Transforming Telecom Cloud Environments with Microsoft

The telecom industry is transforming to an open and application-agnostic ecosystem, allowing communications service providers (CSPs) to integrate innovative applications and services into their networks and deliver more revenue-generating services to their customers. Multicloud technologies have become a fundamental pillar to support this ecosystem, eliminating vendor-siloed infrastructure stacks, providing efficient operations and developing a future-proof network foundation to pave the way for 6G and beyond.

Dell is collaborating with Microsoft to redefine the deployment and operations of multicloud, disaggregated networks, enable industry compliance and innovation and reduce risk for network operators making huge investments to modernize their networks.

“Network operators are looking to adopt cloud technology to modernize and monetize the network, lowering network total cost of ownership, driving operational efficiency and resiliency and improving security,” said Yousef Khalidi, corporate vice president Azure for Operators, Microsoft. “Our collaboration with Dell helps us deliver an innovative, carrier-grade platform to operators that are looking to deploy the next generation of network technology.”

Dell Joins the Microsoft Azure Operator Nexus System Integrator (SI) Program

CSPs are reassessing the traditional way to architect, build and operate their network infrastructure to leverage the multiple benefits of open, disaggregated and multivendor-friendly networks.

By joining Microsoft Azure Operator Nexus program, Dell will leverage its global network facilities to deliver CSPs a consistent Azure Operator Nexus experience, with tailored integration of software, hardware and services. Dell will handle all the pre-staging tasks to allow CSPs to deploy at scale anywhere in the network and reduce risk with fewer logistical hassles​.

Integrating pre-validated platforms in Dell facilities minimizes risk by shipping, pre-configured gold-standard infrastructure and ready-to-run operations sooner. Dell is ready to ship open, multivendor, fully integrated Azure Operator Nexus systems at a global scale.

Dell Intends to Build an Engineered System to Simplify Telecom Cloud Adoption

As an extension of our collaboration with Microsoft on Azure Operator Nexus, Dell intends to build an engineered system to further simplify telecom cloud network deployment and management, while lowering operational expenses. Our aim is to de-risk network transformation, optimize the deployment and ongoing maintenance of the network foundation and accelerate time to market for new services.

“Communications services providers need open network architecture, and they want partners that will drive system integration and services to accelerate the adoption of these technologies,” said Dennis Hoffman, senior vice president and general manager, Dell Technologies Telecom Systems Business. “In collaboration with Microsoft, Dell aims to deliver on this demand. We want to give network operators global choice and confidence to scale modern, cloud-native networks.”

Dell intends to offer end-to-end validation services, automated deployment capabilities and lifecycle management tools to deliver a fully integrated telecom cloud operations experience.

Dell has a strong history of collaborating with Microsoft to bring more value to customers, and we’re looking forward to working together to bring these innovations to the open telecom ecosystem.

Source: dell.com

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What is a Watt Worth?

That’s why every business and IT organization needs to be asking: What is a watt really worth?

Yes, a watt is a watt is a watt – until an organization evaluates the cost savings associated with reduced energy consumption in the context of its data center operations. Then, organizations begin to identify and acknowledge the tradeoffs and decisions to make when tackling the energy challenge. While more energy efficient hardware will create opportunities to save on energy costs, there may be upfront capital expenses to recoup before you begin reaping the savings benefits. For example, an upfront platform investment for a power upgrade from Platinum efficiency PSU to Titanium efficiency PSU would reduce energy consumption, operating expenses, total cost of ownership and carbon footprint over the platform’s lifecycle.

Data center environments are complex. Addressing sustainability and cost saving goals include aspects beyond adopting more energy efficient hardware. If power management settings could save 100 watts, for instance, how is that savings considered in the context of some corresponding performance tradeoff? What is a reduction in performance worth to an organization when compared to the financial savings, or how does an organization consider the financial savings from a 100-watt reduction when some performance is also reduced?

Regardless of how energy efficient a data center becomes, power will always be the biggest contributor to its environmental footprint. And, of course, not all energy sources have the same cost, and costs can vary greatly by region based upon availability and adoption of more sustainable energy supplies.

The ability to transition to cleaner energy sources will have a dramatic impact on both costs and carbon footprint for organizations with sustainability goals. Unlike electricity generated by high carbon fuels (e.g., petroleum, coal, natural gas), renewable sources of energy offer both a sustainable and cost stable option to meet carbon footprint goals and lower ongoing OpEx.

At the same time, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind bring upfront capital expenses associated with the installation of infrastructure to generate the power needed for data center operations. What a watt is worth will not only depend on where a data center’s power is sourced, but also how a business wants to balance carbon footprint goals with the near-term capital requirements of moving to renewable energy.

The value of a watt – and determining what a watt is worth to an organization – comes down to understanding the tradeoffs it’s willing to make. Let’s look at one example: power supply for servers (PSU). A Platinum power supply at 94% efficiency and a 500-watt load will consume 532 watts from the wall, while Titanium PSU at 96% efficiency will consume 521 watts at the wall, an 11-watt savings. When you consider this at a rack or data center level, the total power savings can be significant. For example, if the data center deployed 20 platforms per rack and had 10 racks, the total power savings would be 2.2 kilowatts. These power savings can reduce energy costs, or organizations could repurpose them to deploy more IT gear within the same power footprint. On top of that, consider the data center’s power and cooling overhead for the IT load, often referred to as power utilization effectiveness (PUE). The average PUE in 2022 was around 1.6, so the 2.2 kilowatts saved becomes 3.52 kilowatts saved from the utility.

