Home > APEX > Cloud Platforms > White Papers > Benefits of Dell APEX Cloud Platforms > Deliver breakthrough innovation with applications and data in the ecosystem of your choice
Dell APEX Cloud Platforms are intelligently designed, utilizing and seamlessly integrating our proven intellectual property, software, and management and orchestration (M&O) tools into one cohesive solution.
We leverage the experience gained from our well stablished HCI portfolio, along with powerful integrations with our differentiated Dell Block Software Defined Storage (SDS).
We deliver a strategy that uses common building blocks with the following core components:
This approach provides five fundamental benefits, that apply to all Dell APEX Cloud Platforms: Choice, Commonality, Consistency, Compatibility, and Control.
Choice: to align with customer preferences
We have developed a set of APEX Cloud Platform offers to deliver consistent cloud deployment and operations across on-premises, edge, and public cloud for the ecosystem of choice (APEX Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure, APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift and APEX Cloud Platform for VMware vSphere).
Commonality: to achieve operational excellence with common building blocks
All APEX Cloud Platforms are built on a common set of infrastructure building blocks from Dell, including MC nodes (based on PowerEdge servers), Block SDS, networking, and the common management and orchestration Dell APEX Cloud Platform Foundation Software. This commonality across locations and across ecosystem technology stack enables IT organizations to drive operational excellence.
These platforms offer a common ownership experience. We have streamlined the purchase procedure, so the correct configuration of hardware and software are chosen. As part of the process, we visit the customer site, deliver and configure the infrastructure, resulting in a live platform ready for customer workloads. We provide a single main point of contact for support, eliminating the need to contact multiple sources for assistance.
All platforms use the same core APEX Cloud Platform Foundation Software for management and orchestration, providing a common approach to automate initial deployment, full-stack lifecycle management, and ongoing infrastructure operations. It integrates management and governance into partner native management UIs, enabling IT to use common tools to manage their containers, applications, and infrastructure.
Consistency: to accelerate productivity with consistent and familiar operational and developer experiences
Each of the APEX Cloud Platforms runs an ecosystem software stack which can be deployed in a public cloud or at an edge location. This provides consistency regardless of where the software is run. The management tools used by operations and applications teams are also consistent, providing a familiar and streamlined experience for users across different deployment locations.
Infrastructure management functions are powered by the Cloud Platform Foundation Software which is integrated with each of the cloud ecosystem user interfaces. This means there is a consistent UI between hardware management and software management for the platform. There is no separate interface for managing infrastructure, so operations teams have a familiar native ecosystem user experience, helping address any skills gaps.
For customers that adopt APEX Cloud Storage endpoints, such as APEX Block Storage for AWS or Azure, consistent storage services are available in the APEX Cloud Platform private instance and in the public cloud storage endpoint. This consistency ensures predictable services levels across deployment options.
Compatibility: to flexibly extend data and applications across multicloud environments
Connecting APEX Cloud Platform Storage nodes running common Dell SDS with the APEX Storage for Public Cloud endpoints provides common storage architectures across multicloud environments. This storage architecture is compatible between private and public cloud deployments, and ensures customers have data mobility without having to rewrite application workflows for different underlying storage protocols.
Each of the APEX Cloud Platforms runs the ecosystem software which is also available in a public cloud instance. This means that the same runtime environment is available across locations. Therefore, applications are compatible across private and public deployment options, and will run without change from public cloud to private cloud with no refactoring.
Control: to enforce consistent security, cloud governance and compliance across on-premises, edge, and public cloud.
The Dell infrastructure layer provides an end-to-end intrinsic approach to security which is our cyber-resilient architecture. These built-in security measures and controls are part of the device hardware and firmware, and are integrated into the infrastructure foundation for APEX Cloud Platforms. This approach allows customers to accelerate zero trust adoption.
Automated full stack life cycle management eliminates manual steps from the patching and updating process. It coordinates updates to the Cloud Platform System Software with cloud ecosystem stack updates, and ensures updates are completed in the correct order. This capability provides granular control of the software versions giving customers the ability to stay up to date with software releases, addressing a common source of reliability issues and security lapses. The result is a continuously validated state for customer infrastructure.
Cloud software stack policy management is done through the specific console for the chosen ecosystem. This enables centralized governance and control of security and compliance policies across private and public deployment options.
Data layer policy is controlled by the common storage software layer. This establishes common storage policies across a multicloud environment for enhanced data security.
There are also specific benefits for each Dell APEX Cloud Platforms:
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure delivers a new infrastructure platform collaboratively built with Microsoft to optimize Microsoft Azure hybrid cloud deployments.
It is the first offering for Premier Solutions for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI, a new category in the Azure Stack HCI catalog reserved for key partners with the greatest levels of engagement with Microsoft and deepest integrations into familiar Microsoft management tools.
This new platform empowers organizations to unlock innovation by optimizing delivery of Azure cloud on-premises, while ensuring consistent operational and governance experience across data centers, edge locations, and Azure public cloud.
Our APEX Cloud Platform Foundation Software integrates with Microsoft Windows Admin Center, enabling the use of familiar tools and providing a simple, consistent, centralized mechanism for operating dispersed Azure deployments. APEX Cloud Platform Foundation Software fully deploys Azure hybrid cloud in 88% fewer steps than a manual approach.
The platform is optimized for developer-friendly hybrid Azure Arc-enabled services that empower IT to simplify application modernization and innovate faster. Integration with the Azure portal also enables easy extension of security and governance policies to the cloud platforms.
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift is designed collaboratively with Red Hat to optimize and extend OpenShift deployments on-premises with an integrated operational experience. Full stack integration of the APEX Cloud Platform Foundation Software with Red Hat OpenShift simplifies deployment and enables a consistent, automated operational experience across on-premises and cloud OpenShift deployments.
This platform leverages the same highly scalable, high-performance software defined storage as our APEX Block for Public Cloud offers, enabling seamless data mobility and management across multicloud ecosystems. Customers have more flexibility than ever to develop and run production workloads in the right location to meet performance, cost, and security requirements in Red Hat environments.
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for VMware vSphere provides customers with even more choice in how they deploy VMware on trusted Dell infrastructure across their IT landscape. This is our purpose-built Cloud Platform for VMware virtualized environments using Dell’s high-performance, linearly scalable software defined storage.
This platform is ideal for customers who require streamlined operations and the ability to use existing skillsets with simplified, native VMware management and familiar tools such as vCenter. Dell APEX Cloud Platