Edge computing is computing done at or near the source of data, which we call “the edge.” Simply put, the edge is anywhere data is created, as long as that place isn’t a private data center or public cloud like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure. Edge computing systems help address infrastructure challenges like bandwidth limitations, excess latency and network congestion.

The edge comprises storage and servers located where data is created. It also encompasses our personal and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, point-of-sale (POS) terminals, autonomous cars and the local network devices we keep in our offices.

That said, when IT professionals refer to edge computing, they often talk about devices that are one or more steps removed from the end user. That could mean servers deployed to collect and analyze data or dedicated server nodes designed for a specific purpose, like gaming.

In the latter case, so-called gamelets process, store, and deliver data to gaming devices. These gamelets can offer the lower latency required by modern games better than the cloud because they are deployed in close proximity to end-users.

Edge computing infrastructure is usually deployed in shielded enclosures designed to protect it from extreme temperatures, moisture and anything else the environment can throw at it. Once deployed, edge infrastructure is often tasked with normalizing and analyzing data streams. It then looks for valuable intelligence from the data and only transfers the most useful results back to a centralized data center. This real-time, autonomous decision-making has the potential to save precious time and dramatically lower costs. 

A 2018 report by Gartner offers a glimpse of the edge to come. Five years ago, the research firm reported that just 10% of the world’s data was created outside a traditional centralized data center or cloud. Now, Gartner predicts that by 2025, data from IoT devices at the edge will account for five times as much data. That’s around 90 zettabytes (ZB), or about 50% of the 175 ZB we will have created by then.

The more data we create, the more we must rely on edge computing to process and act on that data locally instead of waiting for it to go to and come back from the cloud. That makes edge computing a vital resource that will only become more valuable in the future.

As we continue to navigate the modern digital era, technological breakthroughs like artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, Big Data, and more, are increasingly being looked at as the necessary driving forces behind achieving rapid growth at the enterprise level. 

However, figuring out which technologies work best in varying scenarios can be a complex endeavor. This has led to solution providers being tasked with helping enterprises incorporate these technologies to work and operate more efficiently, resulting in true digital transformation. 

Help customers navigate these complexities and achieve digital transformation

To address everything that is changing in today’s market, solution providers must guide their customers to embrace a new generation of enterprise storage that not only provides the performance needed to encourage operational growth, but also deliver on security, availability, scalability, automation, protection, and efficiency. 

Fortunately, Dell Technologies delivers a continuously modern storage portfolio,  ,  offering tremendous scalability across all dimensions – performance, capacity, connectivity, devices, and top-notch data services with Powermax. And it does this with a future-proof architecture that features end-to-end, non-volatile memory express (NVMe), persistent memory, built-in machine learning, seamless cloud mobility, deep VMware integration, and other mission-critical workload integration. 

A closer look at PowerMax

PowerMax storage from Dell is based on powerful architecture, simple operation, and reliable innovation to increase your customer’s productivity while reducing their operational costs. 

The latest generation of PowerMax, powered by Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, is part of the Continuously Modern portfolio and includes over 200 new software features and software innovations. These are designed to deliver on the promise of software-driven data innovations:

Automate IT operations

By combining adaptable software architectures with intelligence and automation, customers can boost productivity, reduce risk and be ready for what’s next. PowerMax is the industry’s first automated end-to-end NVMe/TCP deployment solution and cuts up to 44% off the time it takes to configure NVMe/TCP resources.1

Gain multi-cloud control and mobility

Cloud-ecosystem flexibility with multi-cloud enabled software allows organizations to develop innovative breakthroughs with their data, wherever it comes from and wherever it is stored – or used. With features such as reduced read/write latency2 and 2x faster performance,3 customers can take advantage of PowerMax to increase their agility.

Innovate securely

PowerMax is the world’s most secure mission-critical storage.4 Once your customers are able to rely on this level of comprehensive cyber-resiliency, they can invest with confidence in their potential for business breakthroughs. 