When you look at the server’s total cost of ownership, which includes lifecycle and operating costs, the value of the more expensive Titanium PSU becomes clearer. That’s when you can truly determine the cost of a watt in the context of your IT operations and the long-term financial impact.

Dell PowerEdge servers continually introduce features for improved energy efficiency, giving organizations options to manage costs while also doing more work (performance) with higher efficiency (performance per watt) than previous generation servers. Combined with the ability to incorporate cleaner energy sources, organizations can have real impact on their carbon footprint and CapEx vs. OpEx considerations.

Answering the question, “What is a watt worth?” will vary by the nuances of a business, geographic region and organizational sustainability objective. It requires understanding the short- and long-term tradeoffs of IT hardware decisions, which is why Dell is committed to delivering products and solutions that help businesses attain their unique sustainability, energy efficiency and cost savings goals.

Source: dell.com

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New Servers for Computing at the Edge

It’s that time of the year, when technology takes a giant leap forward through new and improved capabilities that enhance your experience—and outcomes. Over the last several months, Dell Technologies has been announcing the launch of its next-gen server portfolio. And, of those products mentioned recently, we have three new Intel-powered servers that are edge-focused and telecom-ready.

While we kicked off the start of this year with the release of the edge-optimized Dell PowerEdge XR4000 server, we’re continuing that momentum with the launch of the new PowerEdge XR5610 server, XR7620 server and XR8000 server, all powered by 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors. The addition of these servers to the existing XR lineup puts Dell Technologies in a solid position to meet a wider, and expanding, range of edge workload requirements — from near core to far edge – including enhanced built-in AI capabilities for edge workloads with all-new Intel® Advanced Matrix Extensions (Intel® AMX).

Built Exclusively for Edge

Servers in the XR series are purpose-built from the ground up with the edge in mind. As such, we’ve taken size and design constraints into consideration, adding ruggedized components and shorter-depth servers that fit into cabinets or MECs at the base of cell towers. These servers are designed to withstand bumps and bruises, vibration and shocks, dust and dirt, harsh weather and extreme temperatures.

They power workloads close to the core, at the very edge and everywhere in between. And while these servers address a variety of industries and edge use cases, innovative design enhancements on these newer servers meet key telecom industry requirements.

New Products to Serve your Needs

PowerEdge XR5610 and the XR8000 models are built to meet the challenges of today’s edge and O-RAN deployment environments. Both servers are vRAN- and cloud RAN-optimized. The single-socket, 1U PowerEdge XR5610 monolithic server is a short-depth server designed for telecom, defense and enterprise edge use cases. It’s ruggedized with a hyper-tolerance to dusty environments, extreme temperatures and humidity. It’s also MIL-STD-810H– and NEBS Level 3–certified.

Likewise, the PowerEdge XR8000 server is sled-based and optimized for total cost of ownership and performance in O-RAN applications. The uber-dense XR8000 offers extended tolerance to heat and cold. And it comes in a 1U and 2U single-socket sled form factor that’s easy to scale and upgrade.

The PowerEdge XR7620 server, in turn, has powerful edge acceleration capabilities that make it ideal for use at the industrial edge or in select telecom use cases. Put it in the equipment closet on the factory floor or anywhere near the end user. This 2U dual-socket workhorse, with integrated networking and enhanced storage, is perfect for situations where data must be collected and rapidly analyzed at the edge.

Key Enhancements

With this launch, we build on the previous – and proven – XR portfolio. These next-gen ruggedized servers deliver key innovations in terms of design, improved energy efficiency, infrastructure consolidation and so much more. Specific improvements include:

◉ Enhanced ruggedized design meets NEBS Level 3 and GR-3108 Class 1 certification.

◉ Inclusion of dry inputs are custom to edge and remote deployments. Easily hook in moisture sensors, remote door alarms, intrusion detection, etc. as you would with traditional purpose-built servers for telecom.

◉ Cooling and heating design innovations enable more energy efficient, power-saving operation.

◉ Support for a variety of accelerators and NICS allows you to create unique edge solutions.

◉ All front-facing maintenance significantly simplifies maintenance at the edge. Gone are the days taking the server offline to access the back side for maintenance.

◉ Sled and chassis design (on the PowerEdge XR8000) is a format that many telecom companies are accustomed to using. The sled design enables familiar maintenance procedures and provides support for generational upgrades.

Let’s Not Forget

In addition to getting ruggedized features in servers designed specifically for the edge, it’s important to remember these servers are PowerEdge at their core. They include features and benefits that are common to all PowerEdge servers and that are the reason Dell Technologies is the leading server vendor. Simplify your experience with advanced automation and management tools like iDRAC, OpenManage Enterprise and Cloud IQ. Gain peace of mind with powerful security that is built into and layered on all PowerEdge servers. And get the assistance you need with support services that optimize uptime while providing the backup you demand.

