Securing Digital Transformation with PowerEdge and VMware

With the explosive growth in the amount, and value, of data fueling today’s global environment, the need for businesses to readily adapt is critical for survival. IT managers are under enormous pressure to deliver applications and services that not only innovate and transform the business, but also keep up with the ongoing security threats to their data. The number one barrier to transformation is data privacy and security concerns. How IT managers protect and secure infrastructure against escalating threats can make or break your digital transformation initiatives.

Today, security threats can come from all different directions and could include things like identity theft, theft of IP, extortion, viruses, worms, etc. The security threat landscape has grown over the past few years, with 81% of businesses experiencing a security breach, and continues to evolve rapidly, which has been challenging for organizations to keep up with, manage and forecast. This requires periodically monitoring the threat landscape and assessing the organization’s resiliency to potential threats. With the unpredictability of threats, a practical approach would be to adopt a security framework that addresses not just traditional threats but one that adapts to today’s growing and ever-changing threat landscape.

Securing the data center has become crucial to securing business, as it has become a valuable target for malicious attackers seeking access to the information, applications, and services that organizations rely on every day. While the move to a software-defined data center (SDDC) — where compute, storage and networking are virtualized — can improve agility and support digital transformation efforts, virtualized data centers create a bigger need for security at the infrastructure layer. Security integrated within the hardware and software enables a more extensive security approach, along with greater agility and flexibility when dealing with security threats. As servers become more central in an SDDC architecture, server security becomes the foundation of overall enterprise security.

Together, Dell PowerEdge and VMware solutions enable simpler, scalable and more agile IT that is secure by default and flexible to meet the needs of diverse workloads. By automating and protecting hybrid cloud environments — from chip to firmware to virtual machine to container — Dell Technologies and VMware maximize your ability to withstand cyberattacks, protect information and transform IT. Our flexible, purpose-built solutions are designed to provide optimal performance across the edge, core and cloud with automation and consistency for physical and virtual environments — all backed by industry-leading support and the ability to leverage existing investments in joint solutions and services.

Server security is vital to securing IT infrastructure — it allows you to protect against, detect and recover from malicious attacks. Unfortunately, while security teams often focus on protecting the operating system and applications, less attention is given to the underlying server infrastructure, including hardware and firmware.

The Dell Technologies approach to security is built-in, with security integrated into every step of the Dell Secure Development Lifecycle. Cyber Resilient Architecture includes the embedded server firmware, the OS, peripheral devices, and the management operations within it to promote effective and reliable protection from attacks, providing for rapid recovery with little to no business interruption.

◉ Protect servers during every aspect of the lifecycle, including BIOS, firmware, data and physical hardware.

◉ Detect malicious cyberattacks and unapproved changes; engage IT administrators proactively.

◉ Recover BIOS, firmware and OS to a known good state; securely retire or repurpose servers.

Organizations can build a process to protect valuable server infrastructure and the data within it by detecting abnormalities, breaches and unauthorized operations and recovering from unintended or malicious events.

Just as security is built into PowerEdge, VMware leverages infrastructure to protect apps and data from endpoint to cloud — in real-time, across any cloud or device. As an integral and distributed part of the enterprise — the software stack incorporates all aspects of the technology ecosystem to deliver more effective security. The result is security that’s built-in and distributed with your control points of users, devices, workloads, and networks, with fewer tools and silos and better context.

For example, with the intrinsic nature of security on VMware software the following features can help protect you from threats:

VMware vSphere with Tanzu:

◉ Easily enable VM encryption and advanced security with vSphere Native Key Provider.

◉ Ease compliance audits with vSphere Product Audit Guides and FIPS validation.

◉ Deliver seamless enterprise and multifactor authentication with Identity Federation.

◉ Get intrinsic security and control with remote verification using vSphere Trust Authority.

◉ Apply security policies and storage limits to virtual machines and Kubernetes clusters with vSphere Pod Services.

VMware vSAN:

◉ vSAN encryption provides data-at-rest and data-in-transit security at cluster level including deduplication and compression.

◉ Over-the-wire encryption for data-in-transit between vSAN nodes.

◉ FIPs 140-2 validated encryption modules that meet U.S. federal requirements.

◉ New monitoring and analysis tools plus root cause analysis help customers rapidly diagnose and treat underlying issues.

VMware NSX:

◉ Attainable and efficient Zero-trust security because critical apps are locked down.

◉ Leverage IDS/IPS to defend against lateral threats.

◉ Complete L1-L7 controls with NSX Micro-segmentation.

◉ Logical DMZ created in software.

Dell PowerEdge and VMware automate and protect hybrid cloud environments to maximize your ability to endure cyberattacks, protect information, and transform IT. Jointly tested and backed by industry-leading support, our flexible, purpose-built solutions provide optimal performance across the edge, core and cloud to leverage existing investments in joint solutions and services.

Source: dell.com

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How Dell IT is Driving Data-as-a-product

Welcome to the new data era, where hyper-connected infrastructure is processing more and more zettabytes from everywhere and anywhere around the world at speeds we’ve never seen before. We intuitively know that this data will produce breakthrough insights and outstanding results for the companies that are able to make sense of it all. The question for all of us IT folk is “HOW do I enable my business partners to leverage that data and create the bottom-line value that we know is there?”

We believe the approach that makes the most sense is to make it Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR), while also recognizing data for what it is – a product that we use to create value for our customers.

As with any product, this requires that we understand the objectives of our customers, how they want to create value with our data product, and then tailor our approach to how we produce and manage that product throughout its lifecycle.

This means that we must create a close partnership between data producers (largely IT folks) and data consumers (largely business folks). This partnership forms the basis for implementing data management best practices, creating trust in the data and ultimately the long-term value creation we’re all looking for.

Dell Digital, Dell’s IT organization, is protecting and maximizing the potential of Dell Technologies data to power our business units through a data-first culture, data-as-a-product and a foundational architecture built for this data decade.

The business imperative for data

As I mentioned above the first, and arguably most important, step in embracing data-as-a- product is identifying the key data consumers and forming a relationship with your business partners. Creating value with data is all about enabling business processes to consume your data in a way that generates insights and value. Defining how that is best done must be a business activity—one that supports and extends business process.

In some cases, this requires a culture change both for the technical teams, who often see data analysis as a showcase for sophisticated technologies, and for the business teams, who often regard data as the sawdust left behind from their business processes. Data leverages technology and intelligence to create value inside of processes. Without the people and process knowledge the business brings, we technologists are left without a lot of purpose.

The product team model

To do this, Dell Digital is taking bold steps to democratize our data and empower our application owners by forming data product teams around data sets and the business processes they support. These teams directly include business partners throughout the product development lifecycle. This both deepens the trusted relationships that exist between application owners and business partners and serves to bolster the trust and sense of ownership that business people have in the data.

