivity that make you feel like you’re with your colleagues when you aren’t — that’s the next frontier.

PC Luxury Within Reach for All

In the past, executives and salespeople would often get the top-of-the-line devices—the sleekest laptop with high-end components. I know we’ve all had a moment where we’ve gotten a little jealous of a colleague’s new device. When I think about a renaissance of the PC, I imagine us being able to bring these “premium” experiences to more employees. Our promise is that premium is more than the look and feel of a device, the evolving workforce is redefining it.

Premium is about offering the features you care about like low blue light technology and privacy shutters for when you log many hours a day on your device. The unboxing experience also becomes important since IT may never touch the device. And once the PC is out of the box, we should all be able to jump straight into work the moment we power on.

While Dell has focused on accelerating the circular economy for years and is vocal about our moonshot goals, there’s no slowing down when we look to the future. Better PC designs engineered for disassembly and material recovery will become more important. And look for more options like PC as a Service (PCaaS) that provide flexibility in IT spending, simpler ways to refresh to the latest PCs and peace of mind with secure data removal and recycling of the device at its end of life.

Security Conquers All

This new way of working comes with more opportunities for security vulnerabilities, making it critical to secure workers’ PCs.

According to a recent study, more than three-quarters of organizations prioritize supply chain security during vendor selection to address counterfeit components, malware and firmware tampering. Solutions like Dell Technologies SafeSupply Chain help protect against tampering while the PC is in transport and prevent spyware or other malware from getting injected into the device’s hard drive.

Securing below the operating system (OS) is also vital to the overall security of the device, as well as your business. We continue to find ways to bolster PC security with solutions like Dell SafeBIOS — because a compromised BIOS can potentially provide an attacker with access to information on your device.

We also need to rethink security in a creative way. Not through patches and updates, but by offering PCs that use machine learning and AI to eradicate malware before it even settles. PCs should offer best-in-class security products and practices to lower the risk of having end-users accessing internal networks from home. For me, a renaissance in this area means I never question if my PC — or the information on it — is secure.

The Time for a Renaissance Is Now

We have learned the PC is far from dead. It’s the gateway for us all to work, play and learn. Because of this intimacy, people expect more from their PC now than ever before — and we’re listening.

We’re working on augmenting PCs with technologies like cloud, 5G and AI to offer smart, personalized and wonderful experiences. While we’ve long been on this journey, this “renaissance” moment gives us the opportunity to pause and rethink how we bring about this future.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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The Future of Work Reimagined

In early 2020, we talked about our vision for “intelligent companion” devices. We shared how PCs will become more aware of their own condition, location, surroundings, level of security and capabilities. We also showcased how multi-screen devices have the potential to unlock new ways of working and increase productivity. We continue to explore different ways technologies like cloud, 5G and artificial intelligence will come together to improve the PC experience.

These intelligent, personalized, immersive and modern experiences are core to all we do—and they will continue to take center stage as we look to the future of hybrid work. Our innovation journey continues, and we’d like to share some of our visions for the future of work in – and beyond – the office.

Office experiences of the future

For more than a decade, we’ve built a culture around the idea that work is outcomes based and not anchored to a specific place or time. The future of work will be a hybrid model where employees work from various locations aligned to work schedules and lifestyle. This hybrid model will change the physical office layout significantly. Offices will be re-imagined to foster collaboration. Think reservation-based workspaces and collaboration areas instead of cubicles or permanent desks. Team members will frequently transition in-and-out, as well as around, workspaces.

We’re exploring intuitive workplace technologies and concepts to help with this future office experience. As consumers, we’ve become accustomed to features that make our lives easier. Whether it’s our speakers adapting to the music we’re streaming, our cars unlocking as we approach them, or smart thermostats knowing if we’re at home and adjusting the temperature accordingly. That’s the same level of experience we are exploring for our office environment.

Imagine if you could reserve a workspace on an app before you even arrive at the office. AR mapping could help facilities manage the flow of team members and gain insights into utilized space.

At your assigned desk, a wireless dock could sense your device, connect you to the network and adjust to your preferred display settings before you’ve even sat down. Wireless charging hidden under the desk could remove concerns about battery life. Surfaces remain clutter free, and you could pick up your device to disconnect upon departure, so the desk is ready for the next user.

This could be a typical office experience within the next couple of years, and we want to help organizations create a seamless experience from the moment a team member chooses to head into the office.

Beyond the office

We know first-hand that customers need solutions that adapt to the space around them to do their best work – whether that be on the go or moving between various rooms in the home. Technology should empower us and make collaboration easier, not disrupt our productivity – that’s why features like connectivity and battery life remain important wherever customers choose to base themselves.