The PowerEdge Advantage

Don’t take our word for it. Check out the new servers in our XR portfolio and discover for yourself just what you can do with powerful technology positioned at the edge. Contact us today to discover the right PowerEdge solution with Intel processing for your industry and your needs – no matter where on the edge spectrum your workloads reside.

Source: dell.com

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Five Reasons to Modernize Your Data Loss Prevention Program

There are two realities shaping how IT and security teams think about data protection today: Corporate data is increasingly being housed in the cloud versus on-premise and the modern workforce is becoming more mobile. As such, the need for protecting sensitive data in the cloud from any location has grown exponentially.

In addition to the complexities of cloud-based work and a distributed workforce, organizations must also consider the risks of insider threat and data loss, both of which continue to grow year after year.

Consider some of these sobering statistics:

◉ Between 2020 to 2022, there was a 60% increase in insider threat incidents overall, with 67% of companies experiencing 21 or more incidents a year.

◉ In 2022, negligent insiders caused 56% of insider incidents, malicious insiders caused 26% and 18% were a result of credential theft.

◉ On average, 33% of all folders used by a company are accessible by every employee, and every employee has access to nearly 11 million files.

Many organizations are exploring a Zero Trust architecture to help mitigate the risks listed above. But what solution in your ecosystem is protecting your organization’s sensitive data against unauthorized access, loss or misuse?

That’s where modern Data Loss Prevention (DLP) can help. DLP is a set of technologies and techniques that enable sophisticated data classification, policy creation and user behavior risk assessment to help safeguard data and assets in complex environments. They also offer tailored data loss prevention policy and reporting to ensure compliance with industry regulatory standards, such as HIPAA and PCI-DSS. And finally, DLP solutions offer the ability to monitor and respond to data loss incidences more quickly and effectively.

With that overview, let’s look at the top five reasons why it may be time to consider Security Service Edge (SSE) solutions to modernize your data loss prevention program.

1. Discover sensitive data everywhere. Visibility is crucial when it comes to protecting data. In fact, it is common for a business to find that up to 98% of the cloud applications users are accessing are not managed by IT, a.k.a. “shadow IT.”

When you deploy a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), you can spot shadow IT and see where all sensitive data resides and how it is moving across the corporate environment.  With this deeper visibility, IT gains greater insight to develop and evolve the policy program that protects against data loss.

2. Reduce insider risk. With the increase of insider risks, implementing data loss prevention capabilities that activate Zero Trust principles is critical. SSE solutions, like a Next Gen Secure Web Gateway (NG-SWG), enable your security team to detect user anomalous behavior, intentional data exfiltration and policy violations. With the help of user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA), which you can find built into a NG-SWG, you can automatically identify and block risky insider behaviors, such as bulk downloading of sensitive corporate data.

3. Minimize false positives. Legacy DLP solutions commonly produce an overwhelming number of false positives, which leads to incident triage fatigue and requires large teams to manage. Modern data loss prevention solutions, such as a NG-SWG, deliver detection of data loss risk with the lowest degree of error possible, minimizing the number of false positives requiring investigation. With fewer false positives, you can increase your team’s effectiveness and decrease costs.

4. Minimize accidental data exposure. As data is increasingly being stored in cloud-based infrastructure (e.g., Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud), the risk of unintended misconfigurations that inadvertently expose sensitive data grows. In fact, almost half of cloud infrastructure misconfiguration leads to sensitive data exposure. This is where a Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) SSE solution can help by continually scanning for misconfigurations so issues can be remedied quickly.

5. Coach users on safe data handling. Training users on data best practices is a critical component to an effective data loss prevention program. With SSE solutions, you can leverage tools to alert and coach users real-time on data loss risks when performing questionable activities, with options to proceed, cancel or request a justification for the action. This can help prevent unintentional data leakage, as well as improve risky behavior in the future.

So, as organizations (re)evaluate their DLP programs, consider an SSE solution to modernize. Through our SafeData portfolio, Dell offers several data loss prevention SSE solutions to protect across every network, cloud, endpoint, email and user, including a Next Gen Secure Web Gateway, powered by our partner Netskope. Dell also recently introduced a new endpoint DLP solution that enables full visibility and policy enforcement on data-in-motion between endpoint and external USB storage devices.

Protecting your data from advanced threats is a complex challenge. Through Dell SafeData, customers can reduce the risk of potential data breaches with a variety of SSE solutions. Please reach to learn how this expanded offering can bolster your data protection model as you navigate a Zero Trust journey.

Source: dell.com

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Simplify IT to Stay Relevant in a Multicloud World

Warren Buffett once famously said, “Be greedy when others are fearful.”

When it comes to technology investments, digitally mature companies may be getting “greedy” in 2023. According to the ESG 2023 Technology Spending Intentions Survey, these companies intend to increase IT spending in 2023, while less digitally mature companies plan to flatten or reduce spending.

Digitally mature organizations, according to ESG, are more advanced from a digital transformation perspective. They derive more of their revenue from web and mobile apps, are cloud-first from an application deployment standpoint and leverage advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) to enhance the customer experience. In short, they are more innovative.

With less digitally mature organizations planning to tighten their fiscal belts this year, we could see a big innovation gap start to emerge between the digital haves and the digital have-nots. And this could translate into lost revenue and market share for those organizations on the wrong end of the digital spectrum.