By focusing the relationship down to well-defined “creators” and “consumers,” we can create a highly effective product team that is able to not only manage quality and the data lifecycle more efficiently, but it can also pivot its precious resources towards innovation, value creation and maximization. These teams can then be free to iterate, experiment, test and learn their way to a better data future for their data product.

The people behind the product

Hopefully you have an idea of what we are trying to create: an innovative new model that leverages the best practices of software engineering and relationship building to create multi-disciplinary teams that are empowered to leverage your data to create new ways of doing business.

This is about creating the culture of ownership and accountability for data, but not in a monolithic, in a highly democratized way. In this fashion, data product teams can collaborate, share best practices with each other and even compete to return the value of data back to the enterprise and our customers. Data ownership at the product level is the core concept here, without which value creation is impossible. Identifying a clear business owner and technical owner is fundamental.

Technology in the data playground

Having successfully done that, we can release our inner technologist on some of the most amazing new technology in the industry. In order to create a successful marketplace of data products that maximizes the connections between data producers and data consumers (and also enables new and unforeseen connections), we’ve deployed a data fabric architecture.

Built on Dell-on-Dell technology, our ecosystem is interconnected through active metadata and automation. We provide automated self-service to rapidly spin up new data pipelines with smart data ingestion.

Our curated catalog offers a range of data forms, from raw data for operational analytics data science to cleansed and curated data for machine learning analytics, to aggregated data packaged and optimized for consumption for traditional business intelligence and artificial intelligence.

The end state of this data fabric is an ecosystem that’s optimized as autonomously as possible to deliver the data seamlessly from the producer to the consumer through automation and active metadata.

Since technology is only valuable when it gets used, we have spent a lot of time designing a user experience that supports our data-as-a-product approach. The idea is for users to feel like they have the same experience across our entire data set.

The bottom line is that data needs to be respected and treated as a product, and if you do that, you can find all kinds of value creation opportunities across your data footprint.

Source: dell.com

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Reimagined Work Demands Redesigned Machines

The concept of Hybrid Work is unique to each of us. It means something different to everyone but with it comes an overwhelming sense of change and opportunity to redefine your relationship with work. How and where you do that is entirely up to you.

To help you embrace the dynamics of the hybrid world, we aren’t sticking to what’s worked in the past. We believe that technology shouldn’t be “one-size fits all” and so we are redesigning our devices with more power, intelligent features and improved security – while making them smaller and thinner to better fit today’s workforce. Whether you are a C-suite executive jumping from video calls to in-person meetings or a creative professional taking a project from inspiration to reality, building off our recent commercial announcement, Dell Technologies new Latitude and Precision devices are expertly designed with collaboration and performance in mind to power the way you work best.

Redesigned for a new age of collaboration 

Some days the conference room is your kitchen table, others you’re heading to a client’s office to meet for the first time face-to-face in more than two years. Either way, on-the-go business leaders need devices that enhance productivity, are easy to carry and look great. The new Latitude 9330 answers this call (literally!) – packing key collaboration, connectivity and privacy features into a 2-in-1 form factor. It’s the first 13” device in the 9000 series and the thinnest of the Latitude portfolio with a 16:10 InfinityEdge display – delivering a perfectly sized option for you, the mobile worker.

Collaboration touchpad for Dell Latitude 9330.

But there’s more. Let’s face it, after two years full of video calls, we’re still struggling to come off mute, especially when we have multiple windows or tabs open. Video calls won’t be going away anytime soon, and easy access to conference call capabilities is key. To help you bring your best self to every call, the new Latitude 9330 is the world’s first laptop with a collaboration touchpad – offering quick access to microphone mute/unmute, video on/off, screen share and chat in Zoom meetings. With the collaboration touchpad, you have all these controls at your fingertips and once the meeting ends, the icons disappear (no longer enabled), and the full trackpad is restored. Plus, with our FHD camera with separate RGB and IR cameras, and neural-noise cancellation, you can be your best on every meeting.

The Latitude 9330 continues to build off our commitment to use sustainable product materials in our products to help minimize environmental impact. The keyboard is made with a total of 44% recycled materials, and the keycaps alone are made from 75% recycled content. The device is also outfitted with bio-based rubber feet (39%) and recycled ocean-bound plastic in the fan housing (28%). The Latitude 9330 also ships in our new premium packaging made from 100% recycled or renewable materials, which is also 100% recyclable.

Coupled with the newest features of Dell Optimizer, you can feel confident working from multiple locations on the Latitude 9330 while facing increasing privacy risks, combating interruptions and using unreliable Wi-Fi. The latest Intelligent Privacy features conceal information on your screen when an onlooker is detected and dims the screen when you look away – also saving battery. Coupled with our dual electromechanical SafeShutter, these features help keep you and your data safe. With the world’s first simultaneous multi-network connection, you can connect to two networks at once for faster data and video downloads, and it joins the best network available. The Latitude 9330 also delivers all the performance needed with 12th Gen Intel® Core™ processors and the latest connectivity options, including Intel® Wi-Fi 6E and 4G LTE or 5G. It’s a feature-packed device bringing collaboration to the forefront of your meaning of hybrid work.

Designed to enhance creativity with a focus on power

For 25 years, the Precision line has pushed the industry to a higher standard of performance and user experience while consistently delivering innovative workstations and solutions that are an outstanding choice for professional applications and emerging technologies.

Last month, we introduced the Precision 5470, the most powerful 14” workstation in history, and the thinnest and smallest in the world. Now we’re bringing you even more power with the introduction of our new Precision 7000 series mobile workstations. With the latest thermal innovations, professional graphics, powerful CPU technologies (including some that haven’t been fully announced yet!) and new designs that provide more flexibility, our new Precision models pack a punch. These are the workstations of choice for those heavy-duty workloads – running VR/AR, AI/ML, complex 3D CAD, creative editing software and data science applications with ease!

Here’s what is new:

For the first time, Dell Precision mobile workstations are available in a 16″ form factor, giving you a world–class front-of-screen experience that doesn’t compromise on performance. Another first, the Precision 7670 comes in two chassis options – thin and performance – for a device that best powers your daily applications. The two chassis versions offer flexibility in scalability and configurability determined by your chosen graphics card – enabling you to customize the 7670 to your performance needs, including a variety of processor and graphics selections, as well as expansive memory, beautiful screen options (including a new OLED UHD+ screen with touch panel) and storage options.

Dell Precision 7670 mobile workstation.

For those who need even more screen real estate, the new Precision 7770 is a powerful 17″ mobile workstation offering our highest scalability across the portfolio and providing desktop-like performance for professionals on the go. Both the Precision 7670 and 7770 will offer Intel’s most powerful CPUs – 12th Gen Intel® Core™ up to i9 processors (55W—coming soon!) with Intel vPro®– up to next gen 16GB NVIDIA RTX™ A5500 graphics and up to 128GB of DDR5 memory.

And speaking of memory, the new Precision models will be our first workstations to feature a new, Dell-patented form factor for DDR5 memory called CAMM (Compression Attached Memory Module). Through CAMM, Dell is enabling a thinner chassis design without sacrificing performance—perfect for hybrid professionals. With repair a key component of our commitment to help reduce waste and extend the life of products and materials, the CAMM module also makes the memory more accessible for field repair. Initially launching with CAMM, the Precision 7000 series will also be available with traditional SODIMM options soon afterwards. Stay tuned for a more technical blog on this new memory module and our intent to drive standardization across the industry.

Protecting your ideas is paramount and the new Precision 7000 series mobile workstations introduce new security features to help keep your work from debuting before it’s ready. Both the Precision 7670 and 7770 feature security elements to help prevent device tampering and intrusion including chassis intrusion detection, battery removal detection, contact and contactless smart card readers, traditional and FIPS-certified fingerprint readers, and an IR camera for login security.

And that’s not all either: the Precision 7000 series are packed with features that help you work smarter; Dell Optimizer for Precision provides unique reporting and analytics features and is tailored to optimize application performance for media-intensive applications. It also has the same privacy, connectivity and collaboration features, such as the screen dimming when you look away and the ability to connect to two networks at once. Precision mobile workstations also ship in our new packaging made from 100% recycled or renewable materials.

Dell Precision 7770 mobile workstation.

The new Dell Precision mobile workstation lineup continues our track record of delivering systems that find the perfect combination of power and style. We’re so proud to bring these new designs to customers as we celebrate our 25th anniversary. To further celebrate this milestone, we’re also introducing the Precision 5470 25th Anniversary Edition. Available in a limited quantity in the U.S., this device features a striking cobalt (blue) finish and special edition etching to mark the occasion.

Dell Precision 5470 25th Anniversary Edition mobile workstation.

Designed to simplify the PC lifecycle management experience

While the concept of hybrid work is unique to each individual, we all have a desire for tools that make life a little bit simpler. And now more than ever, IT is challenged to oversee the employee technology experience, and also maximize device utilization. 

Our new Dell Lifecycle Hub simplifies that device lifecycle management process for IT. It helps ensure our customers’ employees have the devices they need while also managing their PC fleets from first use through retirement. Dell Technologies is the first OEM in the U.S. to provide a complete device lifecycle management service, combining warehousing and inventory management with configuration services and deployment expertise into one end-to-end solution. Dell team members configure devices and consolidate with peripherals and accessories, so customers’ new employees are ready to work on day one. Dell will also manage a new device exchange when an employee changes roles or requires a refresh, facilitate the return of a device when an employee leaves the company, and support whole unit exchange in the event a device requires repair. Returned units are either refurbished and placed back into inventory for redeployment, or we can responsibly retire them through Dell Asset Recovery Services.

The Dell Lifecycle Hub supports all customer-owned or leased inventory across the commercial portfolio, with support for multi-vendor environments.

“Getting the employee technology experience right is one of the more significant latent challenges posed by the rapid shift to hybrid work models,” said Patrick Moorhead, CEO and Chief Analyst, Moor Insights & Strategy. “It is a requirement best addressed by holistic device lifecycle management services like Dell Lifecycle Hub, which offers an end-to-end solution.”

As the industry’s most secure commercial PCs, the new Latitude and Precision devices employ both software-based, above the operating system (OS) protections, and hardware-based, below the OS capabilities, to defend against current and future threats.

Final thoughts

As we continue to reimagine how we work, we are committed to redesigning innovative devices and services to ensure you show up as your best self no matter where or how you are working that day.

Pricing and availability

◉ Latitude 9330 is available worldwide in FYQ2. Pricing to be confirmed nearer to shipping date.

◉ Precision 7670 and Precision 7770 are available worldwide in FYQ2. Pricing to be confirmed nearer to shipping date.

◉ Precision 5470 Anniversary Edition is available in the U.S. in FYQ2. Pricing to be confirmed nearer to shipping date.

◉ Lifecycle Hub is available in the U.S. in FYQ2.

Source: dell.com

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Managing Device Fleets in the Hybrid Work Era

Seventy percent of global 2000 organizations will deploy remote or hybrid-first work models by 2023, according to IDC. That’s remarkably fast, given that those findings were only reported in November 2021. As organizations adapt to support a highly distributed, work-from-anywhere (WFA) labor force, IT departments face a major dilemma: How can they deliver a great work experience, address device lifecycle management needs, and protect business interests when employees and their technology are everywhere?

Let’s face it, even providing a laptop to a new employee becomes more difficult if the person exclusively works remotely. And that’s just one example of the many challenges IT organizations can face when trying to support its hybrid workplace effectively.

Familiar IT questions enter uncharted territory

As companies fully adopt a hybrid work model, they need to consider a myriad of scenarios, including:

◉ How does the company ensure the right new hire kit is sent for day one productivity?

◉ When an employee leaves, how does the organization get their devices returned?

◉ How does the organization refresh devices that still have usable life and get that asset delivered quickly to another employee?

◉ If an individual’s device needs repair, what is the process for getting that employee back to work? How long will that take?

◉ How does the company refresh the devices of a team, department or business line?

◉ Is there a plan and process for responsibly and securely disposing of devices at the end of life?

Of course, managing the device fleet is nothing new to IT departments. However, when these questions are multiplied by hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of dispersed employees and their IT assets, it can become dramatically more challenging. When an organization stores all those PCs and mobile devices across multiple storage locations, the issues are even further exacerbated. The success or failure of managing these requirements can easily ripple throughout the business.

A Fork in the Road

We’ve identified three challenges IT departments face in addressing their responsibilities for managing their companies’ devices:

◉ Keeping employees productive, engaged and happy beginning on day one. In a labor market where the Harvard Business Review reports 30% of new employees leave their jobs within the first 90 days of getting hired, getting the employee experience right is imperative.

◉ Extracting maximum value from an organization’s investment in its devices at every point in each asset’s lifecycle.

◉ Finding time to keep their company’s digital infrastructure running, extracting value from data assets, creating great customer experiences, developing new digital products. A Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Dell Technologies reports that 52% of IT decision-makers say day-to-day demands often prevent their IT staff from focusing on innovative or strategic projects.

