Building the Networks of Tomorrow

In the last few years, telecommunications network architecture has evolved significantly. It now includes cloud-native infrastructure, 5G radio access and multi-access edge computing (MEC), all with unique business and operational considerations. For communications service providers (CSPs), managing these multiple network infrastructures is more than a full-time job. In fact, CSPs are so busy deploying, provisioning, maintaining and replacing hardware in their networks, they barely have the resources to create new services. With these challenges in mind, Dell Technologies created Bare Metal Orchestrator.

Read More: DEE-2T13: Dell EMC Cloud Services Expert for Cloud Architects (DCE-CA)

Bare Metal Orchestrator is a software tool that automates and orchestrates network hardware across core, RAN and MEC networks. By bringing multi-vendor servers and switches under a single management tool and unified user interface, Bare Metal Orchestrator allows CSPs to quickly deploy new networks, seamlessly upgrade existing networks and dramatically reduce the time and money spent on hardware lifecycle management. In a recent report, ACG Research found Bare Metal Orchestrator can reduce a CSP’s operational costs up to 57% and their network total cost of ownership by 53%.

Declare Your Independence from Manual Processes

Bare Metal Orchestrator uses declarative automation. With declarative automation, networks are automated based on a user’s desired setting, and the system automatically determines the necessary steps to achieve it. In other words, you tell the network what you want and let the system figure out how to get there. Declarative automation ensures CSPs get their networks’ best performance and maximum agility without getting up to their elbows in manually provisioning and configuring hundreds or thousands of unique servers and switches. Beyond that, Bare Metal Orchestrator brings the management of all these different hardware devices into a single user interface, so it’s easier to see what you have (and what you have to retire), as well as what you need to add to achieve specific SLAs and outcomes.

Depending on the type of network environment, Bare Metal Orchestrator delivers different features and efficiencies. For core networks, it can help CSPs discover and manage devices to support enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) services, ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) for specific vertical applications or massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC) for IoT applications. For edge networks, Bare Metal Orchestrator enables CSPs to easily manage and control up to thousands of multi-vendor MEC devices from a single user interface while supporting multi-tenant models. For RAN systems, Bare Metal Orchestrator automates and simplifies the deployment and scaling of virtualized Distributed Unit (vDU) and Centralized Unit (vCU) servers to meet dynamic capacity requirements.

When You’re Open to Automation, Everything Flows

For next-generation telecommunications providers, the future is wide open – to more vendors, more innovation and more competitive pricing from open-source network technology. Bare Metal Orchestrator is accelerating that future with broad, open support for a wide variety of vendor solutions, including cloud-native software from Wind River, VMware and Red Hat, as well as hardware solutions from Dell Technologies, Intel, AMD, Cisco and many others. Within minutes of activation, Bare Metal Orchestrator is ready to discover, manage, orchestrate and automate thousands of network devices deployed anywhere the world.

Bare Metal Orchestrator uses standards-based APIs to centralize and automate provisioning across hybrid and multi-vendor devices. These APIs support DTMF Redfish and other industry standards to enable network administrators and developers to create customized solutions from a wide range of products. The result is a true infrastructure-as-code architecture that eliminates manual configuration and provisioning in favor of automated and machine-driven processes.

At Dell Technologies, we believe 5G is a transformative technology, and we’ve transformed our business to support the telecommunications services of tomorrow by building out a world-class telecom systems business. You’ll find that transformation at work in our telecom-grade hardware and software products, our state-of-the-art Open Telecommunications Ecosystem lab and our global telecom services team. With optional ProSupport from Dell Technologies, Bare Metal Orchestrator customers can receive 24×7 technical support and troubleshooting assistance in the event of hardware failures and outages, even during the holidays. Dell Technologies also provides a range of deployment services to help CSPs rapidly deploy new services and shorten their time to market.

If manually managing multi-vendor networks through multiple tools is more than your network operations team can bear, talk to Dell Technologies about Bare Metal Orchestrator solution. It could open a whole new world of opportunity for your network.

Source: dell.com

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Step Beyond Traditional Security and Device Management

As the workforce becomes more distributed, the challenges of managing and securing a PC fleet have intensified. Managing remote PCs has become the norm, creating new hurdles for IT teams, such as needing to remotely troubleshoot, re-image or restore. But capabilities are limited when a PC is turned off or the operating system is not functioning.

These challenges can not only lead to significant blind spots and vulnerabilities across IT environments, but also inefficiencies for IT teams and users. To bridge these challenges, Dell Technologies, Intel and VMware worked together to introduce a new integration across Dell commercial PCs with Intel vPro and VMware Workspace ONE.

This integration gives organizations the ability to unlock new security, management and support capabilities for their IT teams and end users from a single pane of glass: their VMware Workspace ONE Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) console. With Workspace ONE, IT teams can streamline endpoint security and management across any device and application, complete with analytics and automation. IT teams can use the integration between Workspace ONE and Intel vPro technologies to easily access and configure a system’s BIOS with Dell Command Suite or remotely execute bare metal OS recoveries and restores to quickly get employees back up and running.

If an IT team has a Dell commercial PC fleet with the Intel vPro platform managed via VMware Workspace ONE, enrolling the fleet to take advantage of the benefits of this integration is easy. IT only needs to execute a brief syncing process between their Intel Endpoint Management Assistant (EMA) host and their VMware Workspace ONE instance to begin leveraging the features of this integration directly from their Workspace ONE console.

Now let’s take a closer look at the five key benefits the Dell, Intel and VMware Workspace ONE integration can unlock.

1. Increase speed of PC onboarding and activation. According to a study by Principled Technologies, commissioned by VMware and Intel, an IT team can enroll and onboard its PC fleet onto Intel vPro in 75% fewer steps with Workspace ONE as compared to other UEM solutions, speeding the time to realizing the benefits of Intel vPro capabilities with Workspace ONE UEM. This streamlined process also improves efficiency and costs for your IT team.

