“Data will be generated in the real world, at the edge,” he said.
His point was echoed by Dell Vice Chairman and COO Jeff Clarke, who emphasized the complex layers underpinning the shift to an edge-driven computing approach, with offerings from Dell affiliates such as VMware helping to push these innovations along.
“It requires a symphony of technology orchestration beneath the surface,” Clarke said. “By extending our cloud model and ecosystem to the edge, we can provide a consistent approach to infrastructure, data, applications and security across your entire environment.”
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Dell Launches APEX Cloud Portfolio for Digital Transformation
Perhaps the highlight of the keynote, however, was an announcement of the launch of APEX, a new Infrastructure as a Service portfolio that aims to make it easier for organizations to manage their digital transformations at scale.
“APEX is agile, aligning the right technology with your business needs, along with the ability to rapidly scale, with more flexibility,” said Allison Dew, Dell’s chief marketing officer.
The platform, made up of four as-a-service offerings, will include solutions for data storage, cloud services, flexible infrastructure management and the Data Center Utility, which will make it possible to implement a pay-per-use approach across corporate infrastructure. The APEX offerings also make available an edge computing component through Equinix, a major data center provider.
“You can simply choose Equinix as a preferred location through the APEX console, and resources can be spun up quickly and where needed,” said Travis Vigil, a senior vice president of product management for Dell’s Infrastructure Solutions Group. These resources would be owned and managed by Dell.
A key element of APEX data storage, Vigil added, is a simplified billing model that carries no risk of overage fees.
“We charge a single price on a dollars-per-gig basis for both base and on-demand capacity, so you can use as much as you need without worrying about any overages fees,” he said.
Dew added that the approach would find a place in Dell’s future infrastructure service offerings. “Together, we can deliver infrastructure for all from the data center to the edge, to organizations of all sizes, in all industries, all around the world,” she said.
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