To date, companies have only had sub-optimal options for device lifecycle management. They may take a business-as-usual approach, using whatever processes they have in place while trying to adapt them to a hybrid working world. Or, they may choose to supplement their internal processes by contracting with and managing multiple service providers, each handling different pieces of the device lifecycle puzzle.

A New Way Forward

The most desirable approach—a complete managed solution from a single provider—simply has not existed. A comprehensive service with the scale and scope capable of addressing device lifecycle management has been beyond the capacity of hardware suppliers with highly specialized purviews. That is, until now. Dell Technologies is the first OEM provider to offer a complete device lifecycle management service – Dell Lifecycle Hub.

“Getting the employee technology experience right is one of the more significant latent challenges posed by the rapid shift to hybrid work models,” said Patrick Moorhead, CEO and Chief Analyst, Moor Insights & Strategy. “It is a requirement best addressed by holistic device lifecycle management services like Dell Lifecycle Hub, which offers an end-to-end solution.”

Dell has integrated its expansive, long-established capabilities for supply chain management, deployment, repair, and IT inventory management. This managed service delivers a ready-to-work experience formulated to meet the new challenges created by hybrid work initiatives.

◉ New hires quickly receive the computers, peripherals and related accessories they need for day one productivity.

◉ In the event of device failure or damage, the Lifecycle Hub whole unit exchange process sends systems promptly, enabling employees to resume work with minimal disruption.

◉ When an employee’s role changes or a device refresh is needed, a new configured device is shipped out within 48 hours.

◉ To facilitate the return of their previous equipment, current employees receiving a new device or former employees who have left the company are provided with a prepaid shipping label.

◉ Returned units are either refurbished for redeployment or responsibly retired using Dell Asset Recovery Services.

Securely managing owned or leased, multi-vendor, end-user equipment, Dell Lifecycle Hub shepherds all devices from the time they enter a company’s inventory through responsible end-of-life disposition.

Visit our Dell Lifecycle Hub site to learn more or contact your local Dell Technologies representative today.

If you are attending Dell Technologies World, be sure to attend the in-person session where we will be speaking with a Dell customer about their Lifecycle Hub experiences.

Source: dell.com

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A Better Way to Multi-Cloud

I enjoy debates about technology trends as much as the next person, but there’s one trend that’s not up for debate anymore – multi-cloud is the standard for most organizations. 78% of cloud users leverage multiple public clouds. The trend is really driven by data growth and the need to accelerate digital transformation. As data is the lifeblood of digital organizations, this means that applications (and infrastructure) are running in more and more locations – in multiple public clouds, customer datacenters, co-lo facilities and increasingly, at the edge. Organizations want a consistent cloud experience – quick provisioning, ability to scale easily and access to developer services – for their technology resources in all these locations. That is the ultimate promise of the multi-cloud world.

Read More: DEE-1421: Dell EMC Isilon Solutions Expert

However, most organizations aren’t realizing that promise yet, as they find themselves in a multi-cloud by default world. They have applications and data residing in multiple cloud environments, but there is not much consistency between these environments, resulting in unpredictable costs, skill gaps within IT teams, issues with data security and governance, as well as challenges to developer productivity.

At Dell, we believe there is a better way. We are helping build a multi-cloud by design world, in which organizations can:

◉ Easily access their data, wherever it is created and stored, in a safe and secure manner.

◉ Consume cloud services anywhere their business needs it.

◉ Increase developer productivity.

◉ Improve spend predictability and transparency.

◉ Maintain operational consistency across cloud environments, allowing them to leverage existing skills sets.

We will make this multi-cloud by design world a reality by delivering cloud software and services that can span our customers’ distributed technology footprint, as well as by helping build a cloud ecosystem that works together. Today marks an important day in this journey, as we unveil new capabilities that help simplify multi-cloud storage and data protection, as well as boost developer productivity in multi-cloud environments. Let’s look at the key announcements from today’s launch.

New APEX multi-cloud services

Dell Technologies APEX plays a critical role in enabling this multi-cloud by design world. APEX is all about delivering a cloud experience to our customers wherever they want it. As part of this launch, we are adding new multi-cloud services to the APEX portfolio.

APEX Multi-Cloud Data Services provides block, file, object and data protection storage services with direct access to all major public cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google and Oracle Cloud) simultaneously through high-speed, low latency connections. Organizations can leverage the public cloud compute and application services of their choice and easily switch between clouds without having to move their data. This avoids cloud vendor lock-in and excessive egress fees. With this service, organizations get the benefits of enterprise-class storage, coupled with the benefits of public cloud. Storage and public cloud compute can be scaled independently so organizations only use the compute they need. Organizations’ on-prem storage can also be extended to this service using familiar tools with native array replication.

Using the APEX Console, users can easily add or remove new cloud connections, increase or decrease bandwidth to scale connectivity as needs change, enabling true multi-cloud agility delivered as-a-service for any workload and any cloud.

“APEX Multi-Cloud Data Services lets our customers implement their big data (e-discovery) applications with the scalability of the cloud, the performance of on-premises infrastructure, at a very attractive cost.” – Jordan McQuown, CTO of GeorgeJon.

APEX Backup Services is another addition to the APEX Cloud Services portfolio, providing in-cloud backup for organizations’ most critical workloads. It is a SaaS-based solution that provides end-to-end protection for SaaS applications (such as Microsoft 365 and Salesforce), endpoints and hybrid workloads. Because this service is 100% SaaS-based, users will never have to worry about the downtime required to perform updates. Updates are released automatically without impact to production environments, ensuring the latest version is always running. And with quick and easy onboarding, admins can set up a backup policy within minutes.

The threat of cyberattacks is top of mind for our customers, which is why APEX Backup Services is introducing features that will provide a multi-layer defense system. This includes intelligent alerts to warn of malicious activity, the ability to isolate or delete corrupted data, and curated backups to ensure a safe and full recovery.

“Data Protection is a top priority for the State of Illinois. In addition to cybersecurity, disaster recovery and backup for our hybrid workloads, we required a solution that was easy to manage. APEX Backup Services hit the mark in terms of simplified management at scale with a single interface and fast deployment.” – Joseph Daniels, CIO, Illinois State Treasurer’s Office.

We have also enhanced the APEX portfolio with key updates to APEX Data Storage Services and are pleased to announce the availability of APEX Cloud Services with VMware Cloud.

Project Alpine

In addition to the innovations being delivered today, we are building on our commitment to a better multi-cloud data experience with Project Alpine. Organizations rely on Dell’s extensive storage portfolio that addresses a diverse set of needs across the entire data lifecycle, thanks to performance at scale, built-in autonomous operations capabilities, as well as the robust security and data protection we provide. With Project Alpine, we will bring the unique capabilities of our block and file storage platforms to the public cloud, delivered as cloud software and cloud services. Project Alpine will deliver the best of both worlds – the enterprise grade data services in our storage software, combined with the benefits of public cloud. It will bring operational consistency in hybrid cloud environments – allowing organizations to seamlessly manage data between on-prem and public cloud environments with consistent M&O tools and existing skills. Plus, they will have the flexibility to pay using cloud credits.