2. Manage PCs out-of-band. Traditionally, devices must be powered on to actively manage them, limiting the ability to monitor, update, patch or restore devices that are powered down or do not have a functioning operating system. With this integration, an IT user can update, patch and restore a PC when it’s ‘out-of-band’ in a disconnected, non-functional state. IT can even access a PC without a functioning operating system via a Workspace ONE console and enable a bare metal operating system recovery or restore. View this recent webinar for a demo of this new enhanced benefit.

3. Maintain a Zero Trust security posture. As many companies adopt a remote-first mindset for their workforce, new threats arise. Vigilance is critical. If a PC is out-of-band, it creates a blind spot that could leave the device exposed, increasing the risk of attacks and non-compliance. With the Workspace ONE and Intel vPro integration, IT teams maintain visibility and control across the entire fleet, which helps to maintain Zero Trust posture across your ecosystem.

4. Easily access and utilize Dell Client Command Suite. IT teams can use their Workspace ONE console to access and utilize Dell Client Command Suite on their Dell commercial PC fleet in a fully integrated way inside the Workspace ONE console. Dell Client Command Suite is a comprehensive collection of system management tools that automate and streamline client device image setup, configuration, monitoring and updates. Some key capabilities an IT team can more easily execute via their Workspace ONE console include configuring BIOS settings and installing critical system-specific updates more efficiently. In addition, with Dell Trusted Devices (DTD) and Dell SafeBIOS integration into Workspace ONE, an IT person, at a glance, can determine the integrity of their BIOS firmware and other security statuses enabled by DTD.

5. Increase productivity. As employees work more hybrid and flexible hours, keeping a PC fleet updated and compliant via traditional methods has become more challenging and impactful on employee productivity. This new integration significantly reduces employee downtime while their device is being updated or restored. It also enables remote keyboard, video and mouse (KVM) access below the OS, so IT teams can remediate issues without requiring physical access to the device, improving employee experience and productivity. And with Workspace ONE Intelligence, IT teams can identify issues and remediate them proactively using automation.

Source: dell.com

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Your Data Management Journey: Keep the End in Mind

“Begin with an end in mind” —from “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey

In our previous blog, we introduced the concept of The Dell Data Management Journey Map – a map that guides organizations in their ability to leverage their data and advanced analytics to accelerate their journey from business need to business outcome.

The business importance of data management has grown dramatically over the past couple of years as leading artificial intelligence (AI) pundits have advocated for the transition from algorithm-centric AI to data-centric AI. Dr. Andrew Ng, Stanford professor and the godfather of modern AI, has been championing the critical transition of spending less time tweaking the AI algorithms, and instead investing more time improving the data quality, latency, granularity and robustness that power the AI models.

“If 80 percent of our work is data preparation, then ensuring data quality is the important work of a machine learning team.” – Andrew Ng

Professor Ng’s message is quite clear. While tweaking AI math algorithms will lead to incremental improvements in the effectiveness of AI models, we can achieve much larger improvements through quality and completeness improvements in the data that feed the AI algorithms. And as an added benefit, improvements in the data sets also improve the predictive performance of any use cases that use that same data set – the basis for the Schmarzo Data Economic Multiplier Effect.

Yeah, us old data dogs know this observation as GIGO, or “garbage in, garbage out.”

Starting Your Data Management Journey

In his seminal book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey famously said, “Begin with an end in mind.” And your data management journey starts with the same advice: Identify, understand and collaborate around a targeted, well-articulated business need, challenge or initiative. This is step one.

So, to ensure a successful data management journey, we must first understand user intent. That is, what is the user trying to accomplish? How will he or she measure success? To thoroughly determine and understand user intent, we must address the following questions as the first step in our data management journey.

Figure 1: Source: “The Art of Thinking Like a Data Scientist” by Bill Schmarzo.

Which business initiative are we trying to address? What are the KPIs and metrics against which we will measure progress and success? What are the desired or ideal outcomes?

And while addressing these questions is a great start, you also need to engage key internal and external stakeholders – those who impact or are impacted by the initiatives – making sure to understand their perspectives as the first step in your data management journey.

Figure 2: Source: “The Art of Thinking Like a Data Scientist” by Bill Schmarzo.

What are these stakeholders’ desired outcomes? What KPIs and metrics will they use to measure success? What are the potential ramifications and risks from the failure of the initiative?

Gaining a thorough and holistic perspective on those questions requires collaboration across internal and external stakeholders. Not only does this help to ensure the data management efforts and resulting AI outcomes are properly aligned and focused, but it also creates buy-in from these key stakeholders who will be responsible for applying the data and AI results to their daily jobs.

Also, close collaboration with the subject matter experts drives better outcomes. If data science is about identifying those variables and metrics that “might” be better predictors of performance (otherwise known as ML features), then engaging and empowering the subject matter experts is critical to identifying those variables, metrics and supporting data sources that “might” lead to more relevant and accurate analytic results.

“If you don’t have enough ‘might’ moments, you’ll never have any ‘breakthrough’ moments.”

If AI has the business and economic potential to transform every industry and every aspect of society, and quality of data directly drives the effectiveness of the AI models, then it’s logical to see the transformation of data management from an IT practice into a business discipline –focused on leveraging data and analytics to deliver more relevant, more meaningful and more material business and operational outcomes.

Let Dell Data Management Lead the Way

Learn more about the Data Management Journey with our interactive infographic here. And stay on the lookout for our blog on step two of the data management journey, coming next month. You can also learn more about Dell Data Management solutions on our Enterprise Data Management page.

