As we covered in our previous post ScaleIO can easily be configured to deliver 6-9’s of availability or higher using only 2 replicas that saves 33% of the cost compared to other solutions while providing very high performance. In this blog we will discuss the facts of availability using math and demystify the myth behinds ScaleIO’s high availability.

For data loss or data unavailability to occur in a system with two replicas of data (such as ScaleIO) there must be two concurrent failures or a second failure must occur before the system recovers from a first failure. Therefore one of the following four scenarios must occur:

1. Two drive failures in a storage pool OR
2. Two nodes failures in a storage pool OR
3. A node failed followed by a drive failure OR
4. A drive failed followed by a node failure

Let us choose two popular ScaleIO configurations and derive the availability of each.

1. 20 x ScaleIO servers deployed on Dell EMC’s PowerEdge Servers R740xd with 24 SSD drives each, 1.92TB SSD drive size using 4 x 10GbE Network. In this configuration we will assume that the rebuild time is network bound.
2. 20 x ScaleIO servers deployed on Dell EMC’s PowerEdge Servers R640 with 10 SSD drives each, 1.92TB SSD drives using 2 x 25GbE Network. In this configuration we will assume that the rebuild time is SSD bound.

Note: ScaleIO best practices recommend a maximum of 300 drives in a storage pool, therefore for the first configuration we will configure two storage pools with 240 drives in each pool.

To calculate the availability of a ScaleIO system we will leverage a couple of well know academic publications:

1. RAID: High Performance Reliable secondary Storage (from UC Berkeley) and
2. A Case for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID).

We will adjust the formulas in the paper to the ScaleIO architecture and model the different failures.

Two Drive Failures

We will use the following formula to calculate the MTBF of ScaleIO system for a two drive failure scenario:

Where:

• N = Number of drives in a system
• G = Number of drives in a storage pool
• M = Number of drives per server
• K = 8,760 hours
( 1 Year)
• = MTBF of a single drive
• = Mean Time to Repair – repair/rebuild time of a failed drive

Note: This formula assumes that two drives that fail in the same ScaleIO SDS (server) will not cause DU/DL as the ScaleIO architecture guarantees that replicas of the same data will NEVER reside on the same physical node.

Let’s assume two scenarios – in the first scenario the rebuild process is constrained by network bandwidth – in the second scenario the rebuild process is constrained by drive performance bandwidth.

Network Bound

In this case we assume that the rebuild time/performance is limited by the availability of network bandwidth. This will be the case if you deploy a dense configuration such as the DELL 740xd servers with a large number of SSDs in a single server. In this case, the MTTR function is:

Where:

• S – Number of servers in a ScaleIO cluster
• Network Speed – Bandwidth in GB/s available for rebuild traffic (excluding application traffic)
• Conservative_Factor = factor additional time to complete the rebuild (to be conservative).

Plugging in the relevant values in the formula above, we get a MTTR of ~1.5 minutes for the 20 x R740, 24 SSDS @ 1.92TB w/ 4 X 10GbE network connections configuration (two storage pools w/ 240 drives per pool). The 20 x R640, 10SSDs @ 1.92TB w/ 2 X 25GbE network connections config provides MTTR of ~2 minutes. These MTTR values reflect the superiority of ScaleIO’s declustered RAID architecture that result in a very fast rebuild time. In a later post we will show how those MTTR values are critical and how they impact system availability and operational efficiency.

SSD Drive Bound

In this case, the rebuild time/performance is bound by the number of SSD drives and the rebuild time is a function of the number of drives available in the system. This will be the case if you deploy less dense configurations such as the 1U Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 servers. In this case, the MTTR function is:

Where:

• G – Number of drives in a storage pool
• Drive_Speed – Drive speed available for rebuild
• Conservative_Factor = factor additional time to complete the rebuild (to be conservative).

System availability is calculated by dividing the time that the system is available and running, by the total time the system was running added to the restore time. For availability we will use the following formula:

Where:

• RTO – Recovery Time Objective or the amount of time it takes to recover a system after a data loss event (For example: if two drives fail in a single pool), where data needs to be recovered from a backup system. We will be highly conservative and will consider Data Unavailability (DU) scenarios as bad as Data Loss (DL) scenarios therefore we will use RTO in the availability formula.

Note: the only purpose of RTO is to translate MTBF to availability.

Node and Device Failure

Next, let’s discuss the system’s MTBF when a node fails and followed by a drive failure, for this scenario we will be using the followed model:

Where:

• M = Number of drives per node
• G = Number of drives in the pool
• S = Number of servers in the system
• K = Number of hours in 1 year i.e. 8,760 hours
• MTBFdrive = MTBF of a single drive
• MTBFserver = MTBF of a single node
• MTTRserver = repair/rebuild time of failed server

In a similar way, one can develop the formulas for other failure sequences such as a drive failure after a node failure and a second node failure after a first node failure.

Network Bound Rebuild Process

In this case we assume that rebuild time/performance is constrained by network bandwidth. We will make similar assumptions as for drive failure. In this case, the MTTR function is:

Where:

• M – Number of drives per server
• S – Number of servers in a ScaleIO cluster
• Network Speed – Bandwidth in GB/s available for rebuild traffic (excluding application traffic)
• Conservative_Factor = factor additional time to complete the rebuild to be conservative

Plugging the relevant values in the formula above, we get a MTTR of ~30 minutes for the 20 x R740, 24 SSDS @ 1.92TB w/ 4 X 10GbE network connections configuration (two storage pools w/ 240 drives per pool). The 20 x R640, 10SSDs @ 1.92TB w/ 2 x 25GbE Network config provides MTRR of ~20 minutes. During system recovery ScaleIO rebuilt about 48TB of data for the first configuration and about 21TB for the second configuration.

SSD Drive Bound

In this case we assume that the Rebuild time/performance is SSD drive bound and the rebuild time is a function of the number of drives available in the system. Using the same assumptions as for drive failures, the MTTR function is:

Where:

• G – Number of drives in a storage pool
• M – Number of drives per server
• Drive_Speed – Drive speed available for rebuild
• Conservative_Factor = factor additional time to complete the rebuild to be conservative

Based on the provided formulas let’s calculate the availability of ScaleIO system based on the two different configurations:

20 x R740, 24 SSDS @ 1.92TB w/ 4 X 10GbE Network

(Deploying 2 storage pools w/ 240 drives per pool)

20 x R640, 10SSDs @ 1.92TB w/ 2 x 25GbE:

Since these calculations are complex, ScaleIO provides its customers with FREE online tools to build HW configurations and obtain availability numbers that includes all possible failure scenarios. We advise customers to use this tool, rather than crunch complex mathematics, to build system configurations based on desired system availability targets.

As you can see, yet again, we prove that the ScaleIO system easily exceeds 6-9’s of availability with just 2 replicas of the data. Unlike other vendors, neither extra additional data replicas nor erasure coding is required!  So do you have to deploy three replica copies to achieve enterprise availability? No you do not! The myth is BUSTED.

Top-end PowerEdge solutions cap strong 2017 performance with ‘Server of the Year’ awards

The latest Dell EMC PowerEdge servers were specifically designed for the modernization required to drive IT transformation – and there’s a product to suit almost every business need.

Regardless of your customers’ industry, size or workload demands, you’re able to offer them an innovative PowerEdge server solution that will help enable transformation in the most efficient and effective way for their business.

Award-Winning Enterprise-Class Solutions

Two Dell EMC PowerEdge solutions at the enterprise end of our comprehensive portfolio of cutting-edge servers have recently been named as Server Products of the Year 2017 by industry publication IT Pro*.

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 was awarded Best 1U Server, while the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd also received the top-tier accolade for Best 2U Server. The awards were judged by IT Pro’s editorial team.

Particularly recommended for their “mightily impressive storage options” and “sheer processing power that’s tough to beat” respectively, the R640 and R740xd sit at the mission-critical end of a diverse portfolio of PowerEdge servers that’s proving incredibly popular with organizations of all sizes.

They are joined by our top-performing PowerEdge R740 server, which offers exceptional application performance and storage scalability.