Delivering cloud software is not new to Dell. We are protecting nearly nine exabytes of data in the public cloud across 1400 customers with our PowerProtect software (available in all major cloud marketplaces today). We are continuing to invest in this space, most recently making our Cyber Recovery software available in AWS to use the cloud as an air-gapped cyber vault.

When it comes to the prevalence of multi-cloud, data is at the center of everything. Where there is data, there are applications. With data and apps being more and more distributed across locations such as on-prem, public cloud, colocation facilities and at the edge, what customers need is a simple and secure operating model to support deployment and management of these apps anywhere. To help IT teams deliver applications faster and accelerate developer productivity, we’ve also extended our DevOps ready platforms and introduced our refreshed Developer Portal.

Source: dell.com

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Moonfall with Gravity Waves at Durham University

While the recent movie Moonfall shows the moon was created (spoiler alert!) by aliens, the Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC) at Durham University has long been making and sharing discoveries about the formation of the moon. Both agree that the Earth’s moon is integral to life on Earth, helping stabilize the Earth’s orbit and produce a stable climate without those movie gravity waves.

Outside of the movies, scientists believe the Earth’s moon was formed 4.5 billion years ago from a collision between Earth and another body approximately the size of Mars. Durham University researchers continue working to confirm our moon’s origins. Large computer simulations help narrow down the different theories around how the moon was formed, as well as help us understand atmospheric evolution and formation of the universe.

Hosted by Durham University, the COSMA high performance computing cluster provides the Memory Intensive service of the DiRAC HPC facility, a tier one national supercomputing facility in the UK. COSMA, short form for Cosmology Machine, is specifically designed to support the largest cosmological simulations and is used by researchers across the UK, as well as their collaborators around the world.

The ICC stays on the cutting edge of technology to empower leading-edge, next-generation scientific discoveries. Researchers recently amped up compute power in the DiRAC COSMA8 system to expand and accelerate research possibilities. COSMA8’s new capabilities enable the exploration of big, complex topics about the universe, such as dark matter and energy, galaxies, planetary collisions, planetary simulations and black hole mergers.

These large-scale simulations can start from the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago, and run through to the present day. That means a lot of data must be written to storage to allow these simulations to run through different time steps, spanning almost 14 billion years of history. Large simulations can take a few months to run, then data sets are extracted for analysis, comparison and validation with telescope observations and statistical evaluation. Data sets are segmented based on relevant, research-specific criteria, for example, using distinct time steps or narrower portions of the universe or specific telescope observations.

Behind the scenes with COSMA8

The team doesn’t just push the boundaries of the universe, it also pushes the boundaries of information technology. COSMA8 has AMD EPYC™ processors inside Dell PowerEdge C6525 servers connected with NVIDIA Quantum 200Gb/s InfiniBand. The InfiniBand network brings in-network computing engines, the world’s only fully offloaded remote direct memory access, smart routing, and self-healing capabilities. COSMA8 has more than 4 times as many cores per server node than the previous system.

“We chose these processors to get a large number of cores per node and to cut down the amount of inter-node communication while achieving high clock rates so that all parts of the code stood up well,” states Dr. Alastair Basden, Head of COSMA HPC Services at Durham University and DiRAC Technical Manager. “We also look forward to putting new AMD EPYC processors with AMD 3D V-Cache™ technology to the test.”

The current server processors provide 3 times larger cache than those in the previous system, generating a two-fold benefit. First, more cache-sharing improves performance by limiting data movement between cores and RAM, resulting in enhanced per-core performance. Although that movement is automated, it can incur processing degradation. Second, the larger cache provides simplification for codes which are cache-aware.

A tip from Dr Basden: It is worth spending the time to investigate which systems will run your code the fastest. When research teams apply for time on the COSMA8 system, they can also apply for research software engineer time to get help optimizing scientific codes.

In addition to running simulations on the liquid-cooled COSMA8 system, teams can:

◉ Access Dell PowerEdge servers with the AMD Instinct™ Mi100 accelerator and soon the AMD Instinct Mi210, converting codes with HIPIFY to the ROCm™ open software platform.

◉ For artificial intelligence work such as searching for gravitational lensing, teams can tap into PowerEdge servers with NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs with Liqid Matrix, enabling the IT team to compose servers on demand and re-allocate resources as needed, all via software.

◉ Try Rockport®, a distributed, high-performance direct interconnect that is self-discovering, self-configuring and self-healing.

They can also test their code on the Durham Intelligent NIC Environment (DINE) system with multiple generations of NVIDIA BlueField DPUs. These SmartNICs enable direct access from servers to remote memory to improve the performance of massively parallel codes, in preparation for future exascale systems. They also allow investigations into in-network computing, leading to a novel HPC computing environment.

More storage equals more insights

DiRAC systems at Durham University are in high demand with every node almost always fully in use. The quick adoption may be because it is very easy for researchers to move codes from previous systems to COSMA8. “With technology transitions, code transfer and adjustments are always big concerns. With the COSMA8 technology upgrades, it literally just works out of the box,” shares Dr. Basden.

Since large simulations require a lot of server memory to run, COSMA 8 leverages two types of storage to ensure memory is freed up for processing. Generic, long-term, “bulk” storage is used to store data long-term. Temporary, “scratch” storage is used while large simulations are running to dump data into fast storage and free up memory. This prevents compute time degradation and allows for a job re-start if needed by writing checkpoints to storage to preserve simulation-generated data.

When more server memory is available for large-scale simulations, it ladders up exploration of the universe. For example, expanding particle numbers within a simulation, running larger simulations, and conducting more detailed simulations to cover a larger fraction of the universe all become possible. 

Earth-shattering science

COSMA8 delivers the powerful high-performance compute and storage capabilities that researchers need to unlock insights about a complex and largely unknown universe.  “About 75% of the universe is made up of dark matter that we don’t understand,” Dr. Basden explains. “By running large-scale simulations, we are able to find out more about dark matter and ultimately, we begin to understand more about the universe and how it impacts our world.”

World-leading technology in the DiRAC Memory Intensive service at Durham University is fueling cutting-edge scientific exploration. Each simulation requires massive amounts of data processed at high speeds. One simulation can produce hundreds of terabytes of data. COSMA8, with increased core densities, enhanced memory levels and speed, faster processing and more storage, is opening the door to advanced discoveries.

