Data Science: How Can You Start Learning It Today?

Data analytics is a growing and complex career field that measures the success of companies throughout diverse industries and needs a high level of skill, knowledge, and expertise. Data science applies advanced analytics methods and scientific principles to extract valuable information from data for business decision-making, strategic planning, and other uses.

A Brief About Data Science and Why It Is Considered Hard

The sudden course in computers’ hardware capabilities and the spread of the internet have led to data being developed at a very high pace. This has forced other business sectors to store this data as of now. The data hold the key to solving many business problems that seasoned business professionals could only crack earlier. Data Science can be comprehended as the scientific method of analyzing the data and creating predictive models that explore the data’s underlying patterns and establish a relationship between the different variables and the target.

Being a comparatively new field, there is a lot of speculation concerning the difficulty level of this field. It has a reputation of being considered a challenging field to break into. There are important reasons to be considered hard, and while some reasons seem exaggerated, there are elements of data science that may be regarded as challenging.

Why Is Data Science Important?

Data science plays an essential role in virtually all business operations and strategies. It provides information about customers that allows companies to create more decisive marketing campaigns and targeted advertising to increase product sales. It helps manage financial risks, detect fraudulent transactions, and control equipment breakdowns in manufacturing plants and other industrial settings. It helps block cyber-attacks and other security threats in IT systems.

From an operational standpoint, initiatives can optimize the management of supply chains, product inventories, distribution networks, and customer service. They point to increased efficiency and lowered costs on a more fundamental level. Data science also helps companies create business plans and strategies based on informed customer behavior, market trends, and competition. Without it, businesses may miss opportunities and make wrong decisions.

Data science is also vital in areas beyond regular business operations, and its advantages have a diagnosis of medical conditions, image analysis, treatment planning, and medical research in healthcare. Academic organizations use data science to monitor student versions and improve their marketing to future students, and sports teams analyze player interpretation and plan game strategies via data science.

Is Data Science Hard?

There is a particular reason because Data Science occasionally is deemed hard, which is the challenging nature of this field. To gain expertise in Data Science, one needs to develop a good understanding of Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Programming, Visualization, Reporting, Business Understanding, Problem Solving, and Story Telling as it is an amalgamation of multiple disciplines, any individual's active efforts to master this field as one ought to gain knowledge of all these fields.

Aspiring data scientists must comprehend mathematics and statistics as multiple predictive algorithms use mathematical and statistical concepts. To troubleshoot a model, these ideas should be understood in depth. The implementation tools are typically R and Python, demanding some coding skills.

Once the data is analyzed, it is essential to understand its business implication and report it in simple, comprehensive terminology, using visual aids. Lastly, one must also demonstrate developing a model for others to observe it and detect possible loopholes or comprehend where the business conclusion is coming from. This complexity causes Data Science to appear as a complex discipline of study. However, an exemplary aspect of this is that no person can ever have all this knowledge prior. Thus, this field gives equal opportunities to all to try their hand in it, making it a unique form of study.

Conclusion

Almost any industry can benefit from data science, from retail to real estate, and these industries can leverage their current data and weaponize to their competitive advantage. So, if you are an aspiring data scientist ready to exercise your positional power to make decisions for corporations, then go for it. Jokes aside, you will be an essential player with that job profile where you will be the sieve through which structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data will be passing through for getting insights.

A career in data science is a lucrative option since it reciprocates your intellectual and economic needs. Although challenging, data scientists are in higher demand - which is likely to explode in the upcoming decade. So, learn with interest and retain positiveness. Keep working, and the rest will permeate accordingly.

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The Metaverse Isn’t New

The concept of the metaverse has gotten a lot of attention lately. While much of the chatter has been about this “brand new” thing, people who’ve followed crypto, immersive gaming, NFTs, and even Coachella have seen advances in what’s possible for more than a decade.

What is new is the conversation around novel applications and investments; ways to connect with people, places and entertainment in an immersive, mixed-reality space that doesn’t hijack your senses with clunky goggles and finicky joysticks – think Star Trek holodeck versus stumbling around in VR headsets. At the center of it all is data – and a greater need for real-time computing for massive amounts of it.

What do The Matrix, Tupac Shakur, Roblox and Nortel have in common?

They’ve all been a part of the metaverse evolution.

In the 1980s, American-Canadian speculative fiction writer William Gibson coined the term ‘cyberspace’, which he described as the “mass consensual hallucination” of computer networks, and described concepts such as net consciousness, virtual interaction and “the matrix.” You may not have heard of Gibson, but you’re probably familiar with the 1999 film that drew inspiration for its title and basic story line from a trilogy of his works. Many credit The Matrix, and its heavy Artificial Intelligence (AI) themes, with the enormous growth of virtual environments in both video games and on the Internet. It was basically metaverse 1.0.