Source: dell.com

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Data Everywhere and Not an Insight to be Found

In today’s digital age, we are existing among a storm of data, treading water to stay afloat. Our devices are watching and listening to us constantly. With every scroll, every social share, every conversation, companies are constantly collecting data. But where does this storm surge of data go, and how is it used? With the rate of data continuously climbing, up to a rate of 35% annually, companies are faced with more data than they often know what to do with. They want the value and crave the benefits, but achieving those can be overwhelming at best. As we transition from the era of digital transformation to the era of digital business, organizations recognize they must move quickly to remain competitive. Yet, it takes many organizations months to act on data insights, a lag that can leave a company far behind.

We must process data and make it available in a timely, relevant and actionable way to enable faster, better business decisions. Digital resiliency prioritizes data-centric processes – improving data usage and enhancing efficiency of the data lifecycle. In fact, an estimated two thirds of organizations rank intelligent data management among their top five management priorities.¹ Companies know those who act on insights faster will gain a competitive edge.

Prevail Through the Hurricane that is Data

As data floods in from every angle, pelting down on top of companies that are likely already overtaxed, how will you modernize to meet data consumption needs? If you don’t feel like you have the technical skills in-house or your teams are already overextended and can’t dedicate time to these objectives, Dell Technologies Services can provide the lifeboat you desperately need. With guidance and assistance from our experts, you will gain value from data faster. We are the storm chasers who will evaluate what you need to do to stay ahead of the storm, accelerating your journey to achieving the powerful data insights your company needs to thrive. Leverage the power of our experts, backed by Dell Technologies’ extensive global network, to help you realize:

◉ Increased server performance and flexibility to give you a single view of data on-premises and in the cloud through modernized workloads

◉ A unified data analytics platform that scales to meet your business needs

◉ Enhanced data governance and visibility, plus reduced cost and complexity

Using modern architecture, proven solutions and advanced techniques, we address needs across the lifecycle, helping you develop a strategy, implement new technologies, improve adoption and scale to the needs of your organization. We help you break through the storm of data, eliminating data silos that create extra cost and security risks and enhancing data visibility, control and access to enable you to make faster, better data-driven decisions.

Learn From Those Who Weathered the Storm

Consider a recent engagement with one of Dell’s customers as an example. Working with a leading life insurance provider, we focused on optimizing their server environment. This company supports a custom application for analyzing and managing insurance portfolio investment options, which requires processing large volumes of data daily and storing billions of rows of data in the data warehouse. By reducing data warehouse load times and maximizing utilization of data storage assets, we helped the business achieve lowered projected storage cost by about $1 million per year and increased data throughput by over 100%.

Dell Technologies Services will set you on the path to unlocking data value quickly and efficiently, enabling you to create a more intelligent, competitive business. Interested in learning more about how your business can better leverage and gain advantage from data?

Source: dell.com

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Why Is Dell EMC Advanced Analytics Specialist the Most Sought-After Certification for Data Professionals?

The Dell EMC Advanced Analytics Specialist certification exposes you to big data and data analytics basics. Topics for this certification include an introduction to data analytics, big data characteristics, and data scientists' roles. It also had a variety of big data theories and techniques, including linear regression, time-series analysis, and decision trees.

This Dell EMC Advanced Analytics Specialist certification is designed to build on the skills developed in the associate-level course and help aspiring data scientists continue to evolve and grow their skill sets. The main growth areas include advanced analytical methods, Hadoop and Pig, Hive, HBase, social network analysis, natural language processing, and visualization.

Benefits of Dell EMC Advanced Analytics Specialist Certification

Data exploration and discovery to recognize and quantify the characteristic of the data. This is an interactive method to determine which variables and metrics to test in the interactive analytic model development process.

Data enrichment is the method of creating new higher-order variables that enhance the content and context of the raw data given the problem being addressed. Data enrichment methods cover log transformations, RFM (recency, frequency, monetary) calculations, indices, share, attributions, and scores.

Data visualization uses tools and methods to identify patterns, trends, outliers, and correlations that might be helpful in the analytic modeling process; to identify variables and metrics that might be better predictors of business and operational performance.

Feature engineering, creating new input features for machine learning, is one of the most effective methods for developing predictive models.

Job Outlook

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of data scientist positions in the United States is expected to increase by 22 percent from 2020 to 2030. The potential rise means that job growth for data scientists is about three times higher than the national average for all careers.

Careers as Dell EMC Advanced Analytics Specialists are still a comparatively new concept. However, since the advent of big data, it is becoming increasingly critical for large and mid-size companies to have a data scientist on their staff who can aid them in making the most of their data. Frequently, data scientists' insights can have enormous benefits for companies.

Possible Career Pathway for a Dell EMC Advanced Analytics Specialist

The first step for anyone who wants to become a Dell EMC Advanced Analytics Specialist is to learn the technical skills mentioned above, which are required for this field.

You can do this through a boot camp, a bachelor’s degree, or studying independently. Having these skills is an essential demand for becoming a data scientist. Once you have these skills, you will have a good chance of landing an entry-level position as a data scientist.

However, to improve your chances of landing a data scientist position, you should complete a master’s degree in either data science or computer science. Earning as many of the abovementioned certifications as possible would be best. The more credentials you have, the better your chances of getting a good data science position.

The Dell EMC Advanced Analytics Specialist is a foundation certification that exposes you to analytic data basics and big data. You are considered a proven professional as you pass your Dell EMC Advanced Analytics Specialist certification.

Role of a Dell EMC Advanced Analytics Specialist

As businesses generate more data than ever, it becomes clear that data is valuable. However, extracting meaningful insights from data demands analyzing the data, which is where Data Scientists come in. A Dell EMC Advanced Analytics Specialist collects, organizes, surveys, and interprets data to find trends, patterns, and correlations.

Data Scientists play an essential role in guaranteeing that organizations make informed decisions. They work closely with business leaders to identify specific objectives, such as determining customer segmentation and driving improvements in products and services. Using advanced machine learning algorithms and statistical models, Data Scientists can examine massive datasets to uncover patterns and insights that help organizations make sound decisions.