As we look to the future, we’ve taken our multi-screen concepts journey a step further as we know screen real estate can improve multitasking, productivity and collaboration. Earlier this year, we presented Concept Ori and Concept Duet. Now consider combining the best features of these concepts: a foldable screen with a bigger display for multitasking.

Other concept explorations include dual screens within traditional notebooks; where your compute power and dual monitors live within the same system. Or, imagine a thin device that brings the ease and spontaneity of a pen and paper. A wireless, port-less device that, when paired with your main PC, allows users to have an extra surface for taking smart notes or whiteboarding with colleagues in different locations. And if the task requires a face-to-face conversation, simply bend the display to start a video conference. In the future, extra displays will act as a constant window to socialize and exchange ideas.

Looking forward to our hybrid future

We’re excited about the future of hybrid work – how we worked yesterday will not be how we work tomorrow. While we do not have plans to launch these concepts as products immediately, we can promise you one thing: we’ll continue to look at ways to combine innovative device design, materials, software and cutting-edge technologies to create the best customer experiences possible.

On that note – my team feels that how we do things is just as important as what we do. Dell has committed to reusing or recycling as much as they produce by 2030. This all starts with designing products with circularity in mind.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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Helping to Build a Greener World

As parents, I think we all aspire to pass on a better world to our children. My three adore nature, whether it’s by the sea in Dublin where we live or running wild around the farm where I grew up. That’s one of the reasons, why I love to hear inspiring stories about how technology can help reduce carbon emissions and energy costs. It’s a story that resonates on many levels – it appeals emotionally but also makes sense from both environmental and business perspectives. At Dell Technologies, we believe that by harnessing innovation, we have more opportunity to make a positive difference to our world than ever before.

A vision

Case in point, UK-based Hark had a vision to help businesses reduce their energy expenditure and carbon emissions. The Company invented the Hark Platform, a cloud-based monitoring system, which collects and analyses data on energy use from a range of existing, unconnected systems, including heating, ventilation air conditioning, power and lighting.

When Hark wanted to grow its business, it needed a hardware partner who could provide the right technology, deliver engineering support and scale globally to supply, configure, distribute and support the solution. It chose Dell Technologies OEM Solutions. By combining Hark’s IP with our Edge Gateways and sensors, we’ve partnered to create an automated energy management tool for business.

Good for customers

The solution monitors energy demand, energy usage, power quality and voltage information, sending all the collected data to a virtual dashboard. This allows customers to analyse high energy consumption patterns in real-time and identify what preventative actions they can take to reduce usage. This could be as simple as switching off unnecessary lighting or equipment.

Customers can also monitor the performance of equipment to predict when repairs are needed and receive advance notice of potential failures. This allows convenient scheduling of corrective maintenance and minimises downtime. The results certainly speak for themselves. One of Hark’s retail clients has saved more than $1.3 million over the course of a year and is set to make similar savings annually.

Good for Hark

What about Hark’s business? According to Jordan Appleson, CEO, the partnership with Dell Technologies OEM Solutions has allowed Hark to focus on its IP as well as opening doors and allowing the Company to approach larger enterprises. You can read more about what Jordan has to say on our partnership here.

Good for our world

And, importantly, our environment benefits. I believe that solutions like Hark’s are crucial to managing energy in the new, net-zero carbon world, we are all moving towards. By partnering together, we can help protect our planet and deliver a better future for our kids. This is a story of innovation, of how technology can advance human progress and be a force for good.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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The Intersection of Edge and Cloud

Why the future of business requires edge and cloud technologies to work together

People often think of edge and cloud environments as discrete technologies. While they do offer unique value, it’s becoming clear that edge and cloud are intrinsically intertwined – they complement one another to help organizations understand and act on data from all areas of their business.

However, those getting started with edge need a clear and actionable strategy that dictates:

◉ What technology you invest in

◉ Where you place that technology

◉ How you will move data across these environments

Let’s talk about a strategy that will help you balance the advantages and constraints of both edge and cloud technologies to transform the way you do business.

The edge delivers immediacy and action

The first component of this strategy is edge computing. Many businesses have a significant operational technology footprint – the machines that are extremely industry-specific like an MRI machine or conveyor belt, as well as those that can be found in almost any building such as HVACs and elevators. These resources have typically remained unconnected and therefore offer little insight into the business from the activities they perform. The edge provides a unique opportunity to take what was once offline and bring it online, allowing organizations to understand and act on data from their physical business activities.

Acting on this data in the real world requires immediacy, which is why edge environments are best suited for applications that require accelerated response times. When you pre-process data and perform light analytics locally, you can uncover real-time insights – such as an overheating asset in your manufacturing plant or an unusual motion detected – and act on them within milliseconds.

Let’s walk through what that might look like in a retail setting.

Edge example: Leveraging real-time insights in retail

◉ Self-service checkout: When a customer scans their items through the self-checkout, pricing can be downloaded onto the device, accelerating the transaction.