“COSMA8 uses a rich mix of breakthrough technologies which, in turn, allows immensely detailed simulations at greater scale,” explains Dr. Basden. “Finding the answers to questions about the universe, dark matter and planetary impacts relies on leading-edge technology that enables our researchers to unlock difficult-to-generate insights about the world in which we live.”

Source: dell.com

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Accelerate Intelligent Retail with Dell’s Simplified Retail Edge

Since the dawn of humankind, retail and commerce have helped communities thrive. While retail has morphed throughout time, it remains a crucial industry today, providing worldwide access to food, fashion and other essential goods. However, retailers are undergoing transformation; a major disruption is currently underway.

Retailers recognize that customer experience drives customer loyalty. Consequently, retailers are working to create more intelligent environments that capture customer preferences and use those insights to elevate customer experiences. Tomorrow’s retailers are racing to embrace intelligent stores and gain a competitive advantage in the highly competitive world of retail.

Read More: Dell EMC Certifications

Dell Technologies is helping retailers accelerate innovation by simplifying how they deploy and leverage technologies at the edge. 

Why retailers must have intelligent stores

In retail, brick and mortar’s time has come again. As customer experience trumps price and product as the key differentiator in retail, it is the in-store experiences that are the linchpin to customer loyalty. In fact, 51% of shoppers say that just a handful of poor in-store shopping experiences will cause them to stop shopping at a retailer forever.

Thus, retailers’ focus is shifting, striving for new ways to deepen customer relationships and enhance customer loyalty. As retailers seek to better understand customers and their needs, the push is on to gather new in-store insights and enable highly tailored customer experiences.

Intelligent stores do exactly that and use those insights to inform better decisions spanning inventory, store design, retail services and beyond. 

Consolidate to innovate

To leverage the incredible potential of intelligent stores, technological infrastructure must first be addressed. Many retailers have a sprawl of technology, built application-by-application on a diverse set of platforms, both within stores and across locations. Point of sale solutions, loss prevention cameras and pharmaceutical systems are often on disparate systems using cloud, on-prem and SaaS. They have not been, and in some cases cannot be, integrated or optimized.

The existing retail technology landscape is cumbersome and unable to effectively run containers, virtual machines and applications side by side. As the first step, consolidation removes a hefty impediment to innovation; using the edge enables retailers to do so with speed and agility.

The Dell Validated Design for Retail Edge with VMware is a solution that simplifies the path to intelligent retail. Built on hyper-converged VxRail or vSAN Ready Nodes, the solution consolidates applications and enhances edge manageability, providing retailers with speed, agility and scalability. 

Intelligent retail via a simplified edge

The Dell Validated Design for Retail Edge with VMware solution provides the foundation for smarter retail, catalyzing agility and unlocking innovation. In retail technology environments, reducing complexity is directly correlated to improving profitability.

From an infrastructure perspective, Dell’s solution helps retailers to reduce infrastructure overhead and tech debt, freeing up resources for other business priorities. The solution provides a foundation of flexibility and growth, enabling retailers to optimize customer experiences with smart services rooted in rich, ongoing customer insights.

Elevate customer experiences with intelligent video

The simplified edge consolidation establishes a foundation for building novel retail solutions that can unlock deep customer insights. Dell Validated Design for Retail Edge with Deep North is a solution providing intelligent video analytics to bolster a retailer’s customer insights.

The solution uses existing in-store cameras leveraging AI/ML to perform intelligent video analytics via digitized video feeds. Retailers are then able to capture and analyze customer preferences to better inform store operations and planning. This elevated level of visibility will help retailers optimize decisions across locations and in individual stores, including store layout and design, inventory choices, and in-store customer support. 

Leverage intrinsic security at the edge

As retailers move intelligent devices to the edge, security is a top-of-mind concern. Cyber-vulnerabilities are a growing risk and retailers are especially vulnerable. As a proactive measure, Dell Technologies employs intrinsic security at the edge.

Dell Technologies’ secure supply chain ensures no-to-low touch handling of all components. When retailers receive a Dell Technology solution, it can be deployed quickly, and retailers can be assured it is a secure system. Dell Technologies also offers a suite of add-on cybersecurity software and solutions to assist retailers with cyber protection, recovery, and resiliency.

Getting smarter

Retailers can boost business outcomes by embracing intelligent retail with edge technologies. In retail’s highly competitive world, speed and investment matter, especially to elevate customer experiences – the key to winning in retail. Dell Validated Design for Retail Edge with VMware and Deep North will facilitate retailers’ deployment of intelligent stores, providing a stronger future by facilitating customer-centric optimization, flexibility, and profitable growth.  

Source: dell.com

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Drive Operational Excellence with Dell’s Simplified Manufacturing Edge

Manufacturing is the backbone of the global economy. Its cornerstone is innovation, which manufacturers have used to reinvent success repeatedly to improve processes and production. Recent global events and supply chain challenges, however, have magnified the need for improved reliability and resiliency – and starkly highlighted that even the most successful manufacturers have much to gain from operational optimization.

A recent study by McKinsey shows that more than half of the manufacturing opportunity for improvement is based on optimizing operations. Collectively, these operational improvements equate to billions of dollars.

For example, consider a 10% productivity improvement in a typical 80-hour weekly factory production schedule. That equates to eight hours of unlocked production hours in a week. If those eight hours are used for producing additional units of volume, it could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in top-line revenue. Alternately, reducing those hours could save costs in the tens of millions of dollars. Or simply reinvesting the time into changeovers potentially reduces inventory and/or elevates service levels for customers.

Challenges to Operational Optimization

Challenges inherent across manufacturing environments, however, impede smart manufacturing outcomes. Infrastructure limitations and unscalable applications create IT management issues and data management complexities. Data is useful only if it enables and supports better decisions that impact manufacturing KPIs such as productivity, asset utilization, OEE, etc.

Today, manufacturers are inundated with timely, accurate data. However, many of them struggle to manage, sort, organize, curate, and deliver valuable insights from all these data streams.

The power of simplification

Due to the challenges above, manufacturers have seen mixed results in their efforts to implement Continuous Process Improvement (CPI). Change is crucial. Organizations need a simplified path to gain prioritized insights that focus on opportunities with maximum business impact. This would help companies transition from the scattergun approach that builds mini-technology silos to a laser-focused approach that aligns digital transformation efforts with business value.

An enhanced, outcome-based solution

Dell Technologies has partnered with PTC to address these manufacturing challenges, especially in the automotive, aerospace and defence industries, by enhancing their joint validated design for manufacturing edge. This will be the first enterprise-scale, validated deployment of PTC’s Digital Performance Management (DPM) capabilities using Dell’s leading-edge infrastructure. The Dell Validated Design for Manufacturing Edge with PTC will simplify the path to edge insights for operational excellence with:

◉ Consolidation and interoperability: Simplify the complexity of infrastructure management by consolidating legacy systems and applications into a single technology stack.