Advanced Servers, Accelerated Business

For customers looking for dense software-defined storage capabilities and faster processing performance for cloud applications, virtualization environments and web tech, these high-end solutions present three great propositions:

• PowerEdge R640 – Dense, general-purpose scale-out compute node

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 server offers an ideal mix of density, performance and storage capacity in a 1U/2S platform. With up to 8 NVMe drives, 1.5TB of memory, Intel Xeon Scalable processors and the ability to choose 2.5” or 3.5” drives, R640 can easily adapt to application demands, making it an excellent choice for high-performance computing (HPC) requirements.

• PowerEdge R740 – General-purpose workhorse, optimized for workload acceleration

The PowerEdge R740 is the perfect workhorse for demanding environments, providing the ideal balance between storage, I/O and application acceleration in a 2U/2S platform. Are your customers running up against processing limits of older generation servers and finding that they need more memory and CPU performance? If they’re looking for an ideal VDI solution or artificial intelligence/machine learning server, steer them towards the R740.

• PowerEdge R740xd – Optimized for workloads, with incredible local storage flexibility and capacity

With its ability to mix NVMe, SSD and HDD, the PowerEdge R740xd is a superb choice for customers with software-defined storage requirements. An outstanding database server, delivering high IOPS with up to 24 NVMe drives, it delivers the perfect balance of storage scalability, capacity and performance. This is an ideal platform for uncompromising storage performance and data set processing in a 2U/2S form factor.

Promote These Award-Winning Products to Your Customers

We’ve created a whole host of product-focused marketing assets that are specifically designed to help you promote these top-performing Dell EMC PowerEdge products to your customers.

Within your Partner Playbook, you can find everything you need to build the business case and drive demand with co-branded emails and 3^rd party white papers.  All supported by Battlecards and Quick Reference Guides available on SalesEdge for Channel, to give you all the essential technical specifications information you need.

 Go to the Partner Playbook now.

Access SalesEdge for Channel.

* http://www.itpro.co.uk/hardware/30187/the-it-pro-product-of-the-year-awards

As I travel around the region, it is incredibly valuable to meet with CEOs and CIOs where they live and do business, and hear directly from them what keeps them up at night. Whether in London or Bucharest, all share concerns about ‘the future’ and the role emerging technologies will play in transforming their business for the better – without throwing out what is working today with the bath water. Another common discussion point for both groups is the changing role of the CIO – how they are now seen as not only the person who is keeping the technology running, but as a key player in deciphering emerging technologies and identifying which innovation projects will help propel them forward – so they can disrupt before being disrupted.

The impact of emerging technologies on the way we run our businesses and the evolving relationship between humans and machines is something Dell Technologies has been exploring over the past year, with our latest ‘Realizing 2030’ global research project with Vanson Bourne surveying 3,800 business leaders forecasting the next era of human-machine partnerships and how they intend to prepare. The results were pretty unanimous with leaders agreeing we’re on the cusp of immense change, with 82% of those surveyed expecting humans and machines to work as integrated teams within their organization inside of 5 years. However, they’re divided over what this shift will mean for them, their business and even the world at large. To share just a few of these divided opinions:

• 50% of business leaders think automated systems will free-up their time – meaning the other half don’t not share this belief
• 42% believe they’ll have more job satisfaction in the future by offloading the tasks they don’t want to do to machines
• 58% don’t share this prediction. If they don’t change their opinion, they will keep doing tasks that could easily be automated and will continue to lack time for higher order pursuits that focus on creativity, education and strategy

Charting a course for the future given the rapidly changing environment is hard enough as it is. If business leaders have to deal with the polarizing viewpoints described above, then confidently making the right decisions to transform their business is going to be even more challenging. Fortunately, this is where the CIO can really come into his or her own. The ‘Realizing 2030’ research also revealed that business leaders do agree on the need to change and that emerging technologies like AI, AR and VR can be leveraged to speed up digital transformation.

So how can the CIO take these insights and demonstrate their strategic role in mapping out the direction the organisation needs to take?

• Lead with the technology. No one in the organisation knows as much about technology as the CIO. It is through innovative use of technology, namely software, that start-ups are disrupting established companies. A technologist to the bone, the CIO not only knows which technologies can be used to attack the company’s position, but can also play a leadership role in identifying how the company can use technology to pre-empt disruption or move the goalposts to their advantage. However, as I discussed in my previous blog on the seven habits of the effective hybrid CIO, the future forward CIO needs to have more than technology know how, but a deep understanding of the strategic business and financial goals of the company to turn that technology insight into a roadmap to the future that the board will buy into.
• Follow the data. If there is one thing leadership teams understand, it’s numbers and the CIO is the master of all data. It’s key to understanding customer behavior, to analyzing operational efficiency and improving customer service. The CIO can use this data to look backwards and forward, combining the advanced analytics of historical data with real-time data collection to tell a company where to go next. This also positions the CIO to be the best choice to set the metrics and KPIs which will better direct digital business transformation.
• Be human. There is a tendency when talking technology to be totally binary or metrics focused, but a key success factor in any organisation’s transformation is their people. So the CIO needs to balance driving change at the right speed, without going too fast and losing valuable resources along the way. The CIO needs to set the tone and clearly explain why change is necessary and what it will mean to the organisation – in fact, our research found the number one top tip to accelerate digital transformation from business leaders was to secure employee buy-in on a company’s digital transformation vision and values. Together with the CEO, the CIO will convince people of the vision for the future, showing the immense possibilities on the horizon

This is a great moment for CIOs to shine, both in translating emerging technologies into reality, and showing the strategic value that they can create. The role of the CIO is multifaceted and needs to look at every challenge and opportunity through different lenses. Every new technology begs a thorough investigation, both from a technological point of view and a business one. Does this emerging technology have staying power or is it just a passing fad? Can it be easily integrated into the overall architecture of the organisation? Will it drive forward our IT, security and workforce transformation? Can it help to differentiate our service offering in order to catapult the company to become a contender in the next era? These are the questions that need to be answered to make the right technology decisions for all organisations as they navigate this new era of emerging technologies, and the CIO is uniquely positioned to separate the hype along the way to hyper-growth.

We live in a world of seemingly endless choices when it comes to which brand of t-shirt to buy, what to eat for dinner, or which route to take as you commute to work. According to psychologists, adults make an average of 70 conscious decisions each day, with unconscious decisions numbering in the thousands. It can quickly become overwhelming. And those everyday decisions are commonplace, even mundane! For IT decision-makers tasked with keeping the modern data center operational and secure, what may at first seem like a simple decision quickly takes on monumental significance.

Consider the decision of which hardware vendor to buy from when implementing a server refresh or adding server capacity to the data center. Business leaders push for increasing service levels from IT, but often without a proportional increase in resources.[1] The contradiction leads to pressure on IT decision-makers, forcing them to make tough purchasing choices. The decision to choose a hardware provider versus a hardware partner has vast implications when it comes to building a secure data center. It cannot be taken lightly.

Taking a cheap approach to hardware may significantly increase the total cost of ownership. Cheap hardware often requires earlier replacement and lacks scalability. Most importantly, white box hardware providers don’t take responsibility for firmware and hardware security on the server, leaving the business more vulnerable to malicious attacks. Dell EMC and Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) provide guidance to discerning between a hardware partner (i.e. security leader) and a hardware provider (i.e. security laggard) in two recent white papers on hardware/firmware security. Here’s your quick guide – via infographic – on how to tell the difference.

Dell EMC is a leader when it comes to hardware and firmware security. PowerEdge servers are embedded with integrated firmware and hardware security features like the dual silicon root of trust, BIOS protection and recovery, and hardware intrusion detection. If you go with a server provider who doesn’t offer hardware and firmware security, you may be left incurring unforeseen costs to integrate those protections after the fact. According to EMA, “It is much more difficult to address server security after deployment and implementation. Sever security should be carefully considered from the initial planning phase.”