American rap artist Tupac Shakur was killed in 1996, but somehow shared the stage – and wowed a stunned audience — at Coachella 2012 with fellow musician Snoop Dogg. What looked like a 3D likeness of Shakur was actually a 2D image projected onto an angled piece of glass on the ground and then cast onto the stage. The hologram, and the lifelike experience it created, left concertgoers in awe.

About 15 years ago, former telecom giant Nortel created immersive communication experiences like spatial audio, telepresence and HD videoconferencing. I know this because my colleague John Roese, Dell Technologies’ global chief technology officer, helped lead the charge for them at the time.

Even earlier than that, around 2006, Roblox was born. One of its creators envisioned “a new category of human co-experience where people could play, learn and work together in digital worlds.” Fast forward 18 years and the online game has tens of millions of daily users, and is played by more than half of under-16 children in the U.S. The company recently released a spatial voice system that mimics talking to someone in person – the closer you get to someone, the louder their voice, and vice versa.

Social media platforms won’t rule the metaverse

In a recent interview with Business Insider, Roese said, “the metaverse is a concept we think is an inevitability because we’ve created small pockets of very deep and immersive digital experiences…But we haven’t been able to stitch it together in a way that allows people to move between it, to work across it.”

The term metaverse exploded after Facebook rebranded as Meta late last year. If you followed coverage of that announcement, you may have been lucky enough to catch #Icelandverse, the brilliant marketing campaign launched by Iceland in the weeks following.

While the immersive reality of the metaverse will allow us to “travel” to new places and engage with more people without having to board a plane, Iceland invited everyone to kick it old school and visit Iceland in person, promising “a revolutionary approach to connect our world … without being super weird.”

Metaverse may not be the best way to portray what’s coming

Metaverse essentially describes an alternative place or space – something distinct from reality. However, I think the path we are on has more to do with the mixing of the physical and digital in real-time to create truly immersive experiences.

The potential we see for the technologies that will enable these experiences cannot be contained – or produced or supported — in a single virtual “place” or “space.”

Rather, we’ll see a greater need for real-time computing across massive workloads that combine visual data, AI and machine learning. This will accelerate the decentralization of computing from hyperscale data centers to the world around us, including increasingly powerful PCs and Edge platforms to power these digital, immersive experiences.

That means we need the full weight of global connectivity, including 5G and the technology infrastructure behind it: a multi-cloud ecosystem comprised of public and private clouds at the Edge to make virtual reality, well, a reality. These technologies not only create the experience itself but also support the many applications that must exist in a mixed-reality world.

Social media platforms and hyper-scalers won’t pull this off on their own

It’s going to take an enormous digital village to build an open ecosystem to develop the technology and compute required to process massive data workloads at the Edge, and devices that can deliver rich visual experiences.

Data will be wildly decentralized. So, we’ll need powerful client devices (PCs with GPUs and more memory, mobile phones with co-processors and high core counts, heads-up displays that need server-class compute to power, etc.) and significant scaling of processing capacity in data centers and Edge compute layers.

We’ll need common standards and open interfaces to create immersive experiences that link together – not bubbles of multiple digital worlds. Like much of the technological advances Dell Technologies has enabled over the last 30 years, it’s the ecosystem and open standards that will make these game-changing experiences a reality.

The metaverse is already here

Microsoft recently acquired game developer Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Google has spent years developing relevant technology. Fortnite  features a personal avatar fighting other people’s avatars. It’s been six years since Sony released PlayStation AR. Walmart is about to move into the metaverse with its own cryptocurrency and a collection of NFTs – yes, Walmart. The metaverse isn’t just the stuff of William Gibson novels anymore. It’s here and digital experiences are going to get even more immersive, automated and engaging, mixing virtual and physical in real-time.

Tickets for Coachella 2022 start at $500, but average $5,000, not including travel. Thankfully, Dell Technologies is going all in on the technology and innovation that will soon connect you with people, places and events from where you are.

So, hang tight. You may see the likes of Harry Styles and Billie Eilish in your living room sooner than later, without having to dole out crazy money for the concert festival experience.

Dell is creating technologies that drive human progress. And that progress includes expanding and improving the ways we can “see” more of our world without having to build a travel itinerary. I can’t wait.

Source: dell.com

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Cloud-Based Monitoring for PowerEdge

As a product manager at Dell Technologies, far too often I see the IT industry encounter problems managing infrastructure. IT administrators need to bounce between various consoles to view specific hardware on specific networks to assess their infrastructure. When issues arise, troubleshooting is an arduous, time-consuming task that includes manually running reports, reading through logs and identifying possible root causes. Optimizing operations and performance become an afterthought in this scenario as IT complexity trends upward. Combine these issues with the exponentially growing datasphere, and it is hard to fathom how server infrastructure can continue to scale in the coming years. There is a better way.