◉ Prioritized operations insights: Unlock production hours with top-down performance management, captured and shared as ‘time lost’.

◉ Secure scalability: Ensure fast, secure, and resilient edge performance with the underlying hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI)—VxRail.

Consolidation and interoperability: The solution is built with a flexible, interoperable design, which simplifies the complexity of infrastructure management by consolidating legacy systems and applications into a single technology stack. It supports multiple partners, industrial automation systems, and other enterprise applications with multi-cloud connectivity.

Prioritized operational insights: The solution leverages DPM, an extension of ThingWorx, to identify, prioritize and solve the biggest issues that constrain productivity on the factory floor. The DPM builds a single source of truth for production performance monitoring, normalized to a standard metric of ‘time lost’.

DPM replaces outdated reporting tools with six dashboards geared toward specific analyses:

1. Bottleneck Analysis: Identify and remove bottlenecks in manufacturing

2. Time Loss Waterfall: Using time (hours lost) to diagnose issues within manufacturing

3. Scorecard: Enterprise-level roll-up of manufacturing KPIs

4. Production: Visualization of production operations (dashboard)

5. Action Tracker: Dashboard tracker to solve identified issues in manufacturing

6. Loss Reason Pareto: Drill down capability to establish root cause/hours lost

DPM Dashboards Geared Toward Specific Operational Analyses

Secure scalability: The most critical linchpin for a successful edge deployment is secure scalability across use cases and factory sites. Built on VxRail, the industry-leading HCI, this validated design is right-sized based on factory outcomes and workloads. The solution reinforces security, from the edge to the enterprise cloud, with an OT/IT DMZ layer and built-in security layers of VxRail.

Simplify your path to edge insights that drive operational excellence

To summarize, the Dell Validated Design for Manufacturing Edge with PTC is helping manufacturers accelerate their digital transformation to smart manufacturing using a secure, scalable, and interoperable edge solution to improve business outcomes. The solution enhancement will simplify the existing infrastructure complexities at the edge and make it easier for manufacturers to identify root cause problems that impact operational productivity and make decisions around Continuous Process Improvement for maximum business impact.

Source: dell.com

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Simplify Data Center Connectivity with Dell Secure Connect Gateway

In today´s increasingly complex digital landscape, successful innovation leaders are leveraging IT service providers to offload IT support capacities to focus more on innovation and strategic initiatives.

According to a study done by Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Dell Technologies Services, 59% of the leaders interviewed reported that partnering with the correct IT service providers enables them to free their IT staff from common administration tasks and focus on delivering innovation and delivery the company vision.

With this in mind, Dell Technologies constantly develops technology that helps customers to achieve their goals with a heavy focus on automation and leveraging of AI and data sciences to ensure a continuous and unified connectivity solution.

Dell Secure Connect Gateway delivers a connectivity solution that removes the guesswork on issue prevention actions. It provides a secure, two-way connection between the data center environment and Dell Technologies services. It enables monitoring Dell devices across your infrastructure including servers, networking, data protection, data storage and hyper-converge solutions centralized in one single tool.

We provide three options to adopt SCG depending on customer requirements:

◉ Secure Connect Gateway 5 – Virtual Edition (VMware and Hyper-V)

◉ Secure Connect Gateway – Application Edition

◉ Services plugin within OpenManage Enterprise

As a leading IT service provider, one of Dell Technologies Services areas of focus is ensuring that any IT support services and technologies are not a potential source of security concerns.

We continually focus on minimizing risks on the Dell Technologies products deployed in customer environments by following strict security policies and procedures, for SCG we implement this by:

◉ Utilizing only telemetry and event data from active systems.

◉ Encrypting system state data for transport via the internet over HTTPS using the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol.

◉ Dell’s authorized technical support engineers use multi-factor authentication to remotely access and resolve issues on connected systems.

◉ We process, store and use telemetry and event data at our locations using industry-leading security practices.

Because our technology continuously monitors the customer environment the time to resolve, any issues are reduced by automating  service request creation and hardware log collection.

By also leveraging the periodic log collections feature, the Service Account Manager (SAM) can provide, a monthly proactive assessment of the environment’s current health and proactive recommendations to ensure maximum uptime for critical data center infrastructure, all as part of the ProSupport Plus delivery.

In my personal experience over the years with Dell SupportAssist and now Secure Connect Gateway, you should not have to spend time doing tasks that can be automated. This aligns perfectly with the ongoing overall digital transformation efforts and helps IT Teams to focus more on innovation.

These periodic log captures also enable delivering system maintenance service, which ensures all systems’ code, firmware, BIOS and relevant security fixes stay current.

Source: dell.com

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Quantitative Analytics: Data Growth Drives New Storage Demands

Today’s quantitative finance environment is dramatically different from that of just a few years ago. We’ve gone from gigabytes of daily market data that is put in memory for algorithms and jobs isolated to a few machines, to terabytes of data and systems that need to process hundreds of thousands – and even millions – of jobs.

Read More: E20-562: VPLEX Specialist Exam for Systems Administrator (DECS-SA)

As financial firms seek faster, reliable and more effective order execution that can also help reduce transaction costs, algorithmic trading has experienced tremendous growth. With an expected CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) near 12% through 2026, algorithmic trading will continue to fuel a surge in data and the adoption of data-intensive technologies designed to optimize insights and maximize performance, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning.

This exponential growth in daily transactions means that algorithmic quant trading firms can no longer store the active trade data sets in memory. Instead, they need to transition to support growing quant teams on increasingly larger data sets – at scale. This creates new performance requirements compared to what was once fairly simple back in the days when infrastructures were very fast, and data could fit in RAM. But the explosion of data and the need to collect, store and analyze more data than ever, has changed – and complicated – environments. Terabytes of data are now generated by smart systems that are more powerful, can handle billions of market transactions, and workloads that perform risk modeling, portfolio management, simulations and other data-driven computations.

From a storage perspective, often SAN and NAS haven’t been able to scale to the volume of data that is being ingested today and, as a result, performance suffers. Without advanced storage, firms would need to reduce the data sets they are working with, give up near real-time performance, or limit the number of simultaneous processes. In today’s competitive market, that’s not a viable option.