The question is, what is holding many organizations back from advancing the ball on their digital transformation initiatives? One barrier is IT complexity. 60% of organizations stated in ESG’s study that their IT environments are more complex now than they were two years ago.

Between the growth of data across hybrid multicloud environments, the advent of edge computing, a surge in employees working from home and the adoption of newer technologies like Kubernetes containers, cloud-native workloads and AI/ML, IT organizations certainly have their hands full.

Compounding this complexity is a lack of skillsets in-house and in the market to fill open positions in cybersecurity, data protection, storage administration and cloud infrastructure management. Lacking the people power to secure and protect critical data and workloads is a significant barrier to innovation, because if you can’t protect new apps, you can’t deploy them, especially in the public cloud.

Reducing IT complexity from a cloud data protection perspective requires modern solutions that organizations can deploy directly from the public cloud marketplaces. They need to be simple, delivering increased levels of automation and self-service, and they need to be flexible enough to protect any workload in any cloud while delivering the scale, performance and efficiencies organizations need. And in a world where cyberattacks occur every two seconds, they need to be resilient – giving organizations the confidence they can quickly recover from a ransomware, malware or insider attack.

By giving our customers the choice to choose from a broad range of as-a-Service solutions, software-defined data protection offerings and integrated appliances, Dell Technologies can meet customers where they are in their digital modernization journey to reduce IT complexity. As a result, organizations can be confident in their ability to secure and protect workloads and data wherever they reside so they can spend less time on infrastructure and more time on innovation.

While solving your cyber resiliency and cloud data protection challenges will not make you an innovator overnight, it will go a long way to helping you build a solid foundation for enabling hybrid, multicloud capabilities to help your organization rapidly develop and deploy new services that differentiate your organization in the market and help you compete more effectively in the digital era.

More Info: https://youtu.be/qWHAVkSpPOY

Source: dell.com

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Importance of an Integrator at the Edge

Enterprise organizations around the world are looking to the edge to enable better business outcomes. The reason is clear: by processing data closer to its source, enterprises can act on insights faster, improving everything from operational efficiency to the customer experience. With their ubiquitous points of presence and expertise in networking and connectivity, Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are ideally positioned to help enterprises with their edge initiatives. However, to succeed, CSPs need to consider that any edge, be it telecom, network or enterprise, needs an integrator, as edge environments are typically complex, with a mix of vertical-specific operational technology (OT) systems that are often built with proprietary components and code, IT systems and myriad devices (e.g., smart phones, tablets, laptops, etc.). In addition, CSPs need to be able to leverage an open ecosystem so they can quickly access the exact edge technologies and solutions their customers require – and not be locked into a single vendor’s roadmap. As CSPs and enterprises move ahead with their edge journey, we’ve outlined some other key factors they will need to navigate.

Read More: DES-1D12: Dell EMC Midrange Storage Solutions Specialist Exam for Technology Architect (DECS-TA)

Aggregation Ownership is essential for end-to-end solution development. This challenge is a result of the plethora of options in devices, device connectivity (transport, packet core and radio networks and technologies), cloud architectures (Iaas/PaaS/CaaS on Public/Private/Hybrid clouds) and vertical applications (video analytics, AI/ML models, AR/VR, Smart Operations, Connected vehicles and robotics among others).

Enterprise organizational inertia resulting from current state and expertise, extensive and often confusing technology choices and incremental ROI that is spread out over time is another challenge. Consequently, organizations require a trusted partner to address questions such as: Which technology choice is optimal, and what should the edge/cloud configuration be? How do we address the technical debt, if it exists, while enabling edge-native applications? Which use cases do we need to combine to meet the business outcomes?

Service assurance is another key requirement for enterprises arising from the new use cases that span technologies and require network expertise and domain knowledge. The end-to-end solutions require installation & commissioning, performance optimization, and troubleshooting and support, as well as lifecycle management.

Types of Integrators

Enterprise outcomes require different integrator roles to design, build, deliver, deploy and support the new end-to-end edge solution stack. In a broad sense, the stack can be layered as the base infrastructure and connectivity layer, the edge application layer and a service orchestration with application enablement layer to tie the connectivity services with the orchestration services.

The base infrastructure and connectivity stack systems integrator require strong infrastructure technology skills with deep networking domain expertise including standard, protocols and tools, among others. The application stack systems integrator, on the other hand, requires strong application skills with deep domain expertise in vertical markets including open-source software and tools and cloud platforms, among others. Finally, managing and driving the execution of complete enterprise outcomes requires a prime integrator for end-to-end solution enablement with a strong understanding of the network services orchestration as well as vertical market needs.

From one perspective, edge outcomes involve some form of transformation similar to what existed with data center environments in the past but with different constraints now at the edge. At its core, edge outcomes involve data integration, data collection, data management, data security and data movement, all the way up through the physical layers, storage, servers, compute and networking, along with system management and operational management. This is an area where Dell Technologies has excelled in working with our enterprise customers.