◉ Real-time coupons: As the customers scans items, localized analytics capabilities can identify what is being purchased and generate coupons for related products.

◉ Loss prevention: Local analytics can help retailers prevent loss by mitigating scanning errors and other mishaps at checkout.

In each of the examples above there is a need for immediate action on this information and therefore a need for edge computing. A delay of just a few seconds could prove costly and hurt the shopper experience.

The cloud gives data a second life

As I noted above for many edge use cases the value of data drops off rapidly, but that very same data can have a second life when transferred to a private or public cloud. For instance, AI and deeper analytics would likely be cost prohibitive to do in each store. The cloud complements edge computing by providing massive scale to keep up with data growth. It also offers native access to services that enable the use of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. By applying these services to the data, you have collected at the edge, you can realize long-term value.

Cloud example: Cloud computing in retail

In-store trend analysis: by taking store data and comparing it over time using advanced analytics activities like inventory, pricing, even scheduling employees can be improved.

Build a 360-degree customer profile: By comparing in-store aggregate data and matching it with other data sets such as loyalty programs to enable more personal engagement methods.

None of these efforts require immediacy, in fact they usually benefit from accumulating data over time, so it makes more sense for the seller to move this data to the cloud once it is processed at the edge.

Using edge and cloud resources in tandem requires consistency

We’re getting to a place where organizations will need a distributed architecture to meet the requirements of the business. One of the biggest inhibitors of doing so is complexity across edge and cloud environments – each environment supporting many applications and coming with its own management capabilities and operations.

That’s why it’s critical to establish consistency across private clouds, public clouds, and edge environments. With consistency, you can more easily

◉ Balance environmental constraints of the edge with the latency and data gravity of the cloud

◉ Leverage the appropriate environment to meet data and application needs

◉ Let business needs determine where applications reside

◉ Reduce management complexity and enhance security across every environment

Let’s bring this back to retail to demonstrate what it looks like when edge and cloud resources are used in tandem.

Example: Combining edge and cloud resources in retail

◉ Omni-channel engagement: When you have physical and digital touchpoints that complement one another, you can engage a customer across different mediums. So, for example, you can recognize an online shopper when they come to your storefront and offer a deal on a previously viewed item. When that shopper leaves, you can engage them digitally to recommend items related to their in-store purchase.

◉ Predictive purchasing: Applying analytics to data around both in-store and online activity, as well as other consumer data, to determine future buying patterns and consumer intent to optimize your store accordingly.

Dell Technologies sets its sights on our digital future

Not long ago, smart phones revolutionized almost every aspect of our lives. At Dell Technologies, we believe that the edge has a similar ability to transform the way business is done. Edge technologies enable you to combine the physical and digital worlds, granting visibility into and freedom to act on the previously hidden aspects of your business.

Like smart phones, however, realizing this vision requires an organization committed to building out an ecosystem, technologies, and services to support them across edge and cloud. Dell Technologies is doing so by delivering optimized infrastructure at the edge, and modern application and data services to support it. We were born for this opportunity as we’ve spent decades building a global supply chain, the expert services organization, and industry-leading partner ecosystem. This is why we won’t stop at the cloud, we’ll push onward to the edge and to what comes next, because this has the potential to change everything.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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What DevOps for AD/ADAS Looks Like

A New Continuous Development Toolchain for Autonomous Driving

Massive Changes

The automotive industry is committed to building safer, smarter cars. This is a continuous, iterative process, with new Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) features constantly moving the world toward an increasingly safer, more efficient autonomous future.

The Society of Automotive Engineers has outlined six levels of autonomy (SAE levels 0-5), spanning from zero autonomy to full autonomy. According to a new forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC), vehicles with some degree of autonomy will represent more than 50% of all vehicles produced by 2024. The most advanced cars on the road today are SAE Level 2 and some are beginning to enter the market with level 3 capabilities. Frost & Sullivan predicts that by 2030, 67% of vehicles sold globally will have at least level 2 and 3 autonomous driving capability.

Driving this massive shift are vehicle OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers and mobility providers and the data they collect and analyze from test fleets around the world. The leaders in this space are optimizing the way they ingest and manage this massive amount of data with infrastructure that meet current and future demands of ADAS and autonomous driving (AD) test and development.

Massive Data

Developing new ADAS (SAE level 3) features today typically requires tens of thousands of CPU cores and 50 to 100 petabytes of storage for the sensor data that was recorded. While that seems like a lot of data, the higher levels of autonomy will require an exponential growth in data.  As ADAS features evolve from simple collision-avoidance systems to fully autonomous vehicles, these systems will combine complex sensing, processing, and algorithmic technologies – necessitating the need for even more recorded sensor data. This vehicle-generated data is a critical component to improving AD/ADAS systems, feeding into integrated test and development cycles (or development tool chains) for these systems.