Data Scientists usually have a combination of technical skills and knowledge of interpreting and visualizing data. They must have expertise in statistical analysis, programming languages, machine learning algorithms, and database systems.

The role of a Dell EMC Advanced Analytics Specialist is critical for businesses looking to make data-driven decisions. Data Scientists collect, organize, analyze, and interpret data to identify trends and correlations. They also develop data processing pipelines, design reports and dashboards, and develop models to forecast future trends. They must understand the business context and the customer’s needs to succeed in the field.

Conclusion

Data Science tools and techniques provide a lot to the growth of a business. Every business is undergoing a digital transformation, and there is a growing demand for candidates with appropriate skills. Knowledge companies offer competitive salaries for the right talent if you are interested in a career in data science or moving to roles such as Business Analysts, Data Analysts, Data Engineers, Analytics Engineers, etc.

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Dell Partners Across Telecom Ecosystem to Solve Industry Challenges

Communication service providers (CSPs) embracing open technologies are poised to capture massive opportunities but face complex barriers to technology adoption. Dell Technologies is doubling down on its commitment to simplify today’s disaggregated telecom landscape and serve as a unifying force in the telecom industry through the introduction of the Dell Open Telecom Ecosystem Community.

The community brings together telecom partners and CSPs, leveraging the Dell Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab, to deliver open telecom solutions to market more quickly. The community will also develop and share telecom ecosystem knowledge, innovate new ideas to solve critical challenges and improve solution time-to-value as part of monetizing open networks.

“As a founding member of the leading open-source Open RAN solution now in high scale deployment globally, we believe it is important to bring together the ecosystem to engage in discussion and develop and share telecom knowledge,” said Paul Miller, chief technology officer, Wind River. “We are excited to join the Dell Technologies Open Telecom Ecosystem Community where telecom partners and Communication Service Providers can work together to drive innovation and actionable outcomes and make the open ecosystem a reality.”

Additionally, today we are announcing new collaborations across the open telecom ecosystem with our technology partners Amdocs, Juniper Networks, Nokia and Qualcomm.

Driving Accelerator Innovation to Deliver Open RAN Price Performance

CSPs want to use open solutions in their networks that enable them to leverage various combinations of hardware and software to meet the specific needs of their network services. The RAN portion of the network requires specific features from infrastructure and software to support this highly demanding, business-critical workload. In addition, CSP reliability requirements and the sheer scale of deployments mean these open architectures need to be highly dependable while delivering comparable price performance characteristics of traditional solutions.

Building on our work previously announced with Fujitsu and Marvell®, today we’re expanding our accelerator partner ecosystem. We’re announcing new partner collaborations that will continue to drive innovation and enable less costly and more efficient paths to open RAN, bringing CSPs more choice and the ability to deploy open networks with confidence:

◉ Nokia and Dell Technologies have formed an agreement to integrate and validate a solution combining Nokia’s 5G Cloud RAN software and Cloud RAN SmartNIC in-line Layer 1 accelerator card with Dell’s open infrastructure, including Dell PowerEdge servers. Dell and Nokia will share engineering and R&D resources to bring the vRAN solution to market. Dell will use its Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab as the center for testing and validation, while Nokia will focus work on the Nokia Open Cloud RAN E2E System Test Lab. 

◉ Qualcomm and Dell Technologies are collaborating to develop a next-generation, 5G virtualized distributed unit (vDU). Dell PowerEdge XR8000 and XR5610 servers purpose-built for telecom and enterprise edge use cases, combined with the Qualcomm X100 5G RAN Accelerator Card with commercial-grade Layer 1 software, offer a high-performing, cost-effective and energy-efficient solution for OEMs and network operators deploying virtualized and Open RAN technologies.

Accelerating Cloud-native 5G Network Deployments

Dell and Amdocs are working together to accelerate the deployment of 5G Stand-Alone (5G SA) core networks. By combining Dell PowerEdge R760 servers with Amdocs Policy and Charging capabilities, CSPs can accelerate a cloud-native 5G core policy and charging control solution in an on-premises cloud environment. With an automated and validated solution, CSPs can rapidly deploy a 5G standalone solution with partners across the open ecosystem, reduce time to market and deliver differentiated services on their networks.

Dell is collaborating with Juniper Networks on a certified solution that provides a simple and direct path to server consolidation and power reduction at cell sites. CSPs aim to reduce their carbon footprint and energy consumption while addressing the growing demand of a digitally connected world. Hybrid network infrastructure, comprised of physical routers, Juniper Cloud-Native Router software and Open RAN compliant Dell PowerEdge servers, helps CSPs work toward their power efficiency and sustainability goals.

Making the Promise of Open a Reality

These are only a few examples of how we’re working with partners across the industry to accelerate the adoption of open and 5G technologies. Combining the knowledge of Dell’s global sales force and our engineers in our Open Telecom Ecosystem Labs, with mobile operators and telecom partners from across the globe, the Dell Open Telecom Ecosystem Community will drive continued innovation to solve key industry challenges with actionable outcomes.

Dell is deeply focused on rallying the industry to enable open and innovative technologies. Together with our partners across the industry, we’re ready to make the promise of the open telecom ecosystem a reality.

Source: dell.com

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Private Wireless Networks – Opportunities and Challenges for Enterprises

Exciting, high-growth Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) use cases will create new outcome opportunities for enterprises and communication service providers (CSPs). Various segments, including connected machinery, oil and gas, energy smart grids already rely on 4G and 5G private networks to securely provide these and other innovative services.

Read More: E20-526: XtremIO Solutions and Design Specialist Exam for Technology Architect (DECS-TA)

This enterprise innovation cycle will require focus, strategic planning and investments. Companies all over the world are looking at private wireless as part of their horizontal “innovation fabric.” They want it to be secure, reliable, easy to operate and future-proof to support new use cases to come.

Connecting every sensor and every device wirelessly has become the pre-condition to agile operations that enable high value-generating technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics and distributed ledger.

CSPs: Transforming to Serve Enterprises

The bulk of CSPs’ revenue has historically come from massive voice and data services to end users. To serve enterprises at scale, CSPs will need to adapt the “Public Network” model, where one network delivers the same sort of services to millions of users, to one where every enterprise requires a particular set of attributes such as coverage, throughput, security and operational model. CSPs will need to transform, partner and evolve their operational processes to be able to capture the new outcomes from the enterprise space.

Requirements for a Future-proof Private Wireless Network 

Enterprises in different vertical segments plan to utilize private wireless networks to connect every sensor, device and user. Full data consolidation will allow them to augment the value of data to generate additional insights via analytics and AI. Below are some of the most relevant enterprises requirements for private wireless deployments:

◉ Horizontal platform for innovation. Private Wireless networks behave as horizontal connectivity platforms where all the innovation will happen. Being able to reuse technology integration efforts for multiple use cases positively impacts the enterprise-to-enterprise private wireless adoption business case.

◉ Self-services. Enterprises need control and agility to manage the day-to-day network configurations without depending on external providers’ lead time.

◉ Simple deployment and operations. Edge applications and new use cases must be centrally onboarded, distributed and managed throughout the life cycle. One single orchestration engine integrated into the edge platform can significantly simplify this process. A consolidated operations and management platform (OMP) from which OT and IT personnel can have complete control without navigating through a maze of separate complex systems is critical.

◉ Extend private control to public networks. Public networks can seamlessly support private devices and users, without requiring manual intervention, for example, to select SIM cards and service profile privileges. They should also be able to carry on their original subnets, IP addresses and security policies as defined by the private network operator.

A Collaboration Ecosystem

Dell Technologies has been innovating at the edge with open disaggregated platforms and services to enable Communication Service Providers and Enterprise to modernize operations and generate new outcomes. We partner with leading IIoT companies to deliver more than connectivity – our goal is to assure enterprise outcomes.

We complement CSPs strengths with platforms designed to reach enterprise’s goals at scale. Dell Private Wireless is a Multi-Vendor Solution powered by hyperconverged infrastructure, in partnership with Airspan, a leading private wireless RAN, and Expeto, the world’s leading cloud-based platform to enable mission critical converged Enterprise Mobile Networks (EMNs) for enterprise customers.

With Dell Private Wireless with Airspan and Expeto launch, we want to simplify the adoption of agile Private Wireless networks for enterprises. Our approach is structured around an ecosystem of well-consolidated industry partners to help simplify enterprise’s adoption journey. Our enterprise-to-enterprise private wireless services capabilities complement CSPs’ strengths, allowing them to provide enterprises with dedicated networks tailored for performance and flexibility at scale.

Source: dell.com

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How to Maintain One to One Student Device Programs

When the United States first confronted the perils associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, school leaders took urgent action to ensure learning could continue at home by equipping their students and staff with laptops and tablets, scaling the number of school systems that could function in a one-to-one learning environment. As a March 2022 survey illustrates, the number of districts equipping their learners with anytime, anywhere access skyrocketed.

Our educators cemented technology integration as an essential component of the learning experience. However, the federal stimulus funds that helped fuel the rapid adoption of technology are ending, and many technology departments are left scratching their heads trying to determine how they can sustain a computing program with reduced fervor surrounding what has become an essential learning tool.

Sustaining a one-to-one program is far more than getting devices to students, and our checklist, Designing Student Access for Equitable Learning, can help ensure we lead with learners first. From a practical perspective, however, school systems still need to identify operational steps to bring their one-to-one goals to fruition. Schools that successfully adopted one-to-one learning before the pandemic operationalized their approach using a variety of tactics.

Inventory Your Devices and Infrastructure

During the pandemic, schools rapidly undertook the process of obtaining, preparing and distributing devices, so it is especially important to centralize your inventory before moving forward. Take stock of what you already have and align it to your student population. Gather data on students, devices, service/asset tag, building location, end-of-year warranty, Auto Update Expiration (AUE), device status, expected lifespan of device and expected rate of breakage to account for “spares.” Engaging in this process will give you the quantitative data you need when you begin to plan and strategize for how you will sustain your program going forward.

Map the Full Lifecycle of Your Devices

Create a process flow diagram of how devices will come and go through your district. Consider the following questions when creating your flow diagram:

◉ What are your buying processes and milestone dates?

◉ When and where will the new devices arrive?

◉ What will happen to the boxes when they arrive?

◉ How will you asset-tag and inventory the devices?

◉ Where do they go before they actually get into students’ hands?

◉ What is the process of addressing a broken device?

◉ How often will you collect devices? Will there be a summer refresh? Where will they be stored until re-distribution?

◉ At their end of life, how will you sustainably dispose of them?

Once you have a completed flow diagram, identify where you can create efficiencies. 

Your SLA and Metrics

Create an internal service-level agreement you can advertise to your learning community. How long can a student be without a device? If we recognize that technology is an essential component of the learning process, then being without a device adversely affects learning. From the moment a device needs to be fixed, how long will it take for it to be fully functional? Once you have an agreement, create a metric to track on a regular basis that shows if you are meeting your own expectations.

Assess Cybersecurity

Every device you bring into your environment can be a potential vector for a cybersecurity threat actor. 70% of security breaches originate from an endpoint. Any device you are going to connect to your network needs to ensure all necessary measures of cybersecurity have taken place. Devices in students’ hands also have a compounding issue of threatening student safety. 