Dell Technologies has partnerships with leading companies offering a diverse set of devices and vertical enabling software platforms applicable to a diverse set of business domains such as healthcare, manufacturing, retail and energy and utilities to name a few. In addition, our Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab (OTEL) offers a state-of-the-art platform to foster collaboration for innovation, as well as acceleration of edge use case technology adoption. Our deep internal system integration experience, in addition to strong partnerships with leading industry system integrators, enables us to offer full suite of integration services. These combined capabilities allow Dell Technologies to jointly participate in several ways with CSPs and industry partners to realize the edge compute value chain for enterprises.

Source: dell.com

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VxRail for Edge – Cool Enough for the Data Center

It’s often said the smallest things have the biggest impact. Today, this is especially true as we introduce the smallest Dell VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure system yet.

We’ve all heard the saying, “the edge is everywhere.” Organizations with remote sites rely on being able to process large amounts of data locally to make real-time decisions to help them optimize their operations and improve their bottom line. And that edge data is expected to explode in the coming years. Gartner predicts enterprise-generated data created and processed outside the traditional data center or cloud will grow from up to 75% by 2025.

The Dell VxRail VD-4000, front angle

VxRail is no stranger to edge deployments. Customers like Lowe’s, Mercy Ships and Nature Fresh Farms have benefited from implementing VxRail across thousands of edge locations to support their businesses. We continue to bring more and more edge innovation to VxRail, including the introduction of the VxRail single satellite node last year. Today, we’re introducing the availability of our new VxRail VD-4000 rugged platform, with a smaller, purpose-built form factor extending the benefits of VxRail to locations previously inaccessible due to unfavorable conditions, low bandwidth and footprint restrictions.

This new form factor extends the benefits of VxRail to address even more edge use cases, adding value at the edge where it’s most needed, bringing efficiency, automation and operational simplicity to new and unique environments.

Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Unpredictable Environments

One of the limitations of deploying technology at the edge is the unpredictability of edge environments. Think of the back office of a retail store, cluttered with boxes of inventory, a bustling manufacturing floor full of lots of moving people and machinery, or a telecommunication tower in the smoldering desert.

The new ruggedized VxRail node, with a significantly smaller form factor, is ideal for space-constrained and harsh environments. Rack it, stack it or mount it on a wall, this solution brings all the benefits of VxRail to extreme locations.

The VxRail VD-4000 is designed for flexibility with options for multiple 1U and 2U node sleds in either a standard-width rack mount chassis or a new 14” deep by 10.5” wide chassis – about the size of a shoebox – that can be stacked on a shelf or even mounted on the wall where floorspace is sparse.

◉ Rackable chassis supports four 1U node sleds, two 2U node sleds + vSAN witness or a combination of 1U and 2U node sleds.

◉ Stackable and mountable chassis supports two 1U node sleds + vSAN witness or one 2U node sled.

The VD-4000 can operate in temperatures from 27 F to 131 F (–5 C to 55 C) and has been tested to withstand shock and vibration with Network Equipment-Building System (NEBS) and Military Standard (MIL-STD) certifications.

Both VD-4000 chassis also have the option to include a lockable intelligent filtered bezel that will alert you when clogged, to keep your system free from dust, humidity and other air contaminants prevalent in a lot of edge locations like mobile command centers, military sites, construction sites or lint-filled retail backrooms.

The new VxRail VD-4000 is great for unique environments and unique workloads. With integration and support for NVIDIA A2 and A30 GPUs, it brings powerful analytics to any location, whether analyzing camera footage for object detection, powering machine learning for better customer journeys or running AI applications to optimize supply chains. Plus, the VD-4000 is powered by Intel® Xeon® D Processors. This “designed for the edge” CPU comes with built-in AI, security and dense compute delivering high data throughput that edge customers demand.

Can I Get a Witness?

The Dell VxRail VD-4000, left angle

One of the coolest new features of the VD-4000 is the addition of an embedded vSAN witness that eliminates the need for a virtual witness node to achieve data consistency. In fact, this is the industry’s first vSAN HCI system utilizing an embedded vSAN witness node Uniquely, VxRail HCI System Software also automatically lifecycle manages the onboard witness, ensuring the witness is always in a validated state. Eliminating the need for a data center or cloud-based witness enables creation of a self-contained two-node vSAN cluster in a small footprint. This allows for far-edge deployments in locations previously unattainable due to low latency and low bandwidth constraints.

Make Your Data Center More Sustainable

While ideal for the edge, customers have told us they are also interested in the VD-4000 for use in their data center because of its lower power consumption. We calculate a two-node VD-4000 with the embedded vSAN witness requires 38% less power than a standard three-node cluster.

So, while the VD-4000 is remote site optimized, it has the potential to change the way infrastructure architects think about conventional power and cooling in datacenters by operating outside of typical environmental requirements.

The VxRail VD-4000 continues to enable a common operational model across IT landscapes and extends the simplicity of VMware and VxRail to any location.

Source: dell.com

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Find the Needle in the Multicloud Data Haystack

The adage of “finding a needle in a haystack” is an everyday challenge for our customers. The explosion of data is keeping data teams up at night as they wrestle with the IT challenges created by data silos and bypassing those challenges to create new sources of customer, product, service, and operational value from their data. In fact, only 22% of data management resource time is spent on data innovation and monetization.

