The second all-virtual edition of Dell Technologies World imagines a future that doesn’t have to be entirely virtual anymore.
As vaccines roll out and more people prepare to venture out of their homes for the first time in a year or more, IT departments are getting a lot smarter about how to manage teams that work in a variety of settings and contexts.
That will be the lesson the company leads with when Dell Technologies World 2021 takes place May 5-6. Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell will kick off the event with a discussion about all the things we’ve learned over the past year, as the challenges of quickly taking teams remote give way to the difficulties involved in slowly getting workers back to the office.
All the tools that quickly found homes in technology stacks out of necessity are still here — and they will push us even further as we try to innovate for the new future of work.
This won’t be the only focus of the event, however, which is back to its traditional spring schedule after being pushed to the fall in 2020. This edition will bring to life important discussions on security solutions, digital innovation and the enterprise tools that can enable both.
Here are some highlights to keep an eye on.
Moving Forward with Innovative Infrastructure
As with every iteration of Dell Technologies World, the event will focus on the innovations that the company has been working on over the past year, with particular highlights on the infrastructure front.
One session will highlight how Dell EMC SmartFabric can help with innovations commonly associated with cloud computing, such as DevOps and Infrastructure as Code, into a more traditional data center environment.
For those looking to bring some of the innovations of containerization to their technology stacks, the conference will lean into Kubernetes-style solutions, such as VMware’s Tanzu containers, which Dell says have helped to greatly speed up the introduction of new features on its own website. (The stack isn’t basic, either — the company says it’s working with more than 71,000 containers.)
READ MORE: Learn how businesses should prepare for a red-team security test.
Keeping Customers Safe From Ransomware
Of course, another big trend in technology over the past year has been security, particularly on the ransomware front — an area that has seen a huge surge in activity amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with the landscape shifting by the day.
In this context, it makes sense that the fight against ransomware is a major focus at this year’s event, with multiple sessions dedicated to the topic. One session, on Dell EMC’s PowerProtect Cyber Recovery solution, will highlight how artificial intelligence can help a company recover from a ransomware attack effectively, while minimizing data loss.
Another session will highlight how PowerProtect cybersecurity solutions have been reinforced with additional capabilities for backing up data to the cloud — an important tool for helping enterprises bounce back after a ransomware attack.
Businesses are well positioned to innovate as they emerge from the pandemic — but they have to make sure to fortify the moat as well.
(Anna Bliokh/Getty Images)