Refine the Student Experience

From the moment a student opens a laptop, schools can alter the experience to support learning outcomes. A few times a year, stand behind students while they open their laptop and begin to work. Are there ways to structure your SSO to streamline access to important information? Consider your role in creating a digital learning environment that removes barriers to allow students to flourish. 

Use Partners Wisely

Most school systems share their goals with solution providers. Companies like Dell want to help schools be successful; it is an essential component to our business. The more transparent schools are with their goals, the more likely providers can approach schools with a valuable solution. Identify areas where partners can help you become more efficient and effective and then challenge them to demonstrate solutions that help. 

Evaluate Different Funding Models

School systems have had access to a significant amount of federal funding over the past three years. Much of the funding dedicated to technology will not be available after this school year. Determining the total cost of ownership of your program can help make the costs predictable and should be able to track the fluctuations of student populations, which has also been harder to determine as of late. As federal funding declines, reevaluating long-term solutions, in conjunction with senior leadership of your school system, will be an important step in providing stability in expectations from your teaching and learning staff. For example, many school systems fund their technology and services needs through a lease. But is this right for you? Would it be better to fund 25% of your client fleet every year for a four-year refresh? Or would it be better to swap out your entire fleet every four years?  These are not easy questions to answer, but if we can add predictability to the process, the resulting stability allows teaching and learning to continue their transformational approach to the student experience.

Source: dell.com

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Building the Open RAN Ecosystem

Being open is a good thing. Open for business. Open to new ideas. Open about what your products can and can’t do. We want to work with people who are open because it often leads to new discoveries and more fruitful partnerships.

We’re committed to being open at Dell Technologies, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Open RAN domain. We believe Open RAN has the potential to revitalize the radio access network (RAN) with new solutions, new revenue opportunities and new cost efficiencies. And we’re making that a reality with new products developed by Dell Technologies and our vast ecosystem of RAN partners. This ecosystem will help drive down RAN costs, deliver higher performance and allow communication service providers (CSPs) to build best-of-breed systems that leverage legacy investments without being locked into any single vendor’s technology.

A great example of this openness and the ecosystem we are building is our progress on Layer 1 acceleration. In February 2022, we announced the Dell Open RAN Accelerator Card, an in-line Layer 1 accelerator card we developed in partnership with Marvell Technologies. In October 2022, we announced our collaboration with Fujitsu and the integration of Fujitsu radio units (RUs) with our accelerator card. At Mobile World Congress 2023, we announced new collaborations with RAN leaders, including:

◉ Nokia for Layer 1 and vRAN integration

◉ Qualcomm and NEC for Layer 1 and vRAN integration

The latest ecosystem of partners gives our communication service providers (CSPs) extensive choice and flexibility to put together the solution they require based on performance, power consumption and costs.

The Benefit of the Dell RAN Ecosystem

Some of you may be wondering why Dell has built our own Layer 1 accelerator card but, at the same time, is also working with other Layer 1 vendors. At Dell, we believe open networks are the future and that our customers must have the power to choose the best solution for their network. Everything we do follows this “open” mindset. This is why we built the Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab (OTEL) to bring in open technology from multiple vendors to enable customers to integrate and test solutions for deployment readiness. OTEL drives forward and enables open networks to advance innovation.

It’s no different in the RAN space. By its very nature, Open RAN is all about opening up interfaces and eliminating today’s closed RAN systems. However, opening up such interfaces has created integration challenges that must be overcome for Open RAN to gain traction globally. Other than a few major greenfield buildouts, Open RAN deployments have been lagging. Dell is helping accelerate adoption by collaborating with other RAN leaders to pre-certify RAN solutions, removing some of the challenges customers are experiencing.

This is What Choice and Flexibility Look Like

With our current RAN ecosystem of partners, CSPs can utilize the Dell Open RAN Accelerator Card with Fujitsu. If they don’t want this as their solution, they can look at one of our partner’s cards and choose the solution that best fits their needs. Each accelerator card has unique performance, power consumption and cost characteristics, so providing options gives CSPs much choice and flexibility. And if they prefer to follow the Intel FlexRAN approach, we have this covered as well with Intel’s latest vRAN Boost technology, which moves the Forward Error Correction (FEC) acceleration into the server CPU. So, Dell has you covered no matter which L1 accelerator solution you need.

Having access to a RAN ecosystem that includes industry leaders is a game-changer for CSPs, so we didn’t just open it to a select few partners. We opened it to everyone, including other vendors with competing technology. Today, CSPs can deploy an Open RAN solution in almost any configuration. This is the vision for Open RAN, and we are validating this vision with our extensive RAN ecosystem.

Open to What the Future Brings

One more benefit of being open: you’re open to whatever comes next. So, when the next generation of processors comes around, or the O-RAN Alliance updates its architectural recommendations, you can be confident that Dell’s Open RAN solutions will continue to support you.

Source: dell.com

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Accelerate Your Network Across the Finish Line

Anyone who has ever watched a track and field meet knows the relay races at the end of the meet are often the culmination of a long day and a clear display of speed, performance and athletic ability. Much the same, organizations face a sprint to bring the best, most innovative solutions to market to showcase their latest abilities and ultimately achieve business objectives.

However, as an avid runner and former college sprinter, I’m acutely aware that championship relay teams aren’t built overnight. The right runners and natural ability may already exist on the team, but selecting the right combination of runners, determining the most effective order and ensuring the team consistently hits its times and performs well together takes practice. Despite having the right components for an effective relay squad, championship-level teams need more. Proper facilities, the latest equipment and skilled coaches are critical to push athletes to perform well and refine their skills so they can reach their maximum potential. There will inevitably be failures, maybe even a dropped baton or two, but with the right support system in place, the team can be coached for success.