Also worth noting:

The latest evolution of PowerMax enables massive workload consolidation for block, file, and mainframe across both PowerMax 2500 and PowerMax 8500 models. Additionally, a simple licensing scheme helps customers accelerate productivity by unlocking critical data services.  

Safeguard high-value data

·       Industry’s most secure mission-critical storage[1]

·       Designed for Zero Trust security architectures[2]

·       Industry’s most granular cyber recovery at scale [3]

Simplify storage operations

·       Industry’s most scalable storage replication solution for the best recovery point objective (RPO) in the industry[4]

·       Up to 44% less time to configure NVMe/TCP resource[5]

·       Designed for 99.9999% data availability for a single array[6]

Stay continuously modern

·       Modern enterprise storage for physical, virtual, and containerized workloads 

·       Data-in-place node updates with Dell’s Anytime Upgrade program

·       Up to 14x more storage capacity per rack unit[7]

·       Up to 4:1 data reduction guarantee[8]

·       PowerMaxOS software updates in under 6 seconds (fully configured)[9]

Connect your customers with PowerMax

The amount of data that your customers need to deal with will not stop growing any time soon. It’s no longer acceptable to simply keep up; instead, they need to stay ahead of the curve. Learn how PowerMax can position your customers for long-term success by going to the Discovery Center. 

@DellTechPartner

[1] Based on Dell internal analysis of cybersecurity capabilities of Dell PowerMax versus cybersecurity capabilities of competitive mainstream arrays supporting open systems and mainframe storage, March 2022.

[2] Based on Dell internal analysis of cybersecurity capabilities of Dell PowerMax compared to Dell’s seven pillars of Zero Trust architectures, March 2022. 

[3] Based on Dell internal analysis of cyber recovery scalability of Dell PowerMax versus cyber recovery scalability of competitive mainstream arrays, April 2022.   

[4] Based on Dell PowerMax specification of 65 million snaps per PowerMax compared with mainstream high-end storage arrays, March 2022.   

[5] Based on Dell analysis comparing NVMe/TCP resource configuration with SmartFabric Storage Software (SFSS) compared to iSCSI configuration, March 2022. Actual performance will vary. 

[6] Based on Dell’s PowerMax specification for a single PowerMax 2000, 2500, 8000, or 8500 array, March 2022. Actual data availability will vary.   

[7] Based on Dell internal analysis comparing Effective Storage Capacity per rack unit (1.34”) of the PowerMax 2500 compared with the PowerMax 2000, March 2022. Actual storage capacities will vary. 

[8] Based on Dell ‘s Future-Proof program that offers 4:1 data reduction guarantee based on PowerMax data reduction tools (dedupe and data compression) for open systems storage, March 2022. Actual data reduction rates will vary.

[9]*Based on Dell internal analysis measuring the time used to upgrade PowerMaxOS software without disruption (PowerMax 2500/8500), March 2022.

If there’s one lesson learned from the pandemic, it’s that businesses cannot survive the modern world without technology; or, more succinctly, all businesses today must be tech businesses (even if it’s not their focus). 

Innovations are constantly being developed across all industries, and with so much change, it can be a major challenge for formerly unconnected businesses to know which technologies to adopt, and what innovations to embrace.

A leader in the space for decades

Given that Dell has been on the front lines of the tech industry for decades now, the company has extensive experience when it comes to the evolution of IT infrastructure and storage. The company has a rich history of storage software innovation and understands how to help partners embrace and become successful off these changes. 

Dell’s cutting-edge storage portfolio is software-driven by design, fueled by billions of dollars invested in research and development led by thousands of software engineers. To continue to drive this trend forward, Dell Technologies recently introduced an incredible 500 new software enhancements to its market leading storage products, including PowerStore, PowerMax and PowerFlex. These updates are designed to boost storage automation, data mobility, business intelligence, and security across clouds, on-premises, and edge environments, all at no additional cost to existing customers.

