Dell Technologies wants to enable automation and choice on its data center hardware, with third-party support for Dell NativeEdge and new software, including Dell Private Cloud.
LAS VEGAS -- Dell Technologies wants to bring new options and choices around hybrid cloud infrastructure deployments back into customer data centers.
The vendor outlined its future vision for customer workloads on Dell hardware at its annual Dell Technologies World conference Tuesday, with a preview of the Dell Private Cloud platform and forthcoming updates to Dell NativeEdge management software and PowerProtect Data Protection Software.
Dell's major idea for the Private Cloud platform focuses on enabling choice, namely around hypervisor or other cloud-native OS options, such as platforms from VMware, Nutanix and Red Hat OpenShift.
Many enterprises are realizing they need to manage workloads both on-premises and in public clouds, said Simon Robinson, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, a division of Omdia.
Many enterprise buyers are looking to connect the two disparate models together and manage these products without the need to manually oversee each part of the stack, he said. Bringing cloud-like automation at a hardware level, without being dependent on a single software vendor could separate Dell's offering from its competitors.
"We've had this public and private cloud debate, and we're entering a new phase where most organizations realize they're hybrid," Robinson said. "They like the cloud operating model, but they still haven't cloudified their [data centers]."
Release dates weren't provided.
Private Cloud from Dell
Dell Private Cloud enables automated deployment and management of popular hybrid cloud platforms using new Dell Automation Platform software to spin up new infrastructure through validated blueprint catalogs.
These capabilities are similar to Hewlett Packard Enterprise's GreenLake platform, which tightly combines HPE hardware and software for a private cloud, said Steve McDowell, principal analyst and founder of NAND Research.
GreenLake's capabilities are more robust, as the platform launched years ago, he said, but both vendors are chasing customers that are using private clouds for AI workloads on-premises and connecting to large language models.
"It's a trend HPE was leading with GreenLake," McDowell said. "This feels like GreenLake-lite. It's right for the IT guys, as the world of AI is software-defined."
HPE is also willing to take on private cloud as a challenger to the likes of VMware and Nutanix with the launch of its own virtualization platform, HPE Morpheus Enterprise, Robinson said.
HPE and Dell are pushing the same ends through very different means.
Simon RobinsonAnalyst, Enterprise Strategy Group
"HPE and Dell are pushing the same ends through very different means," Robinson said. "HPE's approach is building the full stack from the virtualization layer down. Dell's play is meeting the customer where they are. Whatever you choose for that [virtualization layer], they'll support that and optimize that through this automation platform."
Dell NativeEdge, a remote software management suite, will be capable of managing non-Dell hardware to automate configuration deployment in heterogeneous environments.
Dell's PowerStore and PowerScale storage arrays now have cybersecurity capabilities with PowerScale Security Suite updates and PowerStore Advanced Ransomware Detection, an AI/ML ransomware detection capability. The Dell PowerProtect line gains an all-flash backup appliance with the new Dell PowerProtect Data Domain All-Flash offering.
Alongside continued teases of Project Lightning, Dell's parallel-file system that runs on PowerScale and was first shown last year, Dell's latest shows a company transition from almost entirely hardware back into software and data management akin to NetApp, McDowell said.
"What they're showing is a vision, much like NetApp, and putting a stake in the ground," he said. "Dell's moving into software and services when they've historically been a hardware company."
Tim McCarthy is a news writer for Informa TechTarget covering cloud and data storage.
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