Frost & Sullivan maintains that before connected and autonomous vehicle providers can leverage the data, they must first create a system that is flexible enough to handle challenges such as:

◉ Future-proofing ADAS simulation and architecture, to adapt to changes in vehicle sensors and other environmental data points

◉ Managing data storage to comply with regulatory and privacy requirements, while addressing security and accessibility needs

◉ Analyzing massive volumes of unstructured data sets, to support analytical modelling and querying of ADAS data. This requires costly and time-consuming data preparation steps, such as labeling data for analysis.

The Challenge

The challenge is to create future-proof architectures not only in the vehicles, but also in the datacenter. Automotive companies require infrastructure that allows them to leverage ever-growing sensor data to build, test and continually improve data models. Data and the infrastructure to manage it will become key differentiators that determine success in the automotive market.

To assure this success, it is important to reduce the complexity of the system for developing ADAS and AD functionalities, and to reduce complexity of development, for example to reduce the amount of needed Electronic Control Units (ECU) from 200+ to a fraction of that. Doing this will require end-to-end development solutions that can do everything from collecting data, to managing data, to developing algorithms that can be ported and deployed in an ECU inside the vehicle, to testing and validation, to hardware in the loop testing.

The problem many automakers run into when developing new AD/ADAS features is an incomplete toolchain that does not support continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment. Very often, some small pieces of this tool chain are deployed while a real end-to-end solution is missing. Seeing the bigger picture is vital to ensuring infrastructure investments are contributing to a larger, long-term strategic vision.

The Solution: A complete autonomous driving data lake reference architecture

Our new Dell Autonomous Drive ecosystem supports the most important steps in the AD/ADAS data process. Developed in conjunction with leading industry and technology partners, Dell Autonomous Drive combines Dell Technologies and partner infrastructure, software and services to offer a complete end-to-end toolchain.

Figure 1: The Dell Autonomous Drive Ecosystem. This drawing does not represent all the connections or equipment required for a complete solution. It is provided as a high-level overview

The Dell Autonomous Drive end-to-end AD/ADAS development toolchain:

◉ speeds the development process, enabling a company to get new features to market faster.

◉ makes development easier for data scientists who otherwise spend 70% of their time on data management, including locating and preparing data.

◉ incorporates mechanisms to save costs by reducing the amount of data needed to train algorithms.

◉ enables automakers to focus on more advanced capabilities such as over-the-air updates.

◉ helps with managing standards and regulations.

◉ allows data scientists the option to include more open source software as a service and manage open source software throughout the development lifecycle.

The Dell Autonomous Drive ecosystem is an open alternative to a single public cloud data lake which can reside on-prem, in the cloud (public and/or private), or any combination of the two. The solution is a complete autonomous driving data lake reference architecture and workflow. This ecosystem helps avoid the unpredictable and unmanageable costs of utilizing a single public cloud solution.

This new ecosystem includes Dell hardware and software including a platform for analyzing  streaming data; PowerScale unstructured data storage combined with PowerEdge CPU and GPU servers provide performance that scales and adapts easily; a data management system streamlines the process; and Dell Technologies Multi-cloud keeps options flexible, making data simultaneously available to multiple public cloud providers, eliminating vendor lock-in and reducing costs.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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The Road to Becoming a Data Scientist

Data scientists are big data wranglers, collecting and analyzing massive sets of structured and unstructured data. The role of data scientist links computer science, statistics, and mathematics. They explore, process, and model data then evaluate the results to create actionable plans for companies and other organizations.

Data scientists are analytical experts who employ their technology and social science skills to find trends and manage data. They use industry knowledge, contextual knowledge, skepticism of existing assumptions to reveal solutions to business challenges.

A data scientist’s work typically includes making sense of messy, unstructured data from specialists such as smart devices, social media feeds, and emails that do not neatly fit into a database.

Data scientists are in demand, but a master's degree in the field may not open as many doors as you think.

Working In Data Science

Working as data scientists, that determine the unknown by asking questions, writing algorithms, and developing statistical models. The main distinction between a data analyst and a data scientist is heavy coding. Data scientists can order fuzzy sets of data using multiple tools simultaneously and build their automation systems and frameworks.

Typical Background of Data Scientist

A data scientist is someone who has scientific and statistical information, hacking skills, and substantive expertise. As such, many data scientists continue degrees, such as a master’s in data science.

Skills and Tools

These incorporate machine learning, software development, Hadoop, Java, data mining/data warehouse, data analysis, python, and object-oriented programming.

Roles and Responsibilities of Data Scientist

Data scientists are typically tasked with designing data modeling processes and creating algorithms and predictive models to extract the information required by an organization to solve complex problems.

