Dell Technologies World: Software Innovation Takes Aim At ‘Real-World Problems’

By Matt Brown, consultant, global GTM communications, manages global public relations for Dell Technologies, Inc.

The world is in a phase of accelerated innovation that will lead industries and individuals to become more connected, more tuned into the mountains of data at their disposal and primed to ignite “a new wave of innovation in companies like ours, and all of your companies,” according to Jeff Clarke, co-COO.

That means businesses large and small need to better understand what the data they produce is telling them and need confidence that their data and their systems are secure while gaining those insights.

Dell announced a slew of new solutions and software in Las Vegas, NV, at the first Dell Technologies World event held in-person since 2019, and Jeff’s keynot focused on the launch of software designed with those goals in mind for the company’s storage portfolio.

“Our storage portfolio offers the broadest range of multi-cloud support for hyperscalers and DevOps orchestration platforms,” Jeff shared. And with more than 500 new software features across its PowerMax, PowerStore and PowerFlex lines, the company is making its storage portfolio more adaptable while providing cyber resiliency and flexibility for multi-cloud ecosystems.

First, though, Clarke was joined onstage by Rahul Tikoo, SVP, client solutions group, Dell. This later walked through several Dell PC advancements using the Latitude 9330 as an example, and emphasizing collaboration, privacy and sustainability.

“We’re putting personal back into the personal computer,” he said.

PC development only accelerated during the pandemic.

“That’s how we’ve made it through the last 26 months,” Clarke explained.

The PC is where many people experience tech, and it’s backed by infrastructure. This announcements focused on ‘a trifecta of storage driven innovation.’

Here’s breakdown of key storage advancements:

PowerMax
Next-gen PowerMax gets a PowerMax OS 10 with more than 200 features, including:

• More intelligence and automation for an embedded AI engine that makes more 6B decisions a day to optimize performance and efficiency without the help of a storage admin.

• Industry cybersecurity and resiliency.

• Multi-factor authentication for management, continuous ransomware anomaly detection, a native air-gapped cyber vault, and scalability of 65 million immutable snapshots per array.

• Multi-array smart provisioning and the industry’s only automated E2E NVMe/TCP deployment reducing setup time by up to 44%.

• 4:1 data reduction guarantee. First compression for mainframe storage.

• A new intelligent, NVMe scale-out architecture making Dell arrays 2x as fast with 50% better response times.

• Non-disruptive data-in-place upgrades.

PowerStore
Fastest-ramping architecture in Dell’s history gets advancements, including:

• PowerStore OS 3.0 with new enhancements for data mobility, enterprise file, cybersecurity, VMware integrations and ecosystem automation. This seamless update of more than 120 new features is available to existing customers as an all-inclusive software update at no charge.

• Mixed workload performance boost of up to 50% while increasing maximum capacity more than 60%.

• Native replication for any workload – new products file and VMware vVols, as well as block.

• Software only native metro sync in five clicks. No extra HW needed. For load balancing, disaster avoidance or migration for zero downtime vSphere environments.

PowerFlex
Software-defined storage family promises big performance and scalability for bare metal, virtualized and modern cloud native containerized workloads. Key advancements include:

• PowerFlex 4.0 with over 200 new features to modernize and expand multi-cloud possibilities while enhancing cyber resilience.

• Support for file and block making PowerFlex a software-defined infrastructure that supports bare metal, hypervisors, and file and block services on a single platform.

• New automated lifecycle boosts productivity up to 95% across unified environments.

• Cyber recovery software that protects and isolates mission critical data from ransomware and other sophisticated threats.

Still, all this technological advancement aimed at helping customers transform must be underpinned by what Clarke called a ‘developer-first mindset.’ That’s something Jen Felch CIO and CDO, Dell, has spearheaded inside Dell.

She joined Clarke on stage to detail the effort to modernize Dell’s own IT for a developer-centric, multi-cloud world.

“We had to step back and look at the developer experience,” Felch said. “They are the critical path to our transformation, not only for IT, but for the company.”

After taking the CIO role 3 years ago, she found that developers on her team were spending far too little time on tech tasks, and far too much on administrative work.

“We have an incredible team, and we have access to the world’s best technology,” she said. “We had to step back and look at our own processes.”

She explained that investment in people is key to success for IT teams.

“Digital transformation doesn’t just happen,” she said. “People make it happen. The race and competition for talent is real. We all want to have great experiences at work. A great developer experience became critical.”

And by creating a better, more efficient environment for developers, her team created efficiencies for the company.

The right people with the right skills working in a flexible, efficient, supportive environment allow companies to tackle transformation efforts more completely with innovations like Dell’s Project Alpine, which was demonstrated by Caitlin Gordon, infrastructure solutions group VP.

Clarke Patterson, senior director, data analytics powerhouse, Snowflake, Inc., said the company’s partnership with Dell represents the first time on-prem datasets have been brought to Snowflake in the cloud, providing access to Snowflake without having to move data.

“There’s nothing more exciting and powerful than seeing our innovations make their way into the real world to solve customer problems and deliver better outcomes,” Welch said. “And it’s a home run when our technology helps create new or reimagine industries.”