A key component of Dell’s solution to these IT challenges is CloudIQ – a cloud-based application that provides a single portal for all your Dell systems. With CloudIQ, you can quickly pivot from a reactive to a proactive approach by utilizing its machine learning and predictive analytics. Gone are the days where IT administrators spend their time reacting to issues. With this tool, you can now proactively address risks, optimize performance and drastically improve operational efficiency. Dell EMC customers have enjoyed CloudIQ with their storage products for several years. In August 2021, Dell introduced CloudIQ for PowerEdge servers. Let’s take a closer look at this exciting addition.

Dell’s OpenManage Enterprise (OME) is our systems management console solution that enables PowerEdge servers’ full lifecycle management. OME is located on-prem, and each instance can manage up to thousands of servers, so organizations with more than one location use more than one OME instance. CloudIQ integrates with each instance of OME, rather than directly integrating to each server, to minimize bandwidth for telemetry. Being cloud- and browser-based, CloudIQ provides the convenience of secure access to enterprise-wide server inventory, health, alerts and metrics regardless of the location.

Connecting PowerEdge to CloudIQ

Once OpenManage Enterprise is set up with PowerEdge servers on a local area network (LAN), there are three simple steps to connect your PowerEdge servers to CloudIQ:

◉ Install the CloudIQ plugin within the OME console.

◉ Activate the CloudIQ plugin within the OME console.

◉ Login and use CloudIQ.

Within 15-30 minutes, you will be able to see data securely flowing to CloudIQ from your servers.

Views of the CloudIQ User Interface

Once logged on, IT administrators are greeted with an interactive homepage with at-a-glance views of your Dell infrastructure (servers as well as storage, data protection and network devices). From this homepage, you can click in the UI to further drill down into views or objects of interest. Within CloudIQ you can quickly see prioritized health issues, inventory and build custom reports on performance metrics of interest.

CloudIQ Homepage

On CloudIQ’s health page, you can click on a single server and view detailed health issues and health history over time. By clicking on a single issue, you can view recommended remediation actions for their server.

CloudIQ Single Server Health View

Clicking on the inventory tab of the same server, you can see detailed information of all hardware components, firmware, licenses and warranty information. This includes detailed inventory information for components such as processors, memory, IO devices, storage sub-system and field replaceable unit (FRU) information.

Single Server Inventory View

Another great feature for servers in CloudIQ is the performance tab that shows various metrics over time. Performance metrics include CPU usage, memory usage, system usage, IO usage, CPU temperatures, airflows and power consumption.

Single Server Performance Page

We expect to enable CloudIQ’s machine learning engine to detect anomalies for PowerEdge for various server metrics in early 2022. Already enabled for storage systems, this feature statistically computes upper and lower bounds based upon historical data for the metrics. If a value falls outside the bounds, an anomaly is detected and shown on the performance view. When released for servers, this feature will enable you to conduct further troubleshooting to optimize server performance.

CloudIQ has a powerful report generation capability enabling you to easily customize reports for all your Dell infrastructure. With PowerEdge servers, there are over 50 metrics that can be placed into table or line graph format and can be tracked over time. These tables and graphs can be repositioned on the page for further customization. CloudIQ also enables you to export or schedule these reports to be sent to you on a periodic basis, such as daily or weekly.

Source: dell.com

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Empower Yourself Against BadUSB Cyberattacks

Have you ever received a package in the mail from a seemingly reputable company containing a USB thumb drive? While I’m sure most of us are aware of the security vulnerability this poses, bad actors are spending significant marketing dollars to fool the population into believing this is a legitimate USB drive. But it’s not what’s visible on the drive, it’s what lies beneath.

This is known as a BadUSB attack; an attack that exploits an inherent vulnerability in USB firmware. Such an attack reprograms a USB device, causing it to act as a human interface device (keyboard emulation). Once re-engineered, the USB device is used to discreetly execute commands or run malicious programs, such as on the victim’s computer. This is nothing new – bad actors have been doing this for well over twenty years.

Recently, U.S. based firms have been the target of BadUSB attacks after some unsuspecting employees received envelopes containing a fake gift card, along with a USB thumb drive. The letter instructed recipients to plug the USB drive into a computer to access a list of items the gift card could be used to purchase. However, the USB thumb drive contained a BadUSB and when connected to a computer, the cyberattack was executed.

The FBI issued this alert on January 7, 2022 to be suspicious of unexpected gifts. The alert details how cybercrime groups are loading up USB sticks, and sending them to organizations in two variations. One imitating the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) accompanied by letters referencing COVID-19 guidelines enclosed with a USB; and one arriving in a decorative gift box containing a fraudulent thank you letter, counterfeit gift card and a USB. All packages contain USBs which, if plugged into a device, could execute a BadUSB attack and infect the system with a dangerous malware software.

Standing guard against cyberattacks such as this is vital to your business. Cyber criminals do not sleep. They are always looking for, and often find, innovative ways to disrupt businesses, thus effecting revenue and reputation. Educating employees on the do’s and don’ts to protect your data and systems is an ongoing effort. It’s important to understand what data has been compromised, when it was compromised and how it’s affecting your business. Having the right data protection solution in place can help mitigate a cyberattack and eliminate the disruption to your business.

This is where Dell Technologies comes in. We understand that it is important to have a copy of your backup data in an isolated location, separate from your production environment. We recognize the importance to have an immutable copy of your backup data in that isolated location. We also know the importance of utilizing intelligence to analyze your immutable copies over time to determine the integrity of your data. We understand that you need confidence in your ability to recover from a cyberattack.

Dell PowerProtect Cyber Recovery will give you that confidence in your ability to recover from a cyberattack through proven technologies, best practices and processes. The Cyber Recovery vault will physically and logically separate your data from your backup data and production environment. This synchronous process is triggered from within the vault by way of a secure air gap that allows only specific data to pass through. Once your data is within the vault, an immutable copy of the data is created to prevent any alteration of the content. Then a forensic analysis is done on the immutable copy to determine the integrity of the data. This intelligent process will crack open your data over time, compare it to the past and determine when and if you have experienced a cyberattack. In the end, Cyber Recovery will give you the last known good backup and allow you to automatically recovery your data, efficiently.

Dell PowerProtect Cyber Recovery will give you peace of mind in helping you secure, protect and recover data in the event of a cyberattack. Cyberattacks continue to evolve, but Dell Technologies continues to evolve to address them through innovative solutions and commitment to help our customers succeed.

Source: dell.com

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Need to Connect Your Applications Across Multiple Clouds?

Multiple clouds are a reality for customer environments, which can be complex and expensive. The promise of simplicity and agility of the public cloud combined with security and control of on-premises infrastructure is not trivial. For example, network connectivity and latency issues between multiple clouds are among key multi-cloud deployment inhibitors.

To solve regulatory complexity, low latency needs for data and application mobility, customers look to cloud service providers (CSPs) to help them bridge their islands of clouds. They need:

◉ Simplicity and agility of the public cloud combined with security and control of on-premises infrastructure.

◉ Private, proximate and secure direct connections to public clouds.

◉ Data sovereignty, risk mitigation and regulatory compliance.

◉ Reduced latency and increased performance.

◉ Controllable, predictable costs.

◉ Increased agility and scalability.

◉ Simplified operations.

◉ Accelerated modernization.

◉ Data center evacuation and consolidation.

◉ Solutions to deal with golden data, potentially split across cloud and on-prem.

Integrated stacks from VMware and Dell Technologies are designed to deliver self-service clouds, multi-tenant with governance and DevOps-based infrastructure management and security. Cloud-like, ease-of-use for on-premises workloads enables your IT operations to focus on value-added services. The solution, in partnership with Equinix, helps industry ecosystems exchange traffic and enable global networks to increase application performance by reducing distance and eliminating networking expenses.

CSPs can build services that span islands of hyperscalers and on-premises by using consistent infrastructure provided by VMware and Dell Technologies. Equinix provides the right connection speed between on-premises and hyperscalers.

Dell Technologies, VMware and Equinix can help CSPs to create multi-cloud services that are differentiators.

Equinix has helped multiple industry ecosystems exchange traffic at scale and are experts at helping companies enable global network and application performance.

We know that most cloud service providers​ want:

◉ To balance security, flexibility and control across both public & private clouds​.

◉ The ability for data and application mobility across clouds.

◉ To provide high data transfer with predictable connectivity costs and latency issues.

Through joint validation, Dell Technologies, VMware and Equinix have created a solution validation. This validation helps cloud service providers build services that span across islands of hyperscalers and on-premises using consistent infrastructure provided by VMware Cloud on Dell Technologies. Equinix provides the right connection speed between on-prem and hyperscalers.

We review this architectural illustration as three separate areas to focus on.

◉ First is the Customer Data Center. Here it is connected to Equinix Data Center shown in the red box. At the Customer Data Center, we have validated VMware SD-WAN to connect from customer on premises to Equinix Data Center securely with encrypted traffic. There are two SD-WAN components on each side to establish the secure connection, and then each SD-WAN edge doing BGP peering with edge router and customer core router to allow the specified traffic to carry over on the network. Other than SD-WAN, connections can use MPLS, or public internet to connect Customer Data Center to Equinix Data Center, illustrated as the red box in the middle.

◉ Secondly, inside this Equinix Data Center are the many options for customers to deploy APEX Cloud Services with VMware Cloud and/or VMware Cloud on Dell Technologies, in a separate or in a nearby rack. From Equinix Data Center, we have two top-of-rack switches to connect to the hyperscalers to the far right of the picture. The connections are up-linked with Equinix Edge Router.

◉ The third area of focus is Equinix Fabric that connects to the hyperscalers. We have VMC on AWS Virtual Gateway connected directly to Equinix Edge router over AWS direct connect. Both the neighbors are connected to Equinix Edge Router. Once your physical connection is established, they are all peered with BGP protocol with separate ASNs. Network latency between Equinix Fabric and hyperscales two are less than 1ms. Though the Equinix IBX portal, you can order the direct connect in less than five minutes. In addition, customers have a choice to bring their own edge routers into Equinix Data Center.

Here is a list of possible use cases to leverage this joint validation for multi-cloud services.

Create multi-cloud management services by consuming a consistent infrastructure with integrated Dell and VMware platforms using high speed and reliable connections provided by Equinix.

Source: dell.com

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Dell Technologies Future-Proof Program: Maximize Investments

Dell Technologies Future-Proof Program is designed to simplify the IT decision-making and purchasing process for data center managers. IT managers and administrators must evaluate numerous factors when making IT decisions and partnering with Dell Technologies simplifies the process.

The Future-Proof Program is divided into three different high-level pillars which are: Guarantee Outcomes, Maximize Investments, and Navigate IT Futures.

This second part of a three-part blog series will discuss the Maximize Investments pillar. The Maximize Investments category of the Future-Proof Program includes Technology Refresh & Recycle, Clear Price, and All-Inclusive Software benefits for customers.

Tech Refresh & Recycle

Dell Technologies is committed to helping protect our customers and our planet and the Technology Refresh & Recycle program exemplifies this commitment. If an IT department purchases a Dell Technologies storage solution the company is eligible for the program. Once new Dell Technologies hardware is installed and running, IT departments are faced with the decision of what to do with legacy IT equipment. Some companies repurpose existing equipment and some companies want to retire hardware they no longer need. IT departments that remove legacy IT hardware benefit from a variety of advantages including eliminating and reducing expenses for power, cooling and hardware maintenance.  Sometimes companies pay third-party vendors to remove and recycle legacy IT equipment. However, if a customer purchases Dell storage equipment Dell Technologies will provide refresh and recycle services at no additional charge for working legacy IT equipment, regardless of the vendor.

Clear Price

The second element of the Maximize Investments pillar is the Clear Price program. Clear Price provides fair and transparent price guidance for ProSupport contract renewals. When an IT department purchases a new solution the cost of the initial support contract is specified. However, IT departments are faced with the uncertainty of the cost of future support contract renewals. The Clear Price program alleviates the uncertainty for IT managers by providing price guidance for future ProSupport renewals. Therefore, the Clear Price program provides clear and predictable prices for future support requirements and the Future-Proof Program enables IT departments to budget and plan for the future operation of their equipment without concern.

All-Inclusive Software

The third element of the Maximize Investments pillar is the All-Inclusive Software program. The All-Inclusive Software offer states that the software needed to store and manage Dell Technologies storage, HCI and networking equipment is included with the system purchase. For example, Dell Technologies PowerStore solutions include the following software: snapshots and thin clones, vVol managed snapshots, intelligent deduplication and compression, Dynamic Resiliency Engine (DRE), data-at-rest encryption (D@RE) and much more. Your sales representative can provide a comprehensive presentation of the software included with Dell Technologies’ solutions.

The Future-Proof Program is an important program dedicated to supporting IT departments. The Maximize Investments pillar is a valuable component of the Future-Proof Program designed to help data center managers achieve the greatest benefits from their IT purchases. The Tech Refresh & Recycle, Clear Price, and All-Inclusive Software programs enable users to maximize their investments when partnering with Dell Technologies. Additional information is located on the Future-Proof Program webpage. Please visit the two additional Future-Proof blogs that describe Guarantee Outcomes and Navigate IT Futures. Talk to your sales representative to learn more about how the Future-Proof Program can benefit your information technology department.

Source: dell.com

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Dell Technologies Future-Proof Program: Navigate IT Futures

IT departments purchasing data center equipment know that technology is constantly changing and do not want to be burdened with legacy IT infrastructure. Dell Technologies Future-Proof Program provides upgrade options and choices to IT managers enabling companies to adapt and benefit from the latest technological advancements. The Future-Proof Program consists of three main pillars which are Guarantee Outcomes, Maximize Investments and Navigate IT Futures.

This is the third blog in a series that highlights the advantages of the Navigate IT Futures pillar. The Navigate IT Futures category includes Anytime Upgrade, Never-Worry Data Migration and Flexible Payment Solutions.

Anytime Upgrade

One element of the Future-Proof Program designed to give IT departments future system upgradeability is the Anytime Upgrade offer. Once a customer purchases the Anytime Upgrade option the program enables Dell Technologies’ PowerStore storage users to upgrade storage controllers starting 180 days after initial purchase. There are two different Anytime Upgrade options available: Anytime Upgrade Standard and Anytime Upgrade Select.