Choosing Data Science As A Career Path

Once you have a firm knowledge of the distinctions between data analytics and data science and can recognize what each career entails, you can start deciding which path is the right fit for you. To determine which approach is best aligned with your personal and professional goals, you should consider three key factors.

1. Consider Your Background

While data analysts and data scientists are related in many ways, their variations are rooted in their professional and educational backgrounds.

To arrange their education with these tasks, analysts typically seek an undergraduate degree in a science, technology, engineering, math major, and sometimes even an advanced degree in analytics or a related field. They also seek out the math, science, programming, databases, modeling, and predictive analytics. On the other hand, data scientists focus on designing and constructing new data modeling processes and production processes.

2. Analyze Your Interests in Data Science

Data scientists love numbers, statistics, and programming. As the gatekeepers for their organization’s data, they work almost entirely in databases to open data points from multiple and often disparate sources.

Data scientists must have a blend of math, statistics, computer science, and an interest in and knowledge of the business world. If this description better joins with your background and experience, perhaps a data scientist's role is the right pick for you.

Either way, understanding which career matches your interests will help you get a better idea of the kind of work you will enjoy and likely excel at. Be sure to take the time and study through this part of the equation, as following your employment with your interests can go a long distance in keeping you satisfied in your career for years to come.

3. Think Your Wanted Salary And Data Scientist Career Path

Various levels of experience are required for data scientists resulting in different compensation levels for these roles.

Data scientists have an earning potential of between $96,303 to $16,28,000 according to Salary Guide. Since these professionals work mainly in databases, they can increase their salaries by learning additional programming skills, such as R and Python.

Concluding Words

No subject how you look at it, however, qualified individuals for data-focused careers are highly desired in today’s job market, thanks to businesses’ strong want to make sense of and capitalize on their data.

Once you have considered factors like your background, personal interests, and wanted salary, you can determine which career is the right fit for you and get excited on your Data Scientist path to success.

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It’s Time to Open Up Your RAN

Dell Technologies and partners Red Hat, Altiostar, and NEC and Netcracker have joined forces to accelerate open vRAN deployments

Technology is always evolving, which is exciting and frustrating for any organization trying to keep up with, adapt to, and anticipate new changes. Communication Service Providers (CSPs) have it particularly hard. A case in point: The evolution to 5G requires upgrading your radio access network (RAN), which is no small feat given the tens of thousands of cell towers you’re responsible for. Of course, it’s very likely that your existing RAN is built on proprietary technology, which means it’s inflexible and expensive.

This is why many CSPs are recognizing the potential of open and virtualized radio access networks (vRAN). An open vRAN allows you to disaggregate hardware from software to choose your own components. This way, you aren’t locked into any one solution and have the freedom to modify your RAN based on specific needs.

It also brings powerful automation to help you easily deploy and manage hardware and software across geographically distributed areas. Imagine the time saved from significantly fewer truck rolls to each of those cell towers. Instead, accelerate deployment and manage the entire lifecycle from a central location. At the same time, set yourself up for the future — beyond 5G — with a software-based solution that’s not going to require an exhaustive overhaul next time around.

Open vRAN offers incredible potential. So, what’s holding you back?

It’s true: A disaggregated model built with hardware and software from different vendors can add complexity and risk. How do you integrate all of them? What if they don’t work together?

Fortunately for CSPs, industry leaders are coming together to help reap the benefits of an open, vRAN model. For instance, Dell Technologies has joined forces with three of its valued partners to design an open vRAN reference architecture (RA) — built on best-in-class components — that integrates the stack for you.

It starts with a solid hardware foundation.Dell EMC PowerEdge 740xd servers with support for accelerator technologies such as the Intel® Programmable Acceleration Card (Intel® PAC) N3000, form the compute layer for your vRAN. Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform are added to automate and simplify hardware configuration and management while also supporting Altiostar’s Open vRAN software. Altiostar’s software opens up your RAN, making disaggregation possible, and radically speeds deployment to those tens of thousands of cell towers. And finally, NEC and Netcracker bring the entire RA together for you with systems integration and end-to-end orchestration. With expertise in both IT and radio networks, they have the keen knowledge and skill sets needed to deploy and manage your open vRAN.

Get started now with a validated reference architecture that avoids vendor lock in, reduces risk and speeds your time to market.

Dell Technologies, Red Hat, Altiostar, NEC and Netcracker have done the integration work for you to accelerate your network migration and simplify the evolution of your network.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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Data Security for PowerEdge Servers Made Easy

What do you think when you hear the words, “data security”? A number of ideas may come to mind depending on your background, profession, or how closely you have been following the recent news of data breaches. Often, the same is true when organizations try to tackle the challenge of securing data. They know it’s an issue, but how best to address it? Where should they start? Many organizations fall into the trap of thinking their perimeter security is enough. If they can just keep the threats out of their networks, they will be safe. However, that is not the case. It’s not that those security solutions are not important; in fact, they are crucial. It’s that the threats are continually evolving — and the individuals behind the threats are finding new ways to break in.

We must start treating data with the same rigor as the perimeter, to ensure the right types of security are in place. Data has become the new perimeter. Taking a layered approach to securing data increases the chance that in the event of breach, the data will remain secure. How do we do this? We must make sure the data is encrypted and that the encryption keys are secured, so even if the data is stolen, it is unusable.

One of the many ways Dell Technologies is aiming to help our customers with these security challenges is by providing infrastructure solutions that are cyber-resilient by design. We realize our customers are going to be running their sensitive data on our platforms, so we need to provide them with the tools necessary to secure that data. Here we are going to explore just one of those ways we help customers achieve data security within their server infrastructure.

In a global marketplace, the physical location of data can spread far and wide, leading to increased vulnerabilities. Gone are the days of organizations operating a single, tightly secured data center where access is limited and server hardware physical security is well assured. Data center admins are tasked with fast response times, disaster recovery plans, and regulatory requirements that mandate onshore private data storage. To accomplish this, most organizations follow the multiple data center architecture approach. This conventional approach carries risk.

Data-at-rest encryption is one of the key security considerations to keep data safe on the disks using self-encrypting drives (SEDs). Data-at-rest encryption offers instant, transparent encryption of data on servers and dedicated storage. The default protection strategy for the data on the SEDs is to use on-board key management software which grants authorized users access to the keys needed to decrypt and unlock the data stored on the SED. However, this strategy has limitations. If a malicious user walks out of the data center with this server, they could potentially locate the keys and access the encrypted data. Additionally, it can leave you exposed to insider threats, where an employee who has access to the server could locate the key and steal the data.

To address this security hole, a new feature – Secure Enterprise Key Management (SEKM) was introduced. Utilizing SEKM, the keys are generated, managed, and stored on an external server away from the data that is stored on the SEDs. SEKM is then coupled with industry-leading data security solution Thales’ CipherTrust Manager through the industry standard Key Management Interoperability Protocol or KMIP. Since the CipherTrust Manager is external, the keys have the highest possible availability, so their power to enhance data security can be leveraged across many systems, thereby achieving true scalability that extends the value of the key management components. Leveraging the key management deployment across the organization also simplifies policy management and regulatory compliance audits.

In addition, CipherTrust Manager is external. The keys have the highest possible availability, so their power to enhance data security can be leveraged across many systems. This provides true scalability that extends the value of the key management platform. Leveraging the key management deployment across the organization also simplifies policy management and regulatory compliance audits. If you need to meet higher FIPS levels, including Thales Luna HSMs adds the strongest possible root-of-trust, high entropy of the generated keys, and a FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified hardware vault to hold these critical private keys.

Developing the right data security strategy can be daunting and complex, but with the expertise of our sales teams, we can help to simplify data security and accelerate your time to compliance and to achieve multi-cloud security. With Dell EMC’s cyber-resilient by design PowerEdge servers and Thales CipherTrust Data Security Manager, we can help you develop a more comprehensive strategy to secure your data. If you are ready to get started, contact your Dell Sales team.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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Envision a Safer and Smarter World with Dell EMC PowerScale

I described how video data is growing faster than ever before with the increase in device count and the emergence of new devices with higher resolution and better picture quality. One interesting thing to note is that most video data is unstructured in nature. Unstructured data holds huge potential to help business leaders understand business results, anticipate what’s coming, and act quickly on risk and opportunity. To stay competitive, organizations need an enterprise-grade, scalable and reliable infrastructure to handle the explosive growth of unstructured data.

In June, we announced Dell EMC PowerScale, a new family of storage systems engineered with industry-leading storage software and server hardware to set a new industry standard for how organizations capture and capitalize on unstructured data. Dell EMC PowerScale configured with the PowerScale OneFS operating system forms the next evolution of scale-out NAS solutions. OneFS provides the intelligence behind the highly scalable, high-performance modular storage solution that can grow with the business.

◉ Simplicity at any scale – Capacity and performance are provisioned only when needed. With a single namespace, single file system environments, and enterprise-class data services, customers get simplicity, flexibility, and performance with increased efficiency and new automation capabilities – all at a lower cost. PowerScale provides simplicity and data protection for the most challenging video management applications.

◉ Any data, anywhere – PowerScale can handle a wide variety of data types with its multi-protocol support. With the introduction of S3 support, customers can run modern applications that rely on object storage. In addition, multi-protocol access also enables limitless flexibility to run workloads that can store data with one protocol and access data with a different protocol. In a data-first world, PowerScale provides the optimum fusion of IT best practices with emerging physical security requirements.

◉ Intelligent insights – PowerScale enables data to be turned into insights with the inclusion of CloudIQ, which delivers insights into the health of systems across the data center, and DataIQ, which delivers data insights and data mobility, making it easy for anyone to find and understand data. With the digital transformation taking place in safety and security and associated solutions, PowerScale provides unique toolsets for data insights.

The minimum node size is 3 with PowerScale – customers can start small at a lower entry point and require less rack space. PowerScale is ideally suited for small scale deployments requiring 40-50 cameras (such as airport duty-free shops) up to thousands of cameras (like parking lots and big stadiums). PowerScale’s intelligent insights enable customers to automatically identify suspicious behavior and provide alerts in real time.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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New Challenges Demand New Hybrid IT Solutions

Introducing the Dell EMC Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI

New challenges force us to find new solutions, but sometimes the challenges are so great they require an entirely different way of thinking about the solution.

Cloud was the digital transformation solution to all of IT’s challenges. That is, until it wasn’t. IT departments across organizations were forced to address cloud sprawl, uncontrolled costs, and governance to ensure efficient IT spend.

Then came the era of the hybrid cloud, representing the best of both worlds: the elasticity of public cloud and the security control of on-premises infrastructure. But that too brought a new set of challenges. This proliferation of deployment models required IT staff with the knowledge and skills to manage each of these unique architectures. It also required a unique set of tools to manage each of the cloud and on-premises environments.

Together, Dell Technologies and Microsoft are addressing these needs with the Dell EMC Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI. This system is designed to do one thing and do it really well – optimize the operational experience of Microsoft’s next generation of Azure Stack HCI.

Next Gen Azure Stack HCI

At their Inspire event earlier this year, Microsoft announced the evolution of its HCI solution which is now delivered as an Azure service, not through a traditional licensing model. Users will consume Azure Stack HCI like they would Azure cloud instances, but the infrastructure lives on-premises. It’s by nature a hybrid solution – one that lives in your data center or in a Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO) environment. Because of its Azure integration, customers have access to the latest security, performance and feature enhancements from Microsoft on a regular basis.

Announcing the Dell EMC Integrated System for Azure Stack HCI

Today we are excited to announce that we are launching a new offer: Dell EMC Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI – an all-in-one, validated HCI system with intelligently integrated foundation from Dell Technologies.

When HCI systems hit the market about 10 years ago, traditional servers were the underlying infrastructure, however HCI software has unique performance requirements. To meet the demands of HCI software, Dell EMC took the experience and expertise engineering PowerEdge servers and tailored them to meet the needs of software-defined solutions. Optimized hardware platforms and unique software integrations have propelled Dell EMC HCI systems to #1 in the HCI market.

When it came to designing infrastructure platforms for Azure Stack HCI, we built on that knowledge and experience, yet in some ways had to go back to the drawing board. That’s because the unique hybrid nature of Azure Stack HCI challenged our engineering team to not only think about creating the best HCI platform, we needed to create the best hybrid HCI platform. That’s why every chassis, every drive, DIMM, processor and adapter selection was made specifically to optimize for Azure Stack HCI.

“An example of a successful long-term relationship is the collaboration that went into the Dell EMC Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI. This purpose-built system was designed specifically for the new Azure Stack HCI OS and is a testament to the engineering expertise of our two organizations,” according to Talal Alqinawi, Senior Director at Microsoft. “Together Dell Technologies and Microsoft are making hybrid cloud simple for customers from the core datacenter to Azure public cloud to the edge.”

Same tools, new tricks

While 93% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy, only a third of those are using multi-cloud management tools, leaving the other two-thirds to manage their cloud deployments through different portals, tools, etc.

With the Dell EMC Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI, IT teams can use their familiarity of Azure, Windows Server, and Hyper-V to run and operate Azure Stack HCI with tools such as Windows Admin Center, PowerShell and the Azure portal.

We know that technology doesn’t run itself so when we set out to purpose-build our integrated system for Azure Stack HCI, we thought as much about the management expertise as we did about the hardware. The outcome was a simplified deployment and full stack lifecycle management experience through the OpenManage Integration for Windows Admin Center which reduces manual tasks by 82%, greatly reducing the risk of data entry mistakes or installation option guess work.

Turning a Challenge into a Solution

When you’re ready to get started with the new Azure Stack HCI, Dell Technologies is here to support you with a team of experts. From start to finish and beyond, our proven enterprise-class deployment tools, global support, and consulting services aim to reduce the complexity that comes with design, deployment and management.