In our ongoing effort to help customers with their data management journey, Dell Technologies has developed a data virtualization solution in partnership with Starburst, that eliminates data silos to enable fast querying of data sources on-prem and in the cloud. Through use of the solution, IT leaders can further identify the data that is most valuable for the organization to centralize. The solution utilizes Dell Technologies software-driven storage designed to manage data at scale without compromising performance, including PowerEdge servers and ECS object storage.

Data Management with Dell Technologies

This strategic partnership is part of Dell’s journey to continuously innovate alongside our customers. Doing so enables them to accelerate time to value with their data to deliver better business outcomes. As a trusted partner for best in breed storage, compute, networking, data protection, backup, and recovery and more,​ we execute diverse and dynamic AI and ML workloads across our industry-leading infrastructure every day, irrespective of where it resides across on-prem, public cloud and edge​. Our extensive network of value-added professional services and support, ​pre-validated solutions and reference architectures​, as well as partner-enabled services and strategic partnerships like this one, delivers the necessary experts, resources and capabilities to help our customers optimize their IT and data​. Dell’s customers already trust us to protect and process their data, and we want to extend that trusted support by helping them simplify the data management journey – allowing them to innovate quickly and efficiently. ​

Read More: DEA-5TT2: Dell EMC Networking Associate

Today, we begin to collate and further proliferate our data management philosophy by extending our products, services and offerings into one that modernizes the data management journey for our customers. The new partnership allows us to further walk alongside our customers as they work though their complex data environment and gather valuable insights from a wide variety of newer data types like videos, streams, and more. But we’re not stopping at traditional analytics. We are continuing our venture into providing the capabilities necessary to help tackle the challenges of new data types with exponential growth.

Our partnership with Starburst was a natural progression of this ethos, allowing us to bring our customers the ability to use data virtualization across their multicloud environments. Starburst is the analytics engine for all data, providing the fastest, most efficient analytics engine for data warehouses, data lakes, or data mesh. They unlock the value of distributed data by making it fast and easy to access, no matter where it lives. Starburst queries data across any database, making it instantly actionable for data-driven organizations. With Starburst, teams can lower the total cost of their infrastructure and analytics investments, prevent vendor lock-in and use the existing tools that work for their business. Trusted by companies like Apache Corporation, Comcast, Doordash, FINRA, Marks and Spencer, and VMware, Starburst helps companies make better decisions faster on all data.

Source: dell.com

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Streamline Endpoint Security and Manageability with BLOBs

As an IT manager with hundreds or thousands of end users who rely on their laptops to get their job done, have you ever struggled to ensure everyone’s devices are secure and up to date? Configuring and managing BIOS can be an especially difficult task, but one that’s increasingly important. In fact, setting and maintaining a unique BIOS password on each device is one of the best ways to ensure that it can’t be tampered with accidentally, or even hacked. Dell has worked with Microsoft to develop a capability that allows you to manage and configure BIOS quickly, easily and natively within Intune using BLOBs.

BLOB stands for Binary Large Object and is a storage option for any type of data you want to retain in a binary format. It has the flexibility to store data for any type of application. In this case, BLOBs make it easy for IT to perform two important tasks: Configuring and updating BIOS settings for Dell devices with zero touch and setting and maintaining secure passwords that are unique to each device.

Let me explain.

Configuring and Updating Dell BIOS Settings Using Intune and BLOBs

Imagine you just hired a number of new employees to fill several different positions, and since you now offer hybrid or fully remote work, these new employees live all over the country. You would probably use connected provisioning, leveraging a generic image installed on each PC at the factory. The factory-provisioned devices are then directly shipped to each new employee.

Once the new employee receives the device, he or she enters a few keystrokes, and the device connects to the company’s Microsoft Intune, where software starts flowing down and installing on the device. This part is pretty standard. However, what’s new is that Intune is now able to configure BIOS settings with the same automated zero touch method used for device provisioning.

How does all of this happen?  It starts with Dell Command | Endpoint Configure for Microsoft Intune.

How this works is simple and should feel familiar to anyone who has managed system configurations.

1. The IT admin creates a configuration profile in Dell Command | Endpoint Configure and selects the system and BIOS settings tailored to fit the user and the organization’s needs.

2. The configuration profile is exported as a package – the BLOB – that contains that specific configuration of system and BIOS settings.

3. The BLOB is uploaded to Microsoft Intune and is set to automatically deploy to the groups of Dell endpoints the IT admin designates.

4. At the endpoint device, the Dell Client Connector for Intune decodes the BLOB and then invokes Dell Command Configure to configure the BIOS. Once this is complete, the device reports back a status of Pending, Failed or Succeeded.

The operation, assignment and reporting are native in Intune and handled just like any other configuration profile. The BLOB adds the capability to configure over 150 BIOS and hardware settings using current zero-touch deployment methods. Plus, the BIOS Configuration profile is right there with all of the other configuration profiles in Intune. This makes it easier than ever to manage your company’s fleet of devices, while helping you and your peers work more securely, especially since one of the key BIOS settings it can manage is the BIOS password. 