The Anytime Upgrade Standard option enables purchasers to upgrade the storage controller on the corresponding PowerStore array from the current generation controller to the next generation controller at no additional charge. Therefore, IT departments can capture all the performance and innovation available in the next generation storage controller without replacing their array. Users can receive the benefits of the newest storage controller technology.

The Anytime Upgrade Select option provides even more flexibility for IT departments. There are two sub-components of the Anytime Upgrade Select option. The first option enables IT departments to not only upgrade PowerStore controllers from the current generation to the next generation, but simultaneously enables users to upgrade the PowerStore controller model. For example, if an IT department purchased a PowerStore 3000 with a Gen1 controller, and purchased Anytime Upgrade Select, the IT department could upgrade to a PowerStore 5000 with a Gen2 controller. The second option of the Anytime Upgrade Select program enables customers to receive a discount to scale out PowerStore deployments. Anytime Upgrade Select provides options to IT departments that may need additional performance and capacity when they choose to scale out their PowerStore deployments after the initial purchase.

Anytime Upgrade options do not require IT departments to purchase additional capacity or buy additional ProSupport coverage. The Anytime Upgrade program offers unique flexibility that enables users to benefit from the latest technology. Talk to your sales representative to learn more about how the Anytime Upgrade program can benefit your IT environment.

Never-Worry Data Migration

The second element of the Navigate IT Futures pillar is Never-Worry Data Migration. The storage solutions from Dell Technologies are designed to simplify data migration from an existing Dell Technologies storage solution to a new solution if needed. Dell Technologies offers data migration capabilities direct from the array managers. Therefore, Dell Technologies removes the requirement for third party solutions often associated with data migrations.

Flexible Payment Solutions

The final element of the Navigate IT Futures pillar is Flexible Payment solutions. Flexible Payment Solutions includes a broad array of payment and financing options to simplify the purchasing of IT solutions. For example, leasing or financing options from Dell Financial Services deliver simplified and predictable payments for companies. IT managers decide both the technology and terms that are best suited for their workloads. In addition to traditional financing and leasing options, Dell offers APEX Custom Solutions. APEX Custom Solutions enables users to deploy a base capacity as well as a buffer capacity during initial deployment. Most operations will only utilize the base capacity. However, if an IT department temporarily needs buffer capacity, all the necessary components are installed and deployed. The user will only pay for the buffer capacity when the incremental resources are used.

Anytime Upgrade, Never-Worry Data Migration, and Flexible Payment Solutions are designed to support Dell Technologies’ customers over time as technologies change. For more information, please visit the Future-Proof Program webpage and the two related blogs that discuss Guarantee Outcomes and Maximize Investments. Talk to your sales representative to learn more about how the Dell Technologies Future-Proof Program can benefit your IT environment.

Source: dell.com

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Urban Foundations for Next-Gen Mobility

Mobility and urban development have a symbiotic relationship

Ever since the mainstreaming of the motor vehicle at the turn of the previous century, mobility has played a pivotal role in urban development and vice versa. Increased private vehicle ownership, as well as investments in public transit networks and urban road infrastructure, have significantly influenced the shape of today’s urban fabric – city design, economic growth and opportunities and overall quality of life.

These same advancements in urban mobility, however, have also contributed to the challenges that the cities of today are trying to address – increased traffic congestion, longer commute times, higher greenhouse gas emissions and higher numbers of traffic accidents.

And we expect these trends to continue to accelerate with increased urbanization. By 2030, the United Nations estimates that megacities (metropolises with at least 10 million residents) will be home to more than 750 million people globally, a 35% increase from today. According to the World Economic Forum, the number of cars worldwide are set to increase from 1.1 billion in 2019 to 2.0 billion by 2040.

Given this rapid growth coupled with aging urban infrastructure and constrained budgets, city planners need to adopt more innovative and efficient approaches to addressing these challenges and enabling a modern, safe, convenient and sustainable urban mobility ecosystem for the future.

Technology and data are enabling new possibilities

As many modern technologies like IoT and edge, 5G and artificial intelligence mature and converge, we are witnessing data-led disruptions in many parts of the urban mobility ecosystem – ride hailing and sharing, advanced traffic management systems, mobility-as-a-Service, e-tolling, contactless public transit payments and micro-mobility to name a few.

Further advancements in alternative fuel technologies, including electrification of the vehicle fleet and mainstreaming of autonomous passenger and freight mobility, promise to further disrupt existing mobility paradigms.

These disruptions will in turn have a significant and positive cascading effect on other aspects of city administration and operation. We anticipate such improvements as:

◉ Integrated, efficient and safer urban traffic management and operations, with real time situational awareness and integrated incident response capabilities.

◉ Reduced pollution and emissions through sustainable mobility approaches like electric vehicles and advanced public transit systems.

◉ Greater citizen convenience through innovative mobility solutions and services such as seamless and multi-modal mobility-as-a-Service and contactless payments.

◉ New urban planning approaches that can support and grow next generation urban mobility technologies like autonomous mobility, vehicle-to-everything communication and drones.

