Dell EMC World 2017 – Monday General Session Notes

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Disclaimer: I recently attended Dell EMC World 2017.  My flights, accommodation and conference pass were paid for by Dell EMC via the Dell EMC Elect program. There is no requirement for me to blog about any of the content presented and I am not compensated in any way for my time at the event.  Some materials presented were discussed under NDA and don’t form part of my blog posts, but could influence future discussions.

Here are my rough notes from the Monday General Session. It’s ostensibly a transcript, with little analysis. Hopefully some of the included links are useful if nothing else.

Jeremy Burton takes the stage to run through some housekeeping and logistics, and runs through the week’s activities and does a “Servercraft” demo with young Henry Burton (13).

 

Michael Dell

There’s an opening video and Michael Dell takes the stage. He starts off by saying it’s a “[t]ime of unprecedented change and opportunity.”

  • 100% of the top SaaS companies run on Dell Technologies
  • 90% IaaS
  • 70% of the top cloud companies

“Magic can’t make digital transformation happen, but we can”. Covers off the Dell Technologies portfolio – Dell, Dell EMC, Pivotal, RSA, SecureWorks, virtustream, VMware. They’re a leader in 15 Gartner Magic Quadrants (this means something to people, even if we don’t want it to). Dell EMC’s focussed on the best innovation and highest quality, creates value for you. Here’s a blurry photo of MD and a whole bunch of logos.

[Video – Boeing, Ted Colbert – CIO]

Taking aviation to the internet of things. MD talks about Pivotal CloudFoundry – cloud-native applications with continuous delivery. Technology is at the centre of transforming your company into a cloud company. The cloud is not a place, but rather a way of doing information technology.

Public, private, hybrid, SaaS, etc – Optimising workloads, moving and securing them efficiently

Public cloud shouldn’t be your only strategy – you need IT transformation in your business:

  • The 14G PowerEdge – first server designed for the cloud era
  • Data protection suite with Data Domain
  • Open networking, Dell EMC switches, and NSX

Dell Technologies love VMware. Digital transformation also drives transformation in the workforce.

[Video – Sony Pictures]

Stephen Andujar from Sony – Everything they do has shifted form analogue to digital – creates significant demand on the IT department. Erik Strauss from Sony – Every artist at Sony runs on Dell Precision.

MD then talks about change.

  • The workforce and the workplace are changing. VMware’s air watch and workspace one being integrated into Dell client offerings. Consumer simple and enterprise secure out of the box.
  • Announcing Dell’s PC as-a-service offering.
  • Alienware acquisition – left them alone, incubated and amplified their innovations

[Video – Simon Bolton, CIO, Jaguar Land Rover]

MD talks about the connection between edge, core and cloud becoming increasingly central. “Number 1 in everything, all in one place” is the mantra. Securing your data across your entire environment with:

  • NSX for micro segmentation
  • SecureWorks – advanced threat monitoring
  • RSA – build your own automated and intelligent security capabilities

MSDF.org – working together for positive change

Karen Quintos (Chief Customer Officer) takes the stage to talk about work with translational genomics and the Ocean Plastics project.

MD then talks about the “Fourth industrial revolution”, building the infrastructure required for this revolution is very different to the last. Digital transformation is your ticket to the dance of continuous innovation.

David Blaine takes the stage to do a card trick with MD. Then 2 people from the crowd. Then calls David Goulden to the stage.

 

David Goulden

David Goulden is then re-introduced on stage.

How do we make IT transformation real? CIO’s roles are getting harder and harder every day. They’re being asked to deliver cost reduction, agility, security and still need to drive innovation.

Dell EMC want you to do this by modernising the DC, automating service delivery, and transforming IT operations. They recognise that:

  • Applications drive business value
  • Applications increasingly run on clouds
  • Clouds run on IT infrastructure
  • Enhanced by services and consumption models

So what’s the Dell EMC Strategy?

1. Cloud

Targeting not just general purpose applications, but also mission critical and cloud-native applications. Run it all with VMware.

Manage mission critical applications with virtustream, cloud-native with pivotal, General purpose on premises – Enterprise Hybrid cloud.

Off-premises – Dell EMC providers, IBM Softlayer, AWS, Microsoft Azure
Mission-critical off-premises – virtustream

On-premises – EHC for virtustream – coming soon
Cloud-native on-prem – Native Hybrid Cloud

Pivotal has partnerships with Azure, Google and AWS

2. Infrastructure

It’s a three part journey (Modernise, automate, transform). In the modern DC, modern architecture means:

  • Flash
  • Scale-out
  • Software-defined
  • Cloud-enabled
  • Trusted

You can buy it via converged infrastructure – blocks, appliances and racks – from converged infrastructure to hyperconverged infrastructure.

VxRail 4.5 – new 14G servers, new vSphere and VSAN. It also has a lower price point and new cloud pricing for VxRail (No cash upfront, no long-term obligation, simple payments). But you can also do CI/HCI or still build your own.
Server Portfolio

PowerEdge 14G servers announcement. It’s tightly aligned with Intel’s roadmap.
Introduces Diane Bryant – Everyone wants to scale the environment without having the corresponding scale in cost.

Goulden continues to talk about 14G

  • Scalable business architecture
  • Intelligent automation and services
  • Secure integrated by design

He then introduces Ashley Gorakhpurwalla (President, Server Solutions at Dell).

  • Started on 14G 3 years ago
  • 19x times more NVMe flash in these servers
  • 50% more GPUs than before
  • Availability? First gen as Dell EMC. “Coming this summer”. As soon as Intel GAs scalable Xeon.

Goulden then goes on to cover storage announcements

Strength in diversity of portfolio

More powerful, denser, more efficient, more performance, lower TCO

Jeff Boudreau (President, Storage Division, Dell EMC) and Dan Maslowski (Global Engineering Head, Citi Storage, Citi Systems) talk briefly.

Goulden then goes on to cover integrated data protection appliance and other announcements.

Beth Phelan (President, Data Protection) and Eric Coss,(Manager Infrastructure and Operations, Nationwide Insurance) talk briefly.

Goulden then covers the Dell networking announcements.

3. Services and Consumption

  • 60000 services and partner pros in 165 countries
  • Consulting
  • Deployment
  • Support
  • Training
  • Managed Services
  • Complete offering of flexible consumption models

 

Summary

  • Cloud strategy – supports every workload
  • Best products – #1 in everything
  • Flexible service and consumption models

Interesting session. 4 stars.