Why introduce 500 software enhancements?

Dell’s goal in doing this is to bring multi-cloud and enterprise data storage services together which will allow customers to pool storage resources together and more easily participate in that ecosystem. 

Looking at things a bit more closely, Dell believes that these updates will help businesses drive new levels of automation, security, and data mobility across clouds, on-premises, and edge environments. They will be able to deliver faster data insights, better multi-cloud data control, and increased cyber resiliency to support and secure their workloads.

Highlights worth noting 

·       Dell’s PowerStore will deliver up to a 50 percent mixed workload performance boost and up to 66 percent greater capacity. The company states that in just “five clicks”, customers can plan business continuity strategies with software-only high availability metro replication configured.

·       Dell’s PowerMax line, which already offers secure, mission-critical storage for businesses, will be adding cyber vaults for mainframe deployments, CloudIQ for early detection of cyberattacks including ransomware, and a new 4-to-1 data reduction guarantee.

·       Dell’s software defined PowerFlex streamlines multi-cloud as well as DevOps by supporting file and block support for all container orchestration platforms from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Red Hat, SUSE, and VMware. With these new updates, PowerFlex storage infrastructure will now be able to take older and modern workloads and consolidate them using a new file service that allows for unified block and file capabilities on one platform. 

Improving its partner ecosystem

Dell also announced that it would be partnering with Snowflake Inc., a cloud-based data storage and analytics service termed “data warehouse-as-a-service”. The purpose of this partnership is to work together to connect Dell’s storage portfolio with the Snowflake Data Cloud. This collaboration will be a first of its kind and is aimed at helping Dell’s customers with greater flexibility to manage data in multi-cloud environments. 

The partnership with Snowflake exemplifies how much emphasis Dell is placing on creating quality partnerships to help navigate through the inherent complexity that customers are experiencing as they try to navigate through multicloud and multiple business and consumption models. 

How does this help the solution provider?

Dell is making it easier for solution providers to help customers choose the right software for their business. Through these announcements, solution providers are empowered to meet their customers’ needs and offer the right solution for what they have and where they need to spend their resources. 

Learn more about how Dell’s software innovations can power new levels of automation, security and flexibility for your customers

Dell PowerVault ME5 is the new gold standard for entry storage. It brings the essential features and data services of mid-to-high end storage to small-medium businesses (SMBs) in an affordable way. PowerVault ME5 easily demonstrates substantial performance, capacity, and bandwidth gains over its predecessor system without compromising simplicity, features, or business outcomes. Purposely designed to meet several SMB data storage challenges, PowerVault ME5 reduces complexity, accelerates performance, supports higher capacity, ensures data protection, and achieves budget stability all while driving a diverse SMB workload and application environment.  

For those customers looking for raw power, highly scalable capacity, and absolute simplicity in a small footprint, then PowerVault ME5 starting in either 2U or 5U – is for them. Designed with dual active controllers, multi-core processing and five-9’s availability, PowerVault ME5 arrays deliver the performance of flash with the best economics of disk - thus making it an ideal solution for SMB high-value workloads.

Customer IT organizations purchase storage systems to coincide with desired application and business outcomes. These systems must meet the demanding challenges of data growth, data protection and budget constraints. Over 50,000 globally installed PowerVault Storage systems reliably support several SMB workload types while integrated with today’s most widely used hypervisors, operating systems, and management platforms. PowerVault ME5 is the ideal and most affordable SMB storage solution for supporting workload types such as High-Performance Computing, SQL Databases, Virtualization/VDI and backup/archiving – and that’s just for starters. PowerVault ME5’s density, performance and scale also make it a material solution for select Edge-based scenarios such as Cloud Gaming, Oil and Gas Exploration and Safety and Security (CCTV).

PowerVault ME5 is supported through a wide range of management interfaces starting with PowerVault Manager, which is the element manager for each PowerVault storage array. This simple to use and intuitive web-based management GUI provides configuration, management, alerting and basic remediation capabilities for the IT generalist. PowerVault Manager is included with the array as part of the no cost all-inclusive software addition. 