While the magic of cloud is mostly the notion that you only pay for what you use, Dell Technologies on Demand delivers on that same promise with flexible payment solutions for Azure Stack HCI. With the ability to pay as you use, but with the control and security of our infrastructure on-premises, Azure Stack HCI might actually be the best of both worlds for Microsoft environments.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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A Designer’s Vision for Circularity

We have a waste problem. The = linear design model of creating products with new materials, using it for its intended purpose and then throwing it away has prevailed as long as humans have been making products. Even with the monumental efforts to encourage recycling, our world is still coping with the huge impact of this model – in landfills, oceans, and waterways. To put it in perspective for my industry, in 2019, only 17.4% of the 53.6 million metric tons of e-waste generated was recycled properly. There is a better way – it’s called circularity. And put simply, it means turning what would be trash into treasure – reusing these materials to create new products.

As a company that creates technology used by millions of people around the world, we are taking responsibility, playing a role in advancing circular design. We’ve been working on this for over a decade, with our first OptiPlex desktop made with recycled plastics in 2007. But as an industry, we need to move faster. We need to move together. Which is why we set this moonshot goal for the future: By 2030, for every product a customer buys, we will reuse or recycle an equivalent product, and 100% of our packaging and more than half of our product content will be made from recycled or renewable material.

The drive to meet this goal is embedded across our entire organization. Our pioneering work with closed-loop plastics means the display you have today, could contain recycled plastics from an display returned five years ago. New reclaimed carbon fiber technology means your Latitude could be made in part from waste from the aerospace industry. And plastic water bottles that once littered a beach are now packaging, protecting your XPS through our partnership with NextWave Plastics.  Early next year you will be able to buy the first PCs in the industry to use bioplastics derived from tree waste from the pulp and paper industry in their design. And our new as-a-Service “Project APEX” solution will extend the life of technology and increase the volume at which we can take back our technology to be refurbished or recycled.

To get where we want to be, we need to accelerate across our entire portfolio beyond anything we’ve ever done before. We need to try new materials, reinvent processes and push product design to the absolute limits of what is possible.

Driving Bold Design Concepts Forward

A typical laptop includes more than 200 parts and components made using plastics and metals. That adds a ton of complexity when considering reuse and responsible recycling. And we have learned this first-hand. Visiting recycling facilities and taking apart old technology ourselves, inspires us to make improvements – removing adhesives, limiting the use of screws and allowing common tools to be used. And last year, following one of these visits I just couldn’t shake the feeling that there had to be a better way.

The reality is that the countdown to 2030 is on. When we set our ambitious circular goal, we didn’t know how we were going to achieve it. What we did know is we were sending a strong signal across our industry for a call-to-action to drive new innovations broadly across our product eco-system. With only nine years left, now is the time to accelerate our expansive thinking, leaving no design avenue not explored, no boundary not pushed to help us test new concepts, materials and technology. Through exploring what’s possible tomorrow, we can gain deeper understanding of possible solutions we can implement today.

This is the challenge I brought to my team of industrial and user experience professionals. What came out of the exercise was the start of a new future circular design vision across all our product lines covering:

◉ Reincarnation and longer lives: We will strive to design products that can be ‘reincarnated’ having multiple lives by enabling repeated lifecycles of reuse or upcycling. Supporting this will be pushing the boundaries of easy assembly and fast disassembly. Imagine a design that could allow an entire product to break down into component level with the removal of a single pin – that’s what we are striving for. Further out in our planning stages, we will focus on how future as-a-Service models could allow us to augment and design equipment that improves over time. Using 5G and strong cloud connectivity, regular, automatic updates we can make products that don’t degrade, they get better.

◉ A focus on the sustainable core: Our biggest impact on PCs will come from shifting our components inside the box to be more sustainable. Internal components and motherboards are some of the most carbon-intensive components to manufacture. We’re evaluating ways to reduce how much we use, use recycled and renewable materials to make them, and shift to reuse of whole components, building a ‘new’ product around these valuable resources and giving them a second life (which is what you can see in the video above!)

◉ The power of artificial intelligence and data: We’re exploring how to use artificial intelligence to design for behavior change, predict failures, and energy efficiency. We’re working on “self-healing” devices that reconstitute or repair themselves through AI and machine learning. We’re building dashboards for IT admins to analyze the performance of their “fleet” and the impact on the company’s carbon footprint. For consumers, we’re planning apps to guide them on sustainable use and aid in recycling when a product is approaching the end of its usefulness.

Our objective is simple. The more we take back to reuse or recycle, the less waste there is on our planet. We will continue to drive and promote our global recycling and takeback programs at scale in service of our moonshot goal.

But it’s not enough to create change for ourselves and reach our 2030 goal. We want to inspire transformation for the entire technology industry in how we  approach design and use resources. It will take industry-wide action to rethink existing approaches and move to designing an entire product for circularity. This is why we’ll engage designers and engineers both in the IT industry and other industries along the way.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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