Performance of the Year

Believe it or not, the trials you’re facing as a telecom operator to modernize your network for 5G are not all that different. Disaggregation as a result of the shift toward 5G brings significant opportunities for your business. Adopting these innovative solutions will enable you to deliver more value to your end users at a lower cost. You have the ability to integrate best-of-breed hardware and software that fit the needs of your network to drive new revenue streams and scale service delivery faster. The option to choose each specific component provides significant opportunities to achieve winning solutions at scale.

However, implementing these new solutions is not as easy as stepping up to the starting line. There is significant preparation required to integrate multivendor components, increase interoperability to ensure they’re compatible with one another, avoid penalties through compliance with industry standards and minimize the impact of downtime and repair costs. No one plans on dropping the baton, but it can be the unfortunate reality of even the best teams without enough practice.

Championship-ready Solutions

Similar to assembling a championship-caliber relay team, your network has what it takes to win, but it needs more to achieve the best outcomes possible. Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab Validation Services enables you to build the winning solutions your business needs now and for many seasons to come. With state-of-the-art lab facilities, modern Telecom DevOps tools to enable innovation at scale and specialized expertise, your network can achieve new levels of performance and innovation at scale.

We provide functional, performance, load testing and validation services for your 5G infrastructure in an agile, repeatable setting. This allows you to practice and evaluate various combinations and feel confident your solutions will perform optimally when implemented into your environment

Rigorous testing is critical to facilitate an efficient, successful network rollout. Lab Validation Services enables this by uncovering issues early in the lifecycle, so refinements can be made and save you the time and expense of fixing detrimental issues in a live network. It includes comprehensive analysis against unique KPIs you’ve set to benchmark the effectiveness of your solutions and optimize as needed to enhance solution development and ensure 5G infrastructure meets industry standards.

Program Built for Success

Perhaps one of Dell Technologies’ biggest assets is our Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab (OTEL). It provides the optimal environment for success: a secure, open and collaborative facility with the equipment and expertise to harbor innovation and drive integrated solutions. It contains the industry’s most cutting-edge tools tailored specifically for telecom use cases, including the Solution Integration Platform that serves as the backbone to our lab engagements. It uses the latest DevOps techniques to conduct continuous integration, testing and validation and automate workflows to run on any test environment.

We also provide the ability to extend the value of OTEL into your own lab with hybrid lab connectivity, which enables remote access from your lab to OTEL so you can leverage our advanced tools, expert staff and automated processes to augment your existing lab environments.

As with any winning program, a skilled and strategic staff is a key part of establishing long-term success. With Lab Validation Services, our expert lab engineers take a consultative approach through end-to-end collaboration for the duration of the lab services to drive your business outcomes. You’re not in this alone. Our lab experts coach your engagement with rigorous testing and performance engineering to ensure solutions consistently hit the interoperability mark – making refinements when they’re off track – and continuously optimize full-stack development to push solutions to perform at their very best.

Dell Technologies Services enables confidence in your network’s ability to run effectively on the big day. You’ve done the work, and your network is primed for success. We’ve tested and optimized multivendor solutions for peak performance, and with expert guidance and validation you know what to consistently expect. Accelerate your time to market, reduce risk and deliver new value to your business with winning solutions in the open telecom ecosystem.

Source: dell.com

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The Right Fit for Cloud Implementation

We all know cloud is transforming the way businesses deliver services to their internal consumers and external customers alike. For IT organizations that feel they’re behind on cloud adoption, it may be tempting to just do something for fear of not being able to provide the IT services their stakeholders need and expect.

As I discussed in my last blog post, we know having a strategy and roadmap are key to success. Once you’ve developed that strategy, it’s time to jump right in and start building – right?  As with everything else in technology, it’s not quite that simple.

It’s All About the Apps

Many organizations start their journey by looking at the hardware components required to build their cloud. But it’s important to remember the business doesn’t run on hardware. The business depends on the applications that run on the hardware, and not all applications are created equal. Back in my first post in this series, I compared finding the right cloud platform for your applications to putting a square peg in a square hole. As the ubiquitous children’s shape-sorting toy reminds us, you must put the right shape into the same-shaped hole. You can’t simply push, pound or wish a square peg into a round hole.

Finding the right cloud platform for your applications is critical to cloud success. While some existing applications are already suited to be migrated directly to a cloud environment, others will need to be refactored to cloud native technologies before or after moving to cloud, and some may ultimately be retired or transitioned to SaaS. It’s far better to analyze your entire application estate to create a plan for which applications are best suited for which cloud landing zone. Only then is it time to talk hardware to support those landing zones.

Multiple Choice Cloud

When I was in school, my favorite type of test was multiple choice. I always knew “all of the above” would be an option and figured that was usually the answer. While I don’t recommend giving this test-taking advice to your children, when it comes to cloud, “all of the above” is usually the right answer.

Flexera’s 2022 State of the Cloud report found 89% of respondents already have a multicloud strategy and 80% are taking the hybrid cloud approach by combining both public and private clouds. Organizations aren’t doing this simply to follow trends or have something to talk about at cocktail parties. This approach provides organizations with a powerful combination of IT services and capabilities across multiple cloud vendors, enabling them to move faster and consume the services they need based on their individual needs. With this flexibility and agility, organizations can provide the services their cloud consumers need through a common service catalog regardless of which cloud the service actually runs on. Multicloud is more than just using more than one cloud service.

It naturally follows that when you are choosing your cloud platform, it needs to have intrinsic multicloud capabilities. Dell’s cloud platforms are based on industry-standard Microsoft and VMware technologies, providing capabilities for on-premises private, hybrid and public cloud environments. Our customers choose Dell APEX Hybrid Cloud and the Dell Integrated Systems for Microsoft Azure Stack to get the best of hybrid cloud along with public cloud capabilities, all wrapped together into a single, easy-to-use console.