If you’re unsure how to figure out which server vendors are leading when it comes to security, Dell EMC’s white paper “End-to-end Server Security: The IT Leader’s Guide” is an excellent resource. The paper provides a short list of four questions you can ask each server vendor when making the crucial decision of whom to buy from. EMA also provides perspective in their white paper, going as far as listing examples of companies they consider “hardware providers.”

The server purchase decision is business-critical, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Using hardware and firmware security as a driving factor can make your decision simpler and save money and hassle over the long term. Guidance from trusted industry leaders should inform your decision. Even if you don’t choose PowerEdge servers, you can choose to be an informed consumer. The white papers linked below are an excellent starting point.

Server Security Resources:

• End-to-end Server Security: The IT Leader’s Guide, Dell EMC Business White Paper
• Cyber Resilient Security in 14th generation of Dell EMC PowerEdge servers, Dell EMC Technical White Paper
• Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers: Investing in a Cyber-Resilient Architecture, Enterprise Management Associates White Paper

[1] EMA Security WP

Good news for vSAN users: Dell EMC’s industry-leading, 14th generation PowerEdge servers, the bedrock of the modern data center, now include models with AMD EPYC processors available as vSAN Ready Nodes.

This incredible pairing takes storage optimization and cost cutting to a whole new level—critical factors for companies eager to deploy emerging workloads:

• Software-defined storage deployments
  The highly configurable, 1U single-socket Dell EMC PowerEdge R6415, with up to 32 cores, offers ultra-dense, scale-out computing capabilities. Storage flexibility is enabled with up to 10 PCIe NVMe drives.
  Edge computing deployments
  The 2U single-socket Dell EMC PowerEdge R7415 offers up to 20 percent better TCO per four-node cluster for vSAN deployments at the edge. With 128 PCIe lanes, it offers accelerated east/west bandwidth for cloud computing and virtualization. And with up to 2TB memory capacity and 12 NVMe drives it improves storage efficiency.
  High performance computing
  The dual-socket Dell EMC PowerEdge R7425 delivers up to 25 percent absolute performance improvement for HPC workloads like computational fluid dynamics (CFD). With up to 64 cores, it offers high bandwidth with dense GPU/FPGA capability.

Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes reduce your risk.

New applications and exponential increases in data require the most simple, streamlined, and cost-effective storage approach possible. This is why many enterprises are drawn to VMware® vSAN, a software-defined storage (SDS) solution for hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI).

The performance of this software—and your return on investment (ROI)—depends on the hardware you choose. Dell EMC’s long-term partnership with VMware ensures you get the most reliable infrastructure in easily purchased and deployed building blocks.

Dell EMC’s new AMD EPYC-based PowerEdge servers—like all of our PowerEdge servers—have been pre-configured, tested and certified to reduce deployment risks, improve storage efficiency, and let you quickly and easily scale storage as needed. And each vSAN Ready Node includes the right amount of CPU, memory, network I/O controllers, HDDs and SSDs that are best suited for VMware vSAN.

Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes are the easiest way to optimize your servers for vSAN. And Dell EMC is the first and only server provider to offer vSAN Ready Nodes in AMD EPYC-equipped servers.

To learn more, contact your Dell EMC representative at 1-866-438-3622.

In the UK right now, there is a huge spotlight on the crisis being created in our seas by plastic waste. The reality of the situation is scary – and hard to ignore. Every single year, 8 million metric tons of plastic enter our seas, endangering marine life and polluting our waters. And it’s not just marine life being affected. With the vast majority of plastic pieces in the ocean less than 5mm in size, these are often eaten by fish, meaning anyone who consumes an “average amount” of seafood ingests approximately 11,000 plastic particles a year – a scary thought when you consider that over exposure to plastic chemicals can lead to certain forms of cancer, immune disorders and obesity.

Thanks to programs like the BBC’s Blue Planet II and campaigns like Sky Ocean Rescue, we are all now aware of the scale of the problem, but awareness is only part of the equation. We also need to take action. At Dell, we were first made aware of this issue in 2016 through our relationship with actor and activist Adrian Grenier and his work with the Lonely Whale Foundation. This led to us looking for ways to address the ocean plastics challenges within our business, and packaging was a natural place to start. So, following an initial feasibility study, we launched a pilot project in early 2017 working with groups from coastal areas around the world to collect plastics from waterways, beaches, shorelines and areas near the coasts. We now use this plastic waste to create packaging trays for our XPS 13 2-in-1 and more recently, our XPS 15 2-in-1 laptops. We anticipate that this pilot will keep 16,000 pounds of plastics out of oceans initially, and in support of UN SDG Goal 14, we are committed to increase annual usage of ocean-bound plastic 10x by 2025.

And while we were proud of this meaningful contribution to tackle the issue, we quickly identified a critical barrier to successfully scaling their efforts: absence of an operational and commercially viable ocean-bound plastic supply chain. So, along with the Lonely Whale Foundation, with support from UN Environment, we set out to convene a group of companies to join forces to create an open-source initiative to develop the first-ever commercial-scale ocean-bound plastics and nylon supply chain. Called NextWave, founding members including Dell, General Motors, Trek Bicycle, Herman Miller, Interface, Van de Sant, Humanscale and Bureo, will share responsibility in development of a sustainable model that reduces ocean-bound plastic pollution at scale, while creating an economic and social benefit for multiple stakeholders. We think the work of this group will divert more than 3 million pounds of plastics from entering the ocean within five years, the equivalent to keeping 66 million water bottles from washing out to sea.

We believe collaboration is really the only way we’ll address many of the challenges facing our world today, which is why I was truly honoured to be asked to participate in a recent high-level meeting with The Prince of Wales’s International Sustainability Unit (ISU) on ‘Keeping Plastics and Their Value in the Economy and Out of the Ocean.’ Attended by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, C.E.Os and senior executives from a range of organisations including Government, private sector and N.G.Os working to apply principles of circular economy to the current plastic value chain, it was a privilege to represent Dell and the work we are doing, and have an opportunity to discuss best practices with others pursuing the same goals.

LONDON – UK – 31st Jan 2018.
HRH The Prince of Wales, as Patron, hosts a reception and meeting of the ISU plastics forum at 11 Carlton House Terrace in London
Photograph by Ian Jones

Reflecting on this meeting, what really struck me was the realisation that even three years ago, sustainability was typically limited to a subject matter expert within an organisation, whereas now, it is a critical part of business strategy and every single CEO and senior executive at the table was able to speak with authority on the role their company wants to play in finding solutions to environmental issues. I know in my role as general manager for Dell EMC in the UK and Ireland, I have conversations with customers every single day about how we are creating a more sustainable business for our company and the world around us, and how important it is for them to not only work with companies who are acting responsible, but also learn from us how they can adopt similar practices. It really does demonstrate the huge opportunities that collaboration presents for the corporate world to play a meaningful and measurable positive impact for the future – and I’m very proud to be a part of it.

If your company is interested in getting involved, you can apply or find out more at https://www.nextwaveplastics.org/apply/

From the Point of Care to the Data Center to the Cloud

Experience your choice of SAP Health – as off-premises managed cloud or on-premises in your data center (described below) LIVE at HIMSS18 in the Dell EMC booth #3613 or SAP booth #4821

Driven by current and future value from business processes and enterprise software, organizations across all industries are realizing the need for flexible IT consumption models. Here cloud computing is becoming more and more important. Cloud computing adds higher flexibility and agility and can help to lower cost in terms of hardware, people and maintenance. This gives a wider array of business model options to the customer. At the same time, not all business processes can be transferred into a cloud system at equal speed. Some processes are more complex than others e.g. a full-blown SCM vs. a simple leave request, and some customers may have concerns about data security, as is the case with e.g. personal or health data.

At the same time, healthcare is undergoing a great revolution, due to several factors. This includes the emergence of AI/IoT-based analytics platforms, and the growth of data, especially in medical imaging and genomics. Evidence resides in areas like whole genome or population DNA sequencing, which used to take months at high costs, and which now can be done in a matter of days, if not hours. Our children will look at us in disbelief when we tell them that genetic screening for major risk factors was not available in our time. So, on the one hand, there is a great pull for making the most out of health data, yet on the other hand data handling and security constraints must be resolved.

The solutions provided by SAP Health rely on the SAP Cloud Platform to deliver on these promises. In that light, SAP works with the best partners in the cloud area, one of which is Virtustream, a Dell Technologies business. Virtustream and SAP are partners for a long time, both for cloud services and for technical innovations. The Virtustream Enterprise Cloud is built on a Dell EMC infrastructure foundation. In 2016, Virtustream announced the first S/4HANA customer running in the cloud. SAP and Virtustream work closely on new innovations, and this also encompasses partnering on SAP Health. The Virtustream Enterprise Cloud is purpose-built for mission-critical applications, with managed services that deliver the highest standards in availability, security, and compliance, addressing many of the data concerns that exist especially in the healthcare space. The Virtustream Enterprise Cloud applies to healthcare systems of record, such as SAP S/4HANA and EMRs, and systems of insight, such as SAP Health services, that require application performance and availability service level agreements for running 24×7 operations. This also encompasses compliance with regulatory frameworks such as HIPAA and HiTECH to protect patient data, and strong business continuity design – all with a cost-effective utility-based infrastructure service. Virtustream also meets data residency requirements, by region and even by country. Virtustream has hosting locations in the US, UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, all of which are equipped to support such data residency requirements. In addition, Dell EMC, which is also a Dell Technologies business, is one of the leading providers of infrastructure services for healthcare globally. Dell EMC supports both providers and payers, using the same architectures available in the Virtustream cloud. In partnering with SAP Health, Virtustream adds its compliance, scale, and cloud efficiencies to the already existing Health partnership between Dell EMC and SAP. Customers can quickly enhance their on-premise infrastructure with pay-for-use as-they-grow environment, and be confident that their patient data is fully protected. Thus, this joint approach can fully support the cloud-based solutions of SAP’s Health offer. These posts from our Direct2DellEMC blog provide some additional context and background on our existing engagement with SAP:

• 21st Century Computing: Dell EMC, Intel and SAP power better patient outcomes
• Partners in Personalized Medicine: Dell, SAP and Intel team up to provide optimized patient results
• Enabling Precision Medicine in the Era of the Genome with SAP Health and Dell EMC Isilon Data Lake in a Hadoop environment

The combination of Virtustream, Dell EMC and SAP Health supports next-generation precision medicine to provide personalized, best-in-class patient care. As healthcare customers look to launch new systems of actionable insight, like delivered by the SAP Health solutions, they need a trusted partner that can support on the intersection of data analysis and large-yet-secure data lakes, nourished from disparate data sources. It is crucial to deliver a robust infrastructure solution that addresses any concerns.

Want to learn more? Just visit us LIVE at HIMSS18 in the Dell EMC booth #3613. Dr. Marten Neubauer, our SAP Healthcare & Lifesciences expert with Dell EMC’s Global SAP Center of Excellence, will be there for you.

Six months ago I started working as a trainee at Dell EMC, the World’s Largest Privately-Controlled Technology Company. Even though it is a global and huge corporation I perceive Dell EMC as a genuine and authentic employer, supplier and innovator, and in the following post I will describe why.

Given my interest in technology, my willingness to support customers in a digital world and my passion for innovation, Dell EMC was for me an obvious workplace to apply for. I wanted to work with innovation and at the same time learn more about the tech- industry and market trends. After a couple months of insight in the company it has appeared to me that my idea of Dell EMC being innovative and a developing workplace, is correct. Not only has Dell committed 4.5 billion dollars to research and development of the company itself, but we support customers in innovating as well. We offer our customers the solutions they need in order to build their digital future and to free up time and resources for innovation.

As a trainee at Dell EMC I have the privilege to travel and experience a couple of our sites across Europe. During a stay in Amsterdam I got to meet graduates from 17 nationalities and some of the local staff in the Netherlands. This was when I first was introduced to the initiative Dell for entrepreneurs .

Dell for entrepreneurs (also referred to as DFE) was created 5 years ago in the US as a way for Dell to support entrepreneurs to gain the resources, expertise and solutions they need to succeed. The purpose is to network and get inspired by each other. DFE has, since it was first initiated, grown worldwide. It is now present in the US, Canada, Germany, Singapore, Netherlands, Spain etc. However, at the end of 2017, when I started my trainee position at Dell, DFE had not yet entered the Swedish market. Therefore I was determined to bringing Dell for entrepreneurs to Stockholm, Sweden. Together with a fellow colleague, we did some research on the Swedish market in order to find the best way of adapting DFE locally in Sweden. We attended startup-events in Stockholm and met with people that are engaged in the entrepreneurial ecosystem of our capital. Furthermore we interviewed representatives of DFE from other countries in order to understand their way of approaching the project. Eventually we anchored the project with the Swedish management team and together with an excellent team we are now starting the Dell for entrepreneurs journey in Sweden! This is an awesome opportunity, not only for myself, who gets to work with what I am passionate about; innovation, developing talents and connecting with others, but it is also a great way for the startups in Sweden and Dell EMC to network and get inspired by each other. The Dell environment has truly encouraged me to take own initiatives and to pursue what I am passionate about. At this present stage we are identifying ways to adapt DFE to the Swedish ecosystem in order to best support the local startups.

Finally, some thoughts around innovation and entrepreneurship. I believe diversity is crucial in order to succeed with innovation and entrepreneurship. Bringing people together from different backgrounds, industries and with different experiences is opening up for new learnings and insights. Furthermore, I believe that openness is important to innovation and successful cooperation. If you are open to other people’s thoughts and perspectives, you can connect different parties and understand different ideas. I believe the best innovations are created when we come together to work for a common goal. Winning together is one of the core values of DellEMC, and I see no better way than connecting with the startup world and its ecosystem in order to win together!

So, I’m at a business and technology conference where I just ate crickets for the first time. It’s not really what I was expecting at this event. But, I do know what to expect at Dell Technologies World, April 30-May 3.

Along with the awesome general session and guru speakers I wrote about yesterday, there will be a great opportunity for technology professionals to hone their skills and gain new certifications.

“You get to meet the people behind the technology we use every day, learn about strategy and products for the future and also be able to meet peers from around the globe. Different horizons with the same passion for greatness,” one of last year’s attendees, Aloys, noted.

Dell EMC Education Services recently launched a set of new certifications that help develop the highly-skilled talent who can help companies make transformation real, achieve business goals and lead the competition.

“These new certifications bridge skills gaps at every stage of transformational maturity. They establish and validate skills required for digital, IT, workforce, and security transformation,” Christine Fraser wrote here on Direct2DellEMC last week.

Education offerings and certification exams for converged systems and hybrid cloud platforms are available now. Multi-Cloud Expert certification will be available in conjunction with Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas.

Starting now, IT professionals interested in earning the Dell EMC Certified Master – Enterprise Architect credential can apply to be considered to appear before the Review Board; the first review session will occur at Dell Technologies World. Visit the Dell EMC Education Services website to learn more.

But don’t wait too long to register for Dell Technologies World, or you might miss out on some great prizes!

Yes, if you register before February 28 (TOMORROW!), you can select one of these great prizes: Ring video doorbell, Bose wireless headphones, Alienware gaming keyboard, YETI cooler or guest pass to the evening event.

Next week, the Dell EMC Healthcare and Life Sciences team will join over 45,000+ health IT professionals, clinicians and executives from around the globe at the HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition, the largest health IT event in the industry.

Not only will we gain up to date insight into the accelerated pace of change taking place in healthcare fueled by exponentially growing data and applications, but we will also discuss how the use of information and transformative technologies are helping healthcare organizations further improve the quality, safety, and cost-effectiveness of patient care outcomes.

The world is quickly becoming a place where everything is connected, creating greater disparate sources of data and insight. Making the digital transformation real is the focus across numerous industries – and healthcare is no exception.

We are all living in the digital era where clinicians need faster access to all available patient information, actionable insights to prescribe the best treatment plans to improve patient care outcomes at lower cost and protection of all of this sensitive information against cyber threats. From healthcare integrated delivery networks (IDNs) to rural health centers, Dell EMC provides transformative technology solutions, products, services, and financial offerings that make the future of healthcare real today – from the point of care to the data center to the cloud.

This year at HIMSS, Dell EMC executives will be available to host customer, partner, and analyst discussions, providing perspective on how we provide essential infrastructure solutions aligned with our partner ecosystem that address healthcare’s toughest challenges including clinical application optimization, multi-cloud environments, healthcare cloud, clinical genomics, high performance computing (HPC), IoT, innovative devices, and data protection.

Along with these strategic discussions we are also featuring customer speakers in our Dell EMC booth # 3613 who will highlight how Dell EMC solutions have been deployed as part of their digital transformation journey in our four focus areas of heath IT transformation, precision medicine transformation, connected health transformation, and security transformation.

In addition, there will be experiential demos highlighting our four focus areas of health IT transformation, precision medicine transformation, connected health transformation, and security transformation, focus groups, social media activities and customer events. If you’re in Las Vegas, we hope you will stop by Dell EMC booth #3613. If not, check out our sessions and get social at @DellEMCHealth #TransformHIT #HIMSS18! Making healthcare transformation real!

Wednesday, March 7 | 12:30 pm

What’s Your Cyber-Attack Recovery (CR) Plan?

Cyber-Security is often discussed in terms of prevention and perimeter defenses, but what about Recovery of mission-critical Healthcare Applications when a successful Cyber-Attack Event occurs? In a Healthcare environment resiliency and a layered data protection approach is essential to preserving continuity of critical patient services. In this session, learn how Dell EMC Isolated Recovery Solution and Services can help you perform successful recoveries from a Cyber-Attack event.

Tweet Ups

Tuesday, March 6 | 2:00 pm

Data Hygiene in Healthcare: The First Step to Getting Value Out of Your Data

Digital transformation in healthcare. With digitization, comes automation. With automation comes more applications. With more applications, comes more data. ‘Dirty data’ might cost you more than you realize…especially when it’s stored in legacy applications that are not managed well. Join the discussion taking place in the Dell EMC booth #3613 to share your insights.

Wednesday, March 7 | 11:00 am

Data Innovation: Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare – it’s happening…

It’s no secret, the healthcare industry has an (over) abundance of data. There are lots of mergers/acquisitions and consolidations taking place in the industry which only complicates matters and intensifies the playing field. There is likely a ton of analysis that’s not currently being done that could potentially provide better insights and results for healthcare organizations—their doctors, researchers and patients. Now that we have the data, how do we make it useful? How can we deploy machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies into driving better results in a healthcare environment? How do you take the data and make it actionable? We invite you to join us in the Dell EMC booth #3613 to discuss this hot topic.

Transformational Change and the Telecom Industry

Here at the annual gathering of telecom leaders at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, I am struck by how the industry periodically goes through transformational step changes.

These changes usually happen quite abruptly and are typically caused by shifts in usage patterns or the disruptive entry of a new business case when the priorities of yesterday may be rendered irrelevant. You only have to remember WhatsApp, and how almost overnight, it destroyed the SMS text business model. Of course, the industry has been evolving for years. We’ve moved from the remote sending of messages or voice communication by phone to today’s focus on connecting technology to people via devices, or the Cloud.

Network Virtualisation

Let me use an example that may feel more familiar. Telecom infrastructure (in terms of compute, storage and networking) used to be regarded as a purely physical thing. Something to be consumed by different types of applications. The industry traditionally built appliances with infrastructure, middleware and workloads. However, with the advent of NFV, workloads have now become virtualised, delivering greater flexibility, quicker time to market and smarter use of resources.

Workload management with the Cloud and the Edge

While some companies were in a technology race to be first out of the gate with a virtualisation stack and other technologies, I am glad that the focus throughout has remained firmly on resources in the infrastructure, and more importantly, the box. With the introduction of Cloud on one side and Edge on the other, we are now seeing a new transformation. Workload management, in its various guises, is rightly becoming the focus for Telecom and NFV rather than worrying about what the workloads run on, or what stack is being used.

Software-defined infrastructure

As a result, we are seeing the emergence of Software-defined Infrastructure (SDI) –  the concept of allocating bare metal resources in geographically distributed sites and grouping them together to manage in a virtual datacentre. The advantage of SDI is that it can place workloads in either private or public Clouds to maintain data integrity while increasing speed and efficiency.

I think that this transformation is being driven by the fact that NFV is not moving towards the homogenous execution environment that was expected some years ago. Instead, it is moving in the opposite direction with more variants of virtualisation, like containers as well as the need for bare metal execution of workloads.  Added to this, we are also seeing an increased need to place workloads closer the end-user for latency purposes and to deliver a better user experience, as well as the movement of workloads towards the Cloud for scale and economy. This is all without changing the environment or redeploying the products. I think that this development is pretty remarkable.

A software-defined future

In fact, I believe that we might well be seeing the real emergence of a software-defined future, where flexibility is fulfilled by automation, orchestration, policy, analytics and reporting.  After all, a large share of the potential value coming from digitisation across global industries over the next decade is dependent on the telecom industry delivering productivity improvements. According to the 2017 World Economic Forum, the digital transformation of telecommunications represents a $2 trillion opportunity for industry and society.

Interesting times ahead! I’d love to hear your comments, predictions and questions. Click here to read what my colleague, James Hole from Dell EMC OEM has to say on the role of specialist telecom companies.  Click here to read the views of our marketing lead for OEM Telecom solutions. Finally, if you’re at Mobile World Congress, we’d really love to meet you! Do visit our booth in Hall 3, Stand 3K10 where we are showcasing the following solutions:

Edge Solutions

• View the newly designed micro Modular Data Center (MDC) – debuting at Mobile World Congress – and learn how you can embed compute and storage capacity at the edge where data is being generated.
• Re-imagine the customer edge with new universal CPE platforms and SD-WAN Ready Node solutions.

Core/Cloud Solutions

• See how you can bring the cloud to the network with our NFV solutions and Telco Cloud offerings.
• Experience Dell EMC’s larger MDC capabilities with a virtual and interactive tour. Put on a headset and be transported to one of our latest MDC designs, the Flex Module.
• View our open and flexible rack scale infrastructure, the DSS 9000, and see how Dell EMC is enabling NEBS-compliant rack scale solutions.

 IoT Solutions

• See how Dell EMC Isilon scale-out NAS and Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) solutions provide highly efficient edge-to-core-to-cloud storage with built-in analytics to unlock the value of your IoT data.
• Discover how Dell IoT Gateways transform Fleet Management by eliminating machine to machine telematics silos, for more cost savings; increased customer satisfaction and safety; and improved employee performance.
• Learn how Dell IoT is revolutionising the building services sector and facilities management by transforming high energy costs into savings with a powerful, integrated intelligent building solution.

Learn more about Dell EMC OEM

Not quite the headline you’d maybe expect to see from a company that is big into promoting open standards but let me explain. It’s true that we continue to see a massive shift in the industry away from proprietary, expensive IT equipment to standardised, cost-efficient computing blocks.

Within the industry, Dell EMC OEM is now regarded as an essential infrastructure partner, providing the IT foundational platform upon which the telco solution is built. However, that doesn’t mean that specialist companies have gone away and are no longer required. On the contrary, their skills continue to be highly relevant and in demand.

Network Virtualisation

For example, take network virtualisation. A hot topic for some time, this has featured prominently in labs work and proof of concept designs, but we are now seeing service providers deploying network virtualisation infrastructure in the field. As you know, deploying a network involves everything from antennae, base stations, edge computing, IoT, core switching, transmission, operations support, business support, analytics, performance management, customer experience and more. While there are lots of component parts, each of these elements needs to work together in tandem plus the network must be always available. Given this complexity, it’s obvious that rolling out a network is a specialist activity.

The important role of specialist companies

And so, while network infrastructure costs are reducing thanks to the use of standardised IT components, I firmly believe that installation, support and SLA will continue to be the domain of specialist companies. After all, it’s not just a question of installing a server and software and off you go – each installation must be supported with an SLA functional guarantee. Specialist companies such as Ericsson and Nokia have huge expertise in installing and supporting networks. These specialist skills will continue to be in demand as virtual networks continue to be built out, using standard compute infrastructure.

Horses for courses

In fact, Dell EMC OEM is already deeply involved in supporting Ericsson and Nokia in the deployment of virtualised networks, based on standard infrastructure components. I see these relationships as key to the successful roll out of modern telecommunications networks. No-one vendor can deliver all – we need horses for courses and each party brings value-add to the table. The important word is partnership.

On that note, I’m looking forward this week to meeting representatives from the entire telecoms ecosystem, including service providers, telecom equipment manufacturers and network equipment providers. I’d love to hear your comments and predictions about the future of the industry. Do visit our booth in Hall 3, Stand 3K10 where we are showcasing the following solutions:

Edge Solutions

• View the newly designed micro Modular Data Center (MDC) – debuting at Mobile World Congress – and learn how you can embed compute and storage capacity at the edge where data is being generated.
• Re-imagine the customer edge with new universal CPE platforms and SD-WAN Ready Node solutions.

Core/Cloud Solutions

• See how you can bring the cloud to the network with our NFV solutions and Telco Cloud offerings.
• Experience Dell EMC’s larger MDC capabilities with a virtual and interactive tour. Put on a headset and be transported to one of our latest MDC designs, the Flex Module.
• View our open and flexible rack scale infrastructure, the DSS 9000, and see how Dell EMC is enabling NEBS-compliant rack scale solutions.

IoT Solutions

• See how Dell EMC Isilon scale-out NAS and Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) solutions provide highly efficient edge-to-core-to-cloud storage with built-in analytics to unlock the value of your IoT data.
• Discover how Dell IoT Gateways transform Fleet Management by eliminating machine to machine telematics silos, for more cost savings; increased customer satisfaction and safety; and improved employee performance.
• Learn how Dell IoT is revolutionising the building services sector and facilities management by transforming high energy costs into savings with a powerful, integrated intelligent building solution.

Learn more about Dell EMC OEM at https://www.dellemc.com/en-us/oem/telecom2.htm

The Dell EMC Customer Solution Centers (CSC) are designed to help you, our customers, “Make it Real.”  A place where our world-class IT experts collaborate with you to share best practices across the Dell EMC and Dell Technologies product portfolio.

Supporting technical briefings, architectural design sessions and proof of concepts, the CSC provides the ability for you to see the solutions of the future and test your solution against your business needs – so you can move forward with confidence.

I sat down with KC Choi, Sr Vice President Dell EMC Presales. We talked “Making it Real” and how to engage in the CSC and Executive Briefing process.

With 18 locations globally, most CSCs are located alongside one of our Executive Briefing Centers, providing the ability to test drive how the solutions will work. Locations in North America include:  Chicago, Hopkinton, Nashville, New York, Round Rock, Santa Clara, Washington DC – There is sure to be a CSC near you. If you’re international, centers in Asia Pacific include Beijing, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Tokyo – EMEA: Cork, Dubai, Frankfurt, Luderick, Lodz, Paris and in Latin America, Mexico City and San Paulo.

Get Dell EMC The Source app in the Apple App Store or Google Play, and Subscribe to the podcast: iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Google Play.

Dell EMC The Source Podcast is hosted by Sam Marraccini (@SamMarraccini)

In 2017, the blockchain concept took center stage. It was suddenly everywhere in the news, and people were talking about it as if it were the Holy Grail. Just consider the constant stream of news on the Bitcoin cryptocurrency and payment system, one of the early blockchain implementations. And now people are thinking more broadly, and talking about all kinds of use cases for blockchain ledgers — from processing land titles and loans to sharing product construction plans.

That’s all exciting stuff. But the story shouldn’t stop there. There’s another side to the blockchain concept that people need to focus on: data privacy — which is currently a missing link in the blockchain.

Let’s take Bitcoin as an example. In order to let the simple smart contract of Bitcoin validate the distributed ledger continuously, all transaction data — including amount, source account and target account — must be available to all network participants in unencrypted form. This means that the much-heralded anonymity on the Bitcoin network is the more the result of massive obscurity than of real security measures like encryption and privacy.

Here’s the unvarnished truth: Massive obscurity does not equate to data privacy — and that’s an issue when it comes to almost any serious business use case for blockchain. Most use cases won’t work if you can’t secure blockchain transactions against read access from everybody out there.

So how do you build data encryption and, by extension, privacy into a blockchain? The answer lies in a new kind of IT stack that enables blockchain-based applications to reliably process private data. This topic is explored in a just-released white paper that looks at the trustworthy processing of private data stored on SAP HANA® databases powered by Dell EMC Ready Solutions for SAP, using SAP Leonardo Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) and trusted computing appliances from Camelot Innovative Technologies Lab – CamelotIT Lab – running Intel-based Dell Enterprise Workstations.

While the full story of how it’s done is beyond the scope of this blog. Here’s the quick version of the story: The paper walks through a blockchain approach that keeps private data completely off-chain. This approach allows all parties to store their private data in their local environments only, while registering the private data on-chain by storing a hash of it for later verification of its integrity.

There’s a lot more to this story, of course. You can read all the details in the new Dell EMC white paper titled “Blockchain for Off-Chain Smart Contracts in a SAP environment” Download the paper

Note: In addition to Dr. Marten Neubauer from the Dell EMC Global SAP Center of Excellence, the linked white paper was authored by our partner Camelot ITLab, a leading SAP consultancy for digital value chain management with a comprehensive portfolio of blockchain products and services leveraging Camelot Hypertrust Network and SAP Leonardo.

As workplaces have evolved, so have the workforces that use them. Several distinct worker personas have emerged, each with its own demands for specific hardware, software and services. We think it’s time your customers knew more about them.

Our goal is to help businesses use the most appropriate technology to suit employees’ needs – whatever their role, wherever they work, and however they work. That way, users get a better experience and organizations get more productive employees. Our guides offer the first step by providing you with the right information to further educate your customers about this critical component of workplace transformation.

This blog explores what offerings from the Dell Technologies portfolio would suit the needs of field workers.

Technology match-up

These workers can be found working in any environment. Their devices need to be robust enough to withstand less than optimal conditions, while maintaining a good mobile connection to data.

The Dell Rugged and Rugged Extreme ranges — including both laptops and tablets with Microsoft Windows 10 Pro — have been subjected to independent MIL-STD-810G testing, and have come out unscathed. The Latitude Rugged can survive drops of up to 36 inches. Dust, shocks, humidity, altitude and even extreme temperatures (between -13°F and 140°F) are powerless against its performance. As the name suggests, the Rugged Extreme range goes even further. Add salt fog, freeze/thaw cycles and explosive atmospheres to that list. These workers can go anywhere.

Increasingly, organizations are equipping their field workers with sensors to manage assets deployed in the field. This is where Dell EMC’s internet of things (IoT) capabilities come in, providing a way to manage and connect field devices back into a central infrastructure. When machine learning algorithms are applied to the incoming data, a predictive model can be developed to ensure field services teams are able to respond to asset failures before they happen, rather than after they do.

Read our field worker guide to discover more about how Talisen obtains meaningful analytics in the aerospace and defence industries by taking advantage of IoT components, maximizing operational efficiencies with Dell EMC technology.

Our approach

Technology has a huge potential to help organizations transform their workplaces, and by extension, transform their people’s working lives. We believe that approaching workers as personas is a critical part of workplace transformation, providing personalized products for how employees work today and in the future.  We’ll take care of the solutions, so you can take care of your customers.

Read the Field Services guides, as well as others, here.

We’ve also created related emails here, on our new Digital Marketing Platform so that your marketing teams can quickly get these guides into the hands of your customers. The guides explain how to maximize the productivity of their employees through the right choices from our end-to-end portfolio.

If you don’t have access to the Digital Marketing Platform, please register here.