Setting and Maintaining Secure BIOS Passwords

Setting a BIOS password is an important step in securing your devices and establishing device trust, a pillar of Zero Trust Architecture. Without it, a hacker or even someone innocently making a change in a setting could interfere with the BIOS and disrupt your business. Organizations realize this but are often stuck with a single BIOS password for all devices because of the difficulty of managing a unique password for each device. And if that single password is compromised, every device becomes more vulnerable. With Dell Password Manager, you can have a strong and unique per-device BIOS password that is automatically rotated every time it’s used. Each password is stored in an Azure secure field. You simply toggle a button to set up this protection for your devices. This works with all new and previous generation Dell commercial devices. Additionally, all of these BIOS configuration settings can be managed through the cloud because of the unstructured nature of BLOB Storage.

BLOB Availability

While Dell Command | Endpoint Configure for Microsoft Intune is available for all customers today, the BIOS and Password Manager features are currently in private preview, with a public preview expected in the second quarter of 2023. If you can’t wait to try it out, request access to the private preview by contacting our Endpoint Security team. Don’t worry, gaining access to private preview will not disrupt your live environment; it will let you try out the features to see how it works in your environment.

Source: dell.com

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Preparing for the Road Ahead

One of the things that differentiates us in our industry is the culture we’ve built over the last 38 years. More specifically, the grit and determination our team members demonstrate impresses me every day. It’s the hallmark of who we are, and what allows us to adapt to anything thrown at us.

I’ve shared a series of decisions we’ve made – including a pause on external hiring, limiting travel and reducing outside services spend – to help our company navigate the challenges of the global economic environment and uncertainty ahead. And, as we always do, we’ve continued assessing our business to ensure we’re set up to deliver the best innovation, value and service to our customers and partners.

What we know is market conditions continue to erode with an uncertain future. The steps we’ve taken to stay ahead of downturn impacts – which enabled several strong quarters in a row – are no longer enough. We now have to make additional decisions to prepare for the road ahead.

In the coming days and weeks, you’ll begin to see a series of changes – some resets – across the organization to better structure us for the future, to better collaborate, reduce complexity, increase speed and to accelerate innovation. They’ll help us focus on purpose-driven work and be in the best position to make the greatest difference for customers, Dell Technologies and each other. You’ll hear from your leader soon about any changes that may impact your team.

Some of these changes include:

◉ Global Sales: Aligning Regional Sales and Dell Technologies Select (DTS) teams to provide additional consistency in how we work with customers and partners worldwide, collaborate and share best practices faster, all of which help us grow. With the regional leads and DTS rolling up to one leader, our support teams will align to a similar structure and streamline their functions.

◉ Services: Integrating our support services into ISG and CSG to tighten the feedback loop between customers, support and our product teams. It also aligns accountability for the cost of services closer to the control points in engineering and product design. All this adds up to our ability to develop more integrated solutions more quickly.

◉ ISG: ISG engineering has shifted teams and resources to the priority offerings that will best serve our customers’ and partners’ needs.

Bill Scannell and Doug Schmitt will share additional Sales and Services detail with their teams shortly.

Unfortunately, with changes like this, some members of our team will be leaving the company. There is no tougher decision, but one we had to make for our long-term health and success. Please know we’ll support those impacted as they transition to their next opportunities.

Remember, we’ve navigated economic downturns before and we’ve emerged stronger. We’ll prevail as we always do, for our customers, partners and each other. We’ll be more competitive, more focused and find a new level of operational performance. We will be ready when the market rebounds.

The opportunities ahead of us are immense. The amount of data continues to explode. Our innovation is powering progress across the globe. And our customers are turning to us as their trusted partner. I’ve never been more confident in our future and our team.

Source: dell.com

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Celebrating Data Privacy Week with Dell’s Chief Privacy Officer

Last year, the National Cybersecurity Alliance expanded international Data Privacy Day to Data Privacy Week, marking the growing importance of prioritizing data privacy for individuals and organizations. To celebrate this observance and learn more about how Dell Technologies views privacy, we spoke with Sommer Coutu, Dell’s Chief Privacy Officer.

Tell us about your background and what drew you to the chief privacy officer role.

Sommer Coutu: I joined Dell over ten years ago and always appreciated the way we embrace ethics and compliance as core tenets of our business. After all, the Ethisphere Institute named Dell one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies 10 times. I’ve carried these values throughout my various legal roles, most recently in supporting our sales teams where I guided them on conducting business compliantly and with integrity. I instill the principles of ethics and compliance across teams not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it builds trust and is foundational for how we do business.

As Dell’s business and the world evolved, I saw how these values are also cornerstones to privacy. In my previous legal role supporting the sales team, I gained extensive insight into the importance of privacy to our customers. They expect the companies they work with will honor and respect their privacy and will incorporate it into all the ways they do business. I was excited about the opportunity to lead our privacy team to evolve with our customers’ expectations and ensure Dell infuses privacy into the fabric of how we conduct ourselves. Given the scope of what that entails, this role offers me the opportunity to work collaboratively across our global organization to get this done.

What does privacy mean to you?

Sommer Coutu: When I think about privacy, three words come to mind: transparency, choice and control. Every individual wants to feel they can trust the companies they do business with to protect their personal data. Trust starts with being transparent about our privacy practices and what we do with personal information. It’s also about giving individuals control over their information so they feel informed, empowered and able to make choices about how their personal data is used. We strive to weave these principles and embed privacy into every Dell operation, product and service.