Automation For the Win

My teenage son is a bit of a smart home automation mad scientist. He has smart bulbs, light strips and buttons in his bedroom, and he loves nothing more than to create complex automations that trigger based on multiple different criteria, like time of day and even the weather. I can hardly follow his automations, but they work well for him and deliver what he needs.

Without realizing it, my son has grasped a concept with which large enterprise organizations often struggle. That is, automation is key to driving technology adoption and making the user experience seamless, predictable and consistent. Whether your requirement is to change the color of your bedroom lights based on the weather outside or provide application stacks and development environments for your developers, automation is the key.

I mentioned in a previous post that your cloud needs to have “batteries included,” meaning the cloud needs to do more than just let you log into it. Your cloud needs to have a service catalog populated with the most common services your cloud consumers need and automation behind the scenes to bring all these services together in a seamless and consistent way. The goal should be to drive consumption of the cloud platform and deliver tailored experiences for your cloud consumers. Make sure you understand the needs, goals and objectives of all your stakeholders before implementing your cloud platform. Doing so will drive you to build the right cloud with the right services and capabilities to meet their needs.

Bringing It Together

Cloud implementation is more than just putting a bunch of hardware in your data center or creating a new Azure subscription. Organizations must consider a variety of factors, including understanding their application estate to make intelligent application workload placement decisions, seeking a cloud platform with intrinsic multicloud capabilities and implementing intelligent automation to tie it all together and drive consumption of the cloud.

By taking a thoughtful approach to cloud implementation, you can deliver a cloud that helps your stakeholders deliver the business outcomes your organization needs to succeed.

Source: dell.com

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The Dell Data Management Journey Map

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the future of technology. It is quickly becoming infused into the very fabric of everyday life and already impacting nearly every industry and business function. It is one of the most innovative technologies ever conceived or built, and it will be essential to the innovations of today and tomorrow. In a sense, AI is at the heart of innovation. And just like the heart needs oxygen and good blood flow, AI engines need a steady stream of clean and accurate data. The key to unlocking this is modern data management.

For example, take AeroFarms, a world leader in indoor farming and sustainable agriculture. AeroFarms achieves 390 times greater productivity annually than a commercial field farm while using 95 percent less water. Before having a holistic data management strategy in place, AeroFarms was harvesting plants without adequately harvesting valuable data that would yield better results. So, the company partnered with Dell to put their data to work to drive better performance.

The Dell Data Management Journey Map is comprised of seven key data and analytic outcomes that we believe are critical in accelerating an organization’s journey from business need to business outcome. In this blog post, we’ll introduce each of these seven key data and analytic outcomes, then explore each in greater detail in future blogs posts.

The Data Management Journey Map

Step 1: Identify and Triage Business Need. Managing massive data sources is pushing CIOs and their teams to the brink. Organizations should begin by understanding and identifying business and operational objectives. This first step sets the framework for understanding where and how the organization will derive business and operational value from their data, so they can then identify key business initiatives, challenges, KPIs and metrics against which to measure value creation effectiveness. 

Step 2: Accelerate Relevant Data Discovery. Seeking, accessing and manually preparing data delays the discovery of pertinent analytics insights that are necessary to drive quantifiable business value. Users can accelerate this process by automatically populating catalogs from metadata on distributed sources. It frees up the organization’s ability to find relevant data for the problem they are trying to address. 

Step 3: Simplify Data Access and Exploration. One of the keys to exploiting the unique economic characteristics of data – which is that it never wears out, it never depletes and the same data set can be used by an unlimited number of use cases – is the ability to simplify accessing and exploring the data no matter where it might reside. The need to first centralize data is no longer viable in a multicloud world where the volume of data at the edges of the organization is growing astronomically. To simplify data access and exploration, organizations need to embrace and activate data silos through data virtualization and support real-time data ingest and inferencing at the edges of the organization.

Step 4: Optimize Analytics Experimentation and Modeling. Each Data Science team needs an environment that allows them to quickly access and integrate a wide variety of data sources as they try to find those features that are better predictors of performance. Speed of experimentation is critical to support the data science team’s need to test different data enrichment techniques and try a variety of analytic algorithms in search for those predictive features. Sharing such features across data engineering, data science and business management accelerates the model development process and drives more innovation for each organization.

Step 5: Scale Data and Analytics Productization. Distributed data silos lead to isolated insights that can inhibit innovation and data value creation. Therefore, it’s critical to establish a modern data ingestion process where data can be accessed, used and analyzed across silos. This includes the operationalization of the supporting data pipelines, data transformation processes and the machine learning models that enable the delivery of key business and operational outcomes. 

Step 6: Automate Data Management and Governance. The rapid growth of low-latency data at the edge due to the Internet of Things (IoT) is exacerbating the data management problem. Organizations must create a holistic view of the key data sources to monitor the heartbeats of the data systems and be able to revolve issues in production quickly. Automation of the data management and data governance processes is critical to support analytics scaling. This includes key data management capabilities to continuously monitor, flag and diagnose data quality and data security issues.

Step 7: Learn from Business Outcomes. Chief data officers and chief analytics officers are being challenged to unleash the business value of their data. Given data’s importance and the central role AI will play in helping mankind achieve a higher standard of living, as leaders, we have the opportunity to make the most from our data management capabilities. This will enable our teams and workforce to continue innovating, even during uncertain times. There has never been a better time to optimize data to create impactful outcomes. With the right data management strategy in place, we will see revolutionary innovation across industries for years to come.

Let Dell Data Management Lead the Way

Leading organizations are quickly realizing high-quality, accurate, complete and ethical data is fundamental to enabling their AI-driven applications. As data management is quickly transitioning from a technology practice to a critical business discipline, we in the Dell Data Management product team invite you to explore the interactive data management journey above, and to follow us throughout the year as we release a series of blog posts designed to guide organizations on their data management journeys. You can access the interactive data management journey infographic here.

Source: dell.com

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