As complexity of your customers’ IT infrastructures loom larger with more systems to track and manage, PowerVault ME5 is supported by the Dell OpenManage systems management portfolio with intuitive tools that work together to deliver automated and centralized management of your Dell infrastructure. In those customer IT environments where monitoring of mission-critical infrastructure components including applications, operating systems, network protocols, storage, servers, and networks is a necessity, then PowerVault ME5 can fit right into a Nagios infrastructure management platform.  

Customers with ProSupport Services for PowerVault ME5 can access CloudIQ at no additional cost - and with nothing additional to install. CloudIQ is Dell’s cloud based AIOPs that uses telemetry, machine learning and other algorithms to provide users with notifications and predictive analytics indicating the operational health of the array, remediation advice, anomalies, capacity projections, reclaimable storage, and more to assist IT with strategic planning efforts. When CloudIQ is enabled through PowerVault Manager, customer IT organizations see improved productivity of staff and collaborate better with a single view of their IT environment.

Learn more about how PowerVault ME5 can help you grow your storage practice by discovering the top reasons why PowerVault ME5 is perfect for SMB workloads.

Did you know that midrange storage is considered the largest and fastest growing sector in today’s storage market? What’s more, according to the IDC ESS Tracker for fiscal year 2019, it’s understood to now be worth $15.5B. 

Midrange storage has become increasingly attractive because these solutions are essentially build-as-you-go storage systems, specially designed for performance, optimized for efficiency, and built to meet the many needs of today’s multi-cloud world. 

How can midrange storage benefit your customers?

Help your customers realize the many benefits of a midrange storage solution built specially for their requirements and workloads. Midrange storage is ideal for customers:

• Looking for a true hybrid experience, one that delivers consistent operations, infrastructure, and management across the data center, edge, and public cloud.

• Wanting to reduce cost and management and seeking greater efficiency through a consolidated data footprint.

• Looking to free up resources and reduce staffing via for automation functionality.

• Seeking increased application mobility.

• Wanting to enable continuous infrastructure modernization.

• Looking to provide investment protection through flexible payment solutions and data-in-place upgrades.

How do you stand to benefit?

There are, of course, a range of financial incentives when you sell Dell Technologies’ Midrange Storage solutions, including:

• New Business Incentive

• Partner Preferred

• Competitive Swap

• <$100K storage incentives

• NBI rebates

• MyRewards

• Tech Refresh

• Midrange promos

Why partner with Dell Technologies for midrange storage solutions

Dell Technologies’ midrange storage solutions are competitive, technologically speaking, with rival solutions. But they also offer exciting, new features that make them stand out; this includes both free upgrades as well as the ability to run applications on the storage hardware itself.

Dell’s PowerStore product is worth highlighting here. Built from scratch, PowerStore is seven times faster and offers three times less latency than previous Dell EMC midrange storage solutions (this is largely due to it being designed with a faster non-volatile memory express protocol). PowerStore is easier to manage and deploy, making it altogether a more efficient midrange storage solution.

PowerStore is, of course, just one product in Dell Technologies’ greater storage portfolio – it sits nicely between PowerVault, which was designed for entry-level storage, and PowerMax, which is for high-end storage. 

Learn more about the mid-range data storage solutions from Dell Technologies here

Help your customers unlock the value of SAP data to power their intelligent enterprise.

With Dell EMC PowerMax you can assist customers in setting the foundation, improving productivity and ensuring business continuity.

Learn more about how you can drive your business by clicking on the link below

Securing sensitive data is one of the greatest challenges faced by organizations today. Increasing regulatory and legislative demands and the constantly changing threat landscape have brought data security to the forefront of IT issues.

Dell EMC™ PowerMax end-to-end efficient encryption addresses these challenges with powerful capabilities.

To learn more about these capabilities, download the technical whitepaper by clicking the link below