Privacy is complex. How do you decide where to prioritize?

Sommer Coutu: Global privacy laws and personal data laws are constantly evolving, and we can expect they will only continue to strengthen individuals’ privacy rights. I believe managing privacy is about continuous commitment to its evolution. We must not just react to these laws but be forward-thinking about how we evolve privacy in our organization. For example, in 2021 we launched the Dell Technologies Privacy Center as a one-stop shop for more information about our approach to privacy and a self-service Privacy Dashboard for individuals to manage their marketing preferences. This past year, we expanded the Privacy Center to nearly 150 countries so more individuals and organizations can learn about our privacy practices and have direct access to control the personal information Dell holds.

I’m looking forward to expanding upon the progress we’ve made and keeping transparency, choice and control at the forefront of our privacy philosophy and strategy. To continue this momentum and set my priorities, I ask myself:

◉ Are we meeting our customers’ expectations?

◉ Can we expand on what we have?

◉ How do we improve on what we’ve already started?

◉ Should we be taking this further?

Ultimately, I aim to ensure our team members are thinking about privacy by default and design every day in service to our customers.

What is your view on the connection between security and privacy?

Sommer Coutu: A company’s best privacy intentions are meaningless without the ability to secure personal information. To do that, security and privacy teams must partner closely. That’s why President and Chief Security Officer John Scimone and I work together, as do our teams, to ensure we have the right policies, processes and practices in place to meet our privacy commitments. 

Why is recognizing Data Privacy Week important?

Sommer Coutu: Since Data Privacy Week expanded last year to a week-long observance, I’m thrilled to see this important topic continuing to gain momentum. It’s critical we take this time to bring more awareness to the protection of personal information. However, to get privacy right, we need to be thinking about it not just this week, but every day. At Dell, that means keeping transparency, choice and control at the forefront of our privacy philosophy.

Source: dell.com

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Create Value at the Edge

Manufacturing facilities of the future are the perfect glimpse into the opportunities that edge data creates across industries. These facilities equip their facilities, machines and personnel with sensors while monitoring operating processes and the facility with video feeds. They even go so far as to utilize things like x-ray video to observe products for abnormalities that would go unnoticed to the naked eye. With a combination of these strategies, “smart manufacturing” has the ability to predict maintenance, accurately forecast demand, proactively monitor safety and security, reduce waste, optimize asset utilization and so much more. The opportunities are truly endless. While a manufacturing facility is the perfect example for many of these use cases, the opportunities for edge data to create improvements through real-time intelligence with data is ripe within all industries.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are providing generational opportunities in enabling organizations to derive and drive new sources of customer, product, service and operational value. But in order to do so, organizations need to transition from “algorithm-driven AI” to “data-enabled AI” by improving the quality, completeness, relevance, granularity and latency of the data that feeds those AI algorithms. The edge has become the new monetization and value creation battleground. And winning at the edge requires edge-literate data management and data monetization strategy and capabilities.

What is the Edge?

The “edge” of the organization is the front lines of customer and operational engagement. It’s where business gets done! The edge is the place – or places – where organizations act on data near its point of creation to create immediate, essential value. Where you find your edge depends on your perspective. For retail, the edge is the point of transaction, whether that is the store or the mobile device where a customer creates an online order. In farming, it’s the equipment deployed in your fields. If you’re an auto manufacturer, it’s the assembly line in your factories. If you’re in healthcare, it’s in the ambulance, examination room and radiology lab.

But engaging at the edge using technology is more than just collecting new sources of data from edge devices. The secret sauce of the edge lies in the technologies’ ability to ingest, store, analyze, infer and act upon data in real or near-real time.

What the Edge Can Do for Your Organization

This list of examples, which is only a small snapshot of the possibilities, shows the truly industry-agnostic ability to create value with edge data:

Energy and Utilities: Remote oil and gas asset optimization, smart grids, load balancing, demand forecasting

Automotive and Smart Cities: Autonomous vehicle navigation, traffic management, parking management, ride hailing

Healthcare: AI-enabled decision support, integrated command centers, robotic-assisted surgeries and surgical training, robotic patient care, telehealth

Retail: End-to-end product visibility, inventory/supply chain management, contactless POS experience, theft protection, in-store traffic optimization

Telecommunications/Media: Bi-directional content delivery, distribution and aggregation

Financial Services: ATM network operation efficiency, personalized customer services, digital teller/brand services, digital/mobile payments, real-time fraud detection

Construction: Weather-enabled alerts, project management, heavy machinery allocation, human resource scheduling, timeline management and build accuracy alerts

How To Get Started

Monetizing the edge starts by understanding an organization’s key business initiatives and then breaking down those business initiatives into the use cases (Operational Decisions + Key Performance Indicators + Business Outcomes) that support the business initiative. You can take a visual journey through the comprehensive, yet engaging, process by visiting this interactive data management journey map.

Join us as we share monthly blogs detailing the opportunities, challenges, strategies and stories that we’ve seen through our customers’ eyes for every step of the journey map. We’ll discuss product options, approaches and use cases along the way so you can gain a better understanding of the opportunities in your own organization and how to uncover them.

Source: dell.com

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