…and lived to talk about it

We make no secret about the customer-focused design behind our PowerEdge servers. It’s a pretty simple approach; tell us what you need, and we’ll build it. Need servers with enough processing prowess to power deep learning? We’ve got you covered. Looking to stock your astrophysics lab with enough compute power to study black holes and unlock the secrets of the universe? Meet the R740.

So when given the opportunity to talk shop and swap ideas with some of the biggest influencers in the industry, we couldn’t pass it up. Last week we had the pleasure to host a group of 12 bloggers, analysts, authors, and IT experts as part of Tech Field Day 16. We got to share our innovations in server automation and absorb some invaluable feedback on where the industry’s headed, how demands are evolving, and where our solutions have room to grow. Here’s where the conversation went, and what we learned along the way.

Our day began with a look at our systems management portfolio from Kevin Noreen, our senior director of product management. He unpacked some of the challenges and frustrations that have crept into today’s IT infrastructure; the sluggishness of rolling out new services; the overwhelming complexity of the data center; and the disruptions and loss of revenue that results from frequent downtime. Kevin then went into how we’re focused on solving these issues by simplifying and automating the entire process with management tools that unite the PowerEdge portfolio.

We then hit the ground running with in-depth demos of iDRAC9 and OpenManage mobile from Doug Iler and Manoj Malhotra. Our TFD guests were quick to live Tweet their thoughts on the updated web-based UI, remarking on its speed and simplicity – even joking that a tool this fast couldn’t possibly be iDRAC. When they got a hands-on look at OpenManage Mobile and its anytime/anywhere capabilities, some pointed out how great power (unfortunately) often comes with great responsibility.

Our product manager for embedded management automation, Paul Rubin, then went deep into RESTful APIs, Redfish, and the unique challenges of customers he calls “the automators” – those migrating from vendor-specific consoles into the world of multi-vendor data centers who would benefit the most from automation. Paul covered how we’re working to pair the right tools with open, industry standards to bring simplicity to the most complex environments.

Brian Doty, our sr. consultant on PowerEdge management was next up with an overview on our next-generation OpenManage Enterprise tool. An update on our popular OM Essentials, released in beta back in 2011, OM Enterprise provides full lifecycle management of Dell EMC servers, as well as monitoring of 3^rd party storage, compute and networking. Like with our web-based iDRAC9, a lot of the social conversation focused on the improved interface and a bit of recognition for the empathy behind everything we do.

Our final presentation from Ray Hebert sparked the day’s most engaging conversation, with our delegates sharing their views on where the industry is headed, and our experts giving their take on how we’re responding to the changing landscape. If you watch one video from Tech Field Day 16, make it this one.

Overall, our influencers were open and honest with their feedback on what we’ve done right, and where we need to course correct. That shared knowledge and the willingness to listen and learn more is what made TFD16 such a monumental success.

Share your questions, feedback, victories, and failures with us at @DellEMCservers and let’s keep this conversation going.

Dell EMC knows that the cloud is a key element of any modern data protection solution. That’s why our best-in-breed protection storage platforms enable users to easily extend to the cloud to benefit from the economics & agility that it can provide.

For modern disaster recovery, Dell EMC offers Data Domain Cloud Disaster Recovery (DD CDR) to copy backed-up VMs to the public cloud. And for long-term retention, Dell EMC offers Data Domain Cloud Tier (DD Cloud Tier) – which now supports additional cloud service providers as well as new support for highly-requested workloads. In this blog, we will focus on DD Cloud Tier.

DD Cloud Tier helps simplify and automate an organization’s path to the cloud with automated and efficient movement of long-term retention data, thanks to its seamless integration and API extensibility. DD Cloud Tier sets Data Domain apart as the only protection storage offering that can natively-tier deduplicated data to the public, private or hybrid cloud for long-term retention.¹ No separate cloud gateway or virtual appliance is required – which means that customers do not have to worry about any additional physical footprint or management overhead, and will see the benefits from Dell EMC’s advanced deduplication in their cloud environment.

DD Cloud Tier helps enterprises ensure that long-term retention data is protected with modern efficiency no matter what happens. For a complete Dell Technologies solution, Virustream Storage Cloud & Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) are both supported options for your long-term cloud retention needs. A number of third-party cloud service providers are supported as well, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.

Now with DD OS 6.1.1, Dell EMC is expanding cloud provider support for DD Cloud Tier to include Azure Government Cloud, IBM Cloud Object Storage (Standard), and Ceph Object Storage. With the ability to native-tier deduplicated long-term retention data to these new options, Dell EMC continues to deliver flexible protection with a wide ecosystem of both enterprise & homegrown applications as well as cloud service providers. You can even tier to two separate clouds from the same Data Domain system if you desire, allowing you to create the modern long-term cloud retention solution that is best for your organization’s needs.

Furthermore, DD OS 6.1.1 expands on the existing DD Cloud Tier support for IBM’s TSM Virtual Tape Library (VTL) workloads with support for Dell EMC Networker and IBMi VTL workloads. This means that Data Domain VTL users will now be able to extend their TSM, IBMi and Networker VTL workloads to the cloud for long-term cloud retention along with the rest of their data ready to be held for retention. With minimal changes to workflow, you can quickly & easily replace your Physical Tape Library infrastructure with the Data Domain VTL supported long-term retention to Cloud workflow. This year is the ideal time to finally retire any remaining tape infrastructure with this expanded VTL support via DD Cloud Tier.

To learn more about Dell EMC Data Domain and DD Cloud Tier, please visit the Dell EMC Store to compare products and follow @DellEMCProtect on Twitter for the latest announcements, customer case studies and topical content.

¹ Based on internal analysis, November 2016

It seems like everyone’s talking about big data these days to achieve competitive advantage through business efficiencies, improved customer service, and industry-disrupting innovation. Gaining access to massive amounts of information is definitely important for the modern enterprise, but what you do with that data is what really matters most.

To start thinking more strategically about your data, imagine you’re on an analytics journey that takes you to three exciting places. Each stop along the way will help you harness greater value from the data generated by your automation systems, including enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, e-commerce, warranty management, and much more.

Descriptive Analytics

The most basic type of data analytics is descriptive analytics, which involves using data to gain insights into your current business realities. With this type of analytics, you can gain visibility into a whole host of things, such as what it’s costing you to manage a fleet of vehicles or how successfully your marketing automation campaigns are delivering qualified leads.

Being able to generate reports about what’s going on across the enterprise helps business leaders make better decisions. And as more data is collected, you can start noting trends and patterns that can give you further insights into possible future states.

Predictive Analytics

In this way, descriptive analytics becomes the springboard to the second stop on our data journey, the realm of predictive analytics. Predictive analytics requires a more expansive use of data, combining it with sophisticated mathematical models and algorithms to discern why things are happening and to facilitate more accurate forecasting based on different data inputs.

Predictive and descriptive analytics both rely on human beings to interpret data through engaged inquiry. We must look at the data and figure out what it means. But what if machines could do that work for us instead? Machine learning is the next destination you need to explore, because it’s opening huge opportunities for businesses to accelerate innovations.

Machine Learning

Machine learning is the capability of computer systems to adapt and get better at specific tasks without explicit programming. When massive amounts of data are being analyzed far faster than people can do it, businesses can more quickly and accurately do things like anticipate and stop security breaches and fraud, diagnose diseases, personalize customer communications, conduct scientific research, and much more.

A Data Journey, Completed

As an infrastructure company, Dell EMC offers solutions to advance enterprise organizations on their data journey. Hardware is often the key factor in effective data management, and our dedicated engineers are constantly configuring Ready Solutions to help companies achieve optimal performance with critical data storage and management systems, from SAP and ScaleIO to Hadoop and Splunk. These solutions include all the hardware, software, resources, and services you need to extract value from your data faster and with less risk.

A classic example of a company that has advanced its data journey with us is Mastercard. The leading payment solutions company started using our Ready Bundle for Cloudera Hadoop for descriptive analytics. Eventually, the company started using predictive analytics to anticipate customer spending patterns and is now using advanced machine-learning algorithms to automatically shut down credit cards and notify customers when their spending patterns look like fraud.