This transformation will be a multi-year journey

◉ Focus on the outcomes. It is important that cities understand and prioritize citizen expectations and set medium to long-term visions and roadmaps that clearly define specific, achievable outcomes.

◉ Identify key proven and validated solutions. Identifying the right solutions and partners in today’s highly fragmented and diversified solution ecosystem may pose a key challenge for cities. Having the right approach to solution and partner selection, while ensuring the reliability, sustainability and scalability of solutions is critical.

◉ Start small but plan for scale and future. Lack of funding is often a key constraint that prevents many projects from taking off after the proof-of-concept stage. An agile, modular solution approach that enables cities to start small (for example, modernizing traffic flow at a single intersection to assess the value to the local community) but scale over time can enable cities to accommodate growth while also providing the flexibility to adapt as necessary.

◉ Integrated platform-driven approach toward “system of systems”. As cities embark on their digital transformation roadmaps one outcome at a time, they risk building siloed solutions – across vendors, technologies, etc. Having a consistent, open and modern platform-driven approach that integrates these multiple systems (traffic management, violation enforcement, public transit operations and more) into a “system of systems” and leverages the cross-domain data efficiently across multiple solutions is critical to realizing the true value of this transformation.

◉ Cybersecurity. As cities get digitized and data becomes ubiquitous, securing the city’s assets and citizens from potential cyber threats has become a critical agenda for administrators. This, along with the need to ensure citizen trust and data privacy, makes it critical that cities adopt solution architectures that incorporate data security and privacy as native features.

We are at the cusp on a significant technology disruption in the mobility sector which promises some unprecedented outcomes for the betterment of our cities. This, in turn, necessitates that cities adapt and transform multiple facets of their operations and administration and is going to be a complex, iterative and multi-year journey. It is therefore critical for cities to adopt a strong digital foundation that is agile, scalable, modern, future-proof and secure while also engaging with an ecosystem of partners who are aligned to this approach and can enable cities to deliver real citizen outcomes and evolve into competitive and thriving modern societies of the future.

Source: dell.com

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In Pursuit of Touchless Telecom

Communication Service Providers (CSPs) understand the complexity and enormity of a telecom network. The size and breadth of these networks alone makes them a serious undertaking to deploy, commission and assure. With the added implications of technical complexity and aging technical debt, growing service delivery complexity and security concerns, network operations leaders already have their hands full.

The many promises of 5G

We’re familiar with the idea that 5G promises to move these networks to an open, cloud-native and disaggregated architecture with the benefits of agility, automation and a very attractive cost-to-operate built foundationally in the use of commodity infrastructure. We are far enough into this industry shift to be able to point to examples of early adopters that are showing us that that most, if not all, of these things can be true. We are also learning, however, that deployments of these IT-centric models and open-systems infrastructure have significant added implications for operations teams as they struggle to build proficiency with the new tools and processes necessary to add these new architectures to existing network assurance and support models.

The operations business case

The business cases for the adoption of these new network platforms and technologies are typically built from three primary elements:

◉ A shift to commodity infrastructure and X86 Hardware.

◉ Enabling CSPs to expand service offerings and capture new and emerging go-to-market opportunities.

◉ Scalability and agility of multi-cloud platforms and the promise of operational automation.

While the first two elements are foundational to these business decisions, it is the area of platform-centric operational automation that is the most commonly overlooked contributor to the 5G business case. While the most complex to build, and the most difficult to unpack – the operations business case can also have the greatest return. The challenges with activity-based-cost analysis and challenges with incorporating items like soft-costs and opportunity-costs into ROI models can create a barrier to this important conversation.

Zero-touch-everything 

The marketing messaging from vendors and manufacturers of the many tools, platforms and products that support this shift to disaggregated networks all include a promise of massive operational simplicity. Terms like zero-touch-provisioning, self-healing and autonomous-operations are so common as to have been rendered almost meaningless. The promises made by vendors with point-solutions are almost always limited to the domain of their particular product or toolset. While any one area of automation and zero touch may be essential to the scaled deployment of open networks, it is the aggregate view that really matters. Zero-touch-everything is an exercise in aggregate automation, interoperability and platform-centric systems integration.

Lessons from 20 years of IT systems integration

In the 21 years since virtualization hit our datacenters, there has been a lot learned in the pursuit of reducing cost and increasing flexibility and resiliency. The lessons learned by IT systems operators and integrators over the past two decades is a source of significant insights to network operators who look to bring these technologies and operating principals into their networks. The pursuit of zero-touch automation, cloud-native and platform-centric operating models and an integrated assurance toolset remains difficult for most. Dell Technologies has been working for over a decade to deliver technology foundations and integrated solutions and managed services that consider full-stack life cycle management. It is well established that the value added from this type of systems integration massively impacts delivery timelines, improves deployment success and, importantly, reduces operational complexity and risk. This integrated solutions approach positions Dell Technologies as a trusted partner who can confidently deliver on the business case for multi-cloud platforms and who is held deeply accountable for ensuring the realized benefits of operational automation and simplicity.