Effective quantitative analytics requires the following storage features:

◉ Highly scalable storage to efficiently store billions of files

◉ High read/write performance

◉ High user concurrency capability

◉ Fast interconnect between compute resources and the storage platform

What’s needed? Storage that supports extreme concurrency at scale

High frequency trading and analytics environments are characterized by massive data volumes, low latency and complex processing capabilities. So, it’s not surprising that infrastructure and data modernization have become a priority for quant trading firms. Organizations are moving from infrastructure that supports real time, small data sets to large, highly concurrent workloads with large data sets. Organizations also need to be able to securely support data growth for concurrent workloads to comply with governmental and regulatory standards, even as the number of people simultaneously accessing data grows as well. With financial services experiencing a 1300%+ increase in ransomware attacks in 2021, data security and risk mitigation need to be foundational in today’s quantitative analytics environment, both financially and operationally.

The ideal storage solution enables firms to:

◉ Leverage single copy architecture with a centralized shared storage model. This makes managing a single copy of all market data easier than managing a copy for every compute node.

◉ Run analysis and AI/DL workloads simultaneously with co-located data that supports both types of jobs and compute. This eliminates data movement or specialized configurations.

◉ Leverage massive scalability and simplicity by storing data under a single file system and namespace for all applications to use. This provides less operational overhead while allowing you to non-disruptively scale capacity.

◉ Mitigates risk by increasing resiliency and minimizing vulnerability to cybersecurity threats.

Dell Unstructured Data Solutions for quantitative analytics – Storage that performs, scales and secures

With Dell Unstructured Data Storage (UDS) solutions, financial firms can leverage a portfolio that meets the performance, scalability, and security demands of quantitative analytics environments. In addition to solutions with scale out architecture to enable high bandwidth, high concurrency, and high performance with all flash options, UDS is uniquely suited for enterprise-grade trading:

◉ Leverages efficient single copy architecture for market data

◉ Runs tick data analytics and AI/DL workloads simultaneously with data in place

◉ Runs in multi-cloud with data sovereignty

◉ Supports a range of core trading technologies including Kdp+, a leader in high-performance time-series database systems from KX Systems

The Dell OneFS operating system does not rely on hardware as a critical part of the storage architecture. Instead, OneFS combines the three functions of traditional storage architectures—file system, volume manager, and data protection—into one unified software layer to create a single, intelligent file system that spans all nodes within a storage system. Unlike traditional storage systems that have a finite maximum size and must be replaced by a bigger storage array when the maximum performance or capacity is reached, a OneFS powered cluster can linearly expand, or scale out, performance and capacity to seamlessly increase the existing file system or volume into petabytes of capacity.

In addition to built-in availability, redundancy, security, data protection and replication with OneFS, the UDS portfolio provides protection from cyberattacks with integrated ransomware defense and smart AirGap. Superna Ransomware Defender detects suspicious behavioral patterns across multiple vectors, report on operations and event data in real-time, and block active threats.

The benefits for quantitative finance firms?

◉ Shortened model development time

◉ Faster analysis on larger, multi-day trading data

◉ Extreme performance for smaller real-time data

◉ Accelerated cycles of learning by bridging historical and real-time databases

◉ Ability to conform to regulatory standards and guarantee enterprise data protection

Discover how Dell Unstructured Data Solutions helps customers modernize quantitative analytics infrastructure to deliver high performance and extreme concurrency at scale. Contact your local Channel or UDS manager for additional information.

Source: dell.com

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Navigating the Waters of the Telecommunications Industry

We all know the telecommunications industry is rapidly evolving. New advancements in service delivery are quickly driving innovation and capable of bringing limitless opportunities. They have the power to enable our world to overcome obstacles and reach new heights from transforming industries, to enhancing accessibility, and fundamentally changing the way we navigate society.

Read More: DES-1121: Dell EMC PowerMax and VMAX Family Solutions Specialist for Implementation Engineers (DCS-IE)

Telecom operators demand this shift; their customers have increasing expectations for the ways they consume network services that must be met. To push these transformative boundaries, telecom operators must reimagine how they operate their business to innovate service delivery.

Sink or swim?

There is much to consider when deciding the right approach to implement an effective solution to run network functions – too many vendors involved, how to scale the environment while keeping costs down, the need to adopt cloud native solutions – all of which have the potential to create infrastructure deployment challenges if not navigated strategically. At times, determining the right path through network disaggregation can feel like navigating alone across a raging river: dodging alligators, hitting jagged river rocks and struggling to stay afloat amidst the strong currents.

Telecom operators face a series of obstacles that can pose deployment challenges and threaten their ability to quickly accomplish business goals.

Trying to determine how to get from point A to point B takes the focus away from what really matters to the business. It can certainly cause headaches for telecom operators and has the ability to derail operations, but what if it doesn’t need to? With so many hurdles to overcome, wouldn’t it be easier if there was someone trusted to help operators maneuver through the rough waters?

At the helm

Telecom operators don’t need to get stuck in the mud architecting innovative solutions. Having a trusted partner to help navigate this shift can make all the difference in how they grow their business. Dell Technologies has the global scale, resources and expertise to help quickly achieve business goals despite the uncertain waters.

Operators have trusted us for years with their IT needs, and we recognize that their businesses have unique objectives they are  looking to drive in this space. More agility and flexibility for their environment is needed to scale and monetize service delivery. The ability to tailor services based on each operator’s preferences and achieve unique outcomes is critical to their ongoing success.

Our expertise in building cloud infrastructure solutions and the work we have been doing for decades to drive digital transformation for our customers is key to helping operators achieve their goals. By leveraging years of best practices and adapting them to meet these requirements, we are fully invested in facilitating telecom operators on this journey in an expanded capacity.

A simple path forward

We are launching Dell ProDeploy for NFVI to accelerate the delivery of a modern telecommunications network at scale. We provide a combination of expert factory integration and field deployment options to ensure an efficient installation of compute and network infrastructure fit for telecom operators’ needs. ProDeploy for NFVI offers multivendor deployment options including implementation of cloud software platforms from leading vendors to fully enable open solutions across a disaggregated and virtualized environment.

Operators choose deployment options they value based on their specific environment to drive the desired outcomes they’re looking to achieve. Operators can expect the same robust deployment with consistent results, regardless of the options chosen. ProDeploy for NFVI utilizes the proven tenets of the ProDeploy Enterprise Suite to achieve 4x faster planning and deployment time for a seamless, efficient end-to-end deployment.

Dell Services can also leverage both the expertise and access to Dell Telecom Multi-Cloud Foundation to accelerate solution implementation.

Effective service delivery is dependent on the ability to implement a solid foundation for the network environment. Dell Services can simplify the journey to an open ecosystem by maneuvering the changing landscape and accelerating technology adoption. With decades of expertise in scalable, global deployment, we are the trusted partner to assist in meeting operators’ goals quickly, on their terms.

Source: dell.com

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