Contact Us Today—Or Meet with Us at Strata Data

All large organizations capture and store big data, yet many don’t have the systems and processes in place to capitalize on all information they have. At Dell EMC, we know that a successful big data project doesn’t begin with the deployment of a particular technology or solution. It begins with a business use case and a strategic roadmap that will take you from where you are today to where you want to be tomorrow.

To learn more about our Ready Solutions, contact your Dell EMC representative at 1-866-438-3622 or email us at data_analytics@dell.com. You can also stop by and see us at the Intel booth at this year’s Strata Data Conference in San Jose from March 5–8. Thousands of top data scientists, analysts, engineers, and executives will be there to learn how to turn algorithms into greater advantage – you don’t want to miss it.

Part Two – From the Company’s Perspective – Innovation Leads to Optimization

As discussed in Part One, a well-constructed CSR plan has the potential both to benefit global sustainability and enhance customer trust. While amplifying customer loyalty is certainly at the heart of any company’s game plan, the influence of a sound CSR strategy goes beyond increasing the bond between customer and company.

The push to create and maintain a business model with social purpose often leads to increased efficiency and the development of new ways of working, with the positive effects felt both globally in terms of the environment and impact on the community, and internally, in the form of increased ROI and optimized performance on a company-wide scale. To those corporations who have already implemented long-range sustainability strategies, it has become increasingly clear that working in conjunction with Mother Nature is not only easier, more ethical and more sustainable than fighting her – it can also be more profitable.

Take Dell EMC, for example. Our own CSR vision began at the very top. When Michael Dell started this business in 1984, he wanted to enable human potential through technology, and our corporate responsibility efforts are an extension of this mission he set out to accomplish 30 years ago. This has led to the creation of our Dell 2020 Legacy of Good Plan, a set of ambitious goals related to the environment, our people, and the communities where we live and work.

We have found that championing CSR has been the catalyst for the development and adoption of new techniques for doing business, which have helped to reduce our corporate environmental footprint and cut down on waste throughout every step of the value chain. Here are the results of a few of our efforts:

• Innovative, sustainable packaging – We are the first technology company to create packaging from fast-growing biodegradable materials such as bamboo and mushrooms. Currently, 94 percent of packaging materials (by weight) are made from sustainable sources, helping us toward achieving our goal of delivering waste-free packaging by 2020.
• Reinventing ocean-bound plastics – Our drive to keep plastics in the value chain and out of the ocean benefits everyone. Plastics collected from beaches, waterways and other coastal areas are being incorporated into a new packaging system for our XPS 13 2-in-1 and XPS 15 2-in-1 laptops. This initial pilot project will start by keeping 16,000 pounds of plastics out of the ocean, and in support of UN SDG Goal 14, we are committed to increase annual usage 10x by 2025.
• Recycling precious metals – A ton of motherboards contains up to 800 times more gold than a ton of ore from the earth. With this in mind, Dell’s Circular Gold initiative has teamed with activist Nikki Reed to increase awareness of the need to recycle technology by upcycling our reusable gold into a jewelry line. We are also piloting the use of recycled gold in motherboards for select Dell laptops, continuing our leadership in supporting a closed loop supply chain and circular economy.
• Reshaping delivery processes – Flexible shipping strategies can have a dramatic effect on a company’s carbon footprint. When transporting products to 180 countries at a rate of one system per second, we partner with SmartWay, who provides us access to thousands of product carriers committed to collecting and sharing data with the goal of transporting goods efficiently and responsibly.
• Promoting better work environments – We work diligently with our suppliers to ensure that high working standards and labor practices are implemented within the supply chain. Our policies and standards are aligned with the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC), of which Dell is a founding member. This allows us to work together with industry partners to drive systematic change in our supply chain.

As a concept, CSR marks the spot where positive global initiatives, changing customer priorities and a company’s bottom line intersect. Properly nourished, it has the ability to positively impact all three. Incorporating a solid CSR plan into long-range strategies makes good common sense as well as sound business sense. More and more, we recognize that customers are putting their trust in forward thinking companies whose innovative outlook strives to create a more sustainable future.

It’s accepted knowledge across industries that companies that don’t undergo a digital transformation will find it difficult to survive in the coming decade. Legacy technology simply can’t support the performance and virtualization that businesses need to operate efficiently and provide modern products and services to their customers.

But demand for modern infrastructure really begins upstream, with the Communications Service Providers (CoSPs) that own the networks powering business connectivity. The problem is that many large CoSPs are still operating on a wide range of proprietary, legacy technologies themselves. These technologies require a large number of people to maintain and operate them. In addition, these technologies deliver network speeds and responsiveness that are less-than-optimal for the businesses downstream.

To start the transformation process based on this starting point, CoSPs have the seemingly insurmountable task of becoming virtualization experts, sorting through hundreds of vendors and products to architect the ideal infrastructure, and implementing the new technology in an optimal way, all without disrupting existing services.

More realistically, CoSPs need a reliable, knowledgeable partner to help them set a digital transformation strategy, prioritize and select technologies, and undergo digital transformation in a way that sets them up for success.

5 Key Focus Areas

CoSPs’ most pressing need (and opportunity) is to infuse infrastructure with more cloud technology to make it faster, more responsive and more automated. To do so, they need to adopt a significant amount of compute and virtualization technology across nearly every aspect of their infrastructure, starting with the following five areas:

• CoSP cloud – Central Offices need to evolve beyond physical appliances to provide cloud-based services to customers. This means upgrading to virtual appliances, then implementing virtual network functions, including software-defined networking (SDN). This will serve as a mechanism to stitch services together as well as help scale the networking topology between virtual functions.
• Next-gen access – Today’s companies need higher bandwidth to support their day-to-day operations and provide products and services in a fast and reliable way to their own customers. Providing next-gen access typically means migrating from static and expensive multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) virtual private network (VPN) circuits and physical customer premise equipment (CPE) nodes to more virtualized CPE nodes and secure access technologies, along with software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN).
• Operations and business support systems (OSS/BSS) transformation – CoSPs need to make it faster and easier to launch new services to customers by incorporating automation and telemetry and ensuring the systems they use to deliver network-based services have application plug in (API) -driven capabilities.
• Edge computing – To deliver services more rapidly across widespread markets, CoSPs will need to adopt enterprise edge computing in the next 12-18 months. There are a number of approaches for doing this, from evolving the Central Office with architectures such as Central Office Architected as a Data Center (CORD), to building an edge services cloud incorporating capabilities such as multi-access edge computing (MEC) to the evolution of the edge outside of existing physical facilities with modular data centers.
• 5G infrastructure – When 5G becomes available in the next 18-36 months, CoSPs will be tasked with a new set of challenges. The requirements of 5G are roughly between 100-1000 times the performance and scale of 4G, at 1/1000^th the latency, with significantly different economics on the monetization and operations. SDN will no longer be contained within the Central Offices, and CoSPs will need to embrace end-to-end SDN principles, such as network slicing. Network functions virtualization (NFV) will no longer be a centralized function running inside a virtual machine (VM), but inside containers or even running on top of bare metal.

The Partner CoSPs Need

Dell EMC makes digital transformation much easier for CoSPs. Not only are we a worldwide leader in compute and cloud-enabled IT infrastructure, we have the partnership framework in place to strategically and holistically guide CoSPs through the process of modernization across all five key areas.

Our experts give CoSPs the technology and tools to assemble the right combination of infrastructure and service capabilities to serve their business customers and remain competitive for years to come. Dell EMC’s focus on open-standards-based, disaggregated architecture means CoSPs won’t relive the mistakes of the past, trading proprietary solutions and vendor lock-in for a flexible, future-ready, scalable architecture.

The harsh reality is that most CoSPs won’t achieve the levels of virtualization and optimization they need without the right partner on their side. Dell EMC is poised to play a pro-active role in reshaping the future for service providers as they achieve digital transformation and provide the modern technology that will power the coming evolution of business.