The case for open-systems integration and platform thinking 

As engineering-centric organizations, it is tempting to look discretely at the promises of automation from point-solutions providers. It is an easy trap to assume that applications and network functions will operate flawlessly on new multi-cloud platforms, that new AI-driven network assurance tools will interoperate with the fleet management tools provided by hardware and sub-component vendors and that it will be easy to remotely life cycle manage a deployed configuration. Instead, a modular and platform-centric approach would center around building persistent interoperability, cross-domain orchestration of network and customer functions and a consistent service management toolset.

Executing successfully against these objectives depends on leveraging the certifications, testing and solutions efforts of open-systems integrators like Dell Technologies. Dell has been building and delivering integrated outcomes and technology platforms for over a decade and has a deep understand of how to overcome the barriers to the successful adoption of software-defined, multi-cloud and cloud-native modern architectures.

As we continue to increase our R&D into the expanded ecosystem of tools, platforms, certifications, services and partnerships that are specific to telecom network operators, we will do so with the same intent – to significantly reduce complexity and risk, while also improving time to value and operational resiliency. The recent launch of our Bare Metal Orchestration toolset illustrates our commitment to enabling full-stack operational automation at the scale and complexity of telecom network operators.

Setting a vision for network transformation 

A complete open-systems transformation of carrier networks will take years. The benefits of this transformation are very clear. The realization of these objectives requires a plan to transform both technology platforms and network operations. Defining a holistic end-state built around a common core, with an eye to platform and service-based integrations, allow CSPs to make investments now that are foundational to their long-term success. Leveraging service integrators like Dell Technologies to help set these long term strategies, and relying on our commitments to remove architectural, delivery and operational risk are all elements of a successful network transformation.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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What Does Remarkable Healthcare Look Like?

Wireless communications have a long history in healthcare, dating back to the first wireless pagers developed for doctors in the 1950s. But with 5G technology, mobile service providers have the potential to redefine the future of healthcare. Doctors delivering in-home healthcare through mobile video, accelerating drug trials by using “virtual” patients and AI systems that can make life-or-death decisions are just some of the potential 5G applications that healthcare providers around the world are studying.

Some of this is happening today over 4G but what’s so special about 5G technology?

◉ It’s 100x faster than 4G.

◉ It’s 200x more responsive than 4G.

◉ It can support up to one million connected devices in a single square kilometer.

◉ It can deliver millions of different network experiences through network slicing.

◉ It can host applications at the edge of the healthcare network to handle powerful real-time processing at the point of need rather than backhauling data over the internet and losing precious time.

Envisioning better healthcare with 5G

Capabilities like these capture the imagination, and healthcare providers have already imagined some very exciting ways to use 5G services to improve care. For example, clinical researchers are looking at ways that 5G technology can help improve drug trials. By collecting data from smartphone apps and wearable devices, pharmaceutical companies can create a digital twin of trial participants and process data in real time rather than collecting clinical data through a lab or fixed facility. This can dramatically speed up the development and approval of new drugs which is critical for healthcare providers in the years ahead.

Remote healthcare is another area where 5G has the potential to be both a game-changer and a lifesaver. With the low latency, high bandwidth and enhanced security that 5G provides, healthcare professionals can make video house calls with patients without fear of dropped connections, choppy audio or frozen screens. At the same time, healthcare workers can be tracking real-time readings from wearable devices, such as medical monitors and fitness bracelets, to get a full picture of patients’ health. Further into the future, doctors may even be able to perform remote surgery with the help of 5G communications.

Emergency healthcare services can also greatly benefit from 5G technology by enabling remote medical workers to treat traumatic injuries at the accident site. In the critical moments after an injury, the ability to bring in a broader medical team to assess and diagnose injuries can save lives and lead to better medical outcomes. Advance visibility into injuries also allows hospitals to better prepare the resources necessary for an emergency patient’s arrival.

We are helping to drive the future of healthcare

Dell Technologies is no stranger to hospitals and healthcare. Over 10,000 hospitals around the world rely on Dell Technologies healthcare solutions. For example, two out of three hospitals use Dell desktops or laptops and Dell EMC storage solutions. And nearly one in every two hospitals is running a Dell EMC server.

Today, we’re extending our technology commitment to healthcare providers by working with industry-leading partners to build the 5G solutions of tomorrow. Our Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab (OTEL) is a new state-of-the-art facility where 5G software/hardware vendors and enterprises can come together to build, test and validate solutions for healthcare and other essential applications. By bringing our experience in hardware, data-driven intelligence and automation to bear on 5G healthcare solutions, Dell Technologies is helping to bring healthcare closer to everyone.

Source: delltechnologies.com

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