Infrastructure, Cloud & DevOps

This week IBM announced an update to its FlashSystem storage portfolio. While new flash storage releases have become somewhat commonplace lately, thinking that IBM’s FlashSystems are just systems with flash does them a huge disservice. IBM has integrated some game-changing software innovation into its FlashSystems. While much of this technology has been in there for a while, the benefits extend far beyond the average storage system.

(more…)

At this year’s Dell Tech Summit, there were several high-impact announcements, each one important and each one valuable. But, with each, the real story will be whether these are just single isolated announcements or whether each one can become a first step in a larger journey that helps define Dell and its offerings moving forward.

With that, let’s walk through the big announcements.

• Dell Technologies on Demand: In a recent ESG study, a majority of IT organizations identified a preference to procure IT storage infrastructure on a pay-per-use basis. There are still, however, organizations that prefer the traditional model, so IT vendors such as Dell need to offer both options and many do. Dell’s technology breadth, however, should give it an advantage as IT organizations need simplification. The ability to have the same pay-per-use model and agreement across all your IT infrastructure, or even a significant portion, offers tremendous value. This should create significant value, saving personnel from wasting time managing paperwork, while helping reduce the cost of IT. The price can go up or down based on usage, capacity for storage and compute hours for servers. The use of compute hours as a term for servers is really intriguing. IT organizations can spin up and spin down workloads based on need and only pay when they are in use. The terms seem a little long, available in three, four, or five-year options, but this is a move in the right direction. Ideally this announcement is just the first step in Dell simplifying its payment process moving forward.
• Dell PowerOne: Autonomous infrastructure, that is the promise of Dell PowerOne. Even if it’s just a stretch goal, it’s good to hear. The PowerOne platform is a converged offering and its ability to save time and reduce risk via the automation of repetitive tasks is impressive. ESG was able to get a first look at the technology. So far, however, this automation technology is isolated to PowerOne. Does this capability come to other parts of the Dell portfolio? How will Dell bring the ideas of autonomous infrastructure to everything it does? PowerOne is exciting, and now the industry wants to see more.
• Dell’s Moonshot Goals to Deliver Good – Last, in this list, but certainly not least, Michael Dell kicked off this year’s Dell Tech Summit with several moonshot goals for Dell Technologies to achieve by 2030. These goals included a target of one-for-one recycling. For every system Dell builds in 2030 and beyond, it will recycle one system’s worth of components. While ambitious, it is not outside the realm of possibility. Dell already has a massive recycling program in place, and Michael was one of the industry’s earliest proponents of technology recycling. Dell also announced its goal for 50% of the Dell Technologies’ global workforce to be women by 2030, with 40% of the management positions. Again, this is ambitious, especially when you consider the global portion of this goal, but it is excellent to see an industry leader publicly putting a target out there and then actively working towards it.

All these announcements were significant, but ideally each is only a first step. All three address topics that the technology industry and the world at large have vested interests in. As a result, the potential is tremendous. The question Dell has to answer moving forward, however, is will it continue down these trajectories with additional investment, innovation, and commitment? Ideally, every year, Dell could highlight the strides the company has made to simplify IT procurement, automate IT operations, and achieve its moonshot goals, and I, for one, hope they will.

Hitachi NEXT this year had a new feel about it. Sure, there was some great tech, which we will get to in a minute, but speaking with the attendees and the executives, there was an element of excitement in the air. Hitachi Vantara has already had great tech, but this year, with new innovations for the data center, the cloud, and data ops, there is much more to Hitachi Vantara than in years past.

(more…)

This week Pure // Accelerate came to my hometown of Austin, Tx. And for three days, the city was orange; filled with a customer base that is both passionate and enthusiastic.

(more…)

The theme of this year’s VMworld is “Make you Mark.” The kickoff keynote delivered a familiar narrative placing the IT leader in the place of a hero, a cross between “Morpheus and Hermione,” gifted with powers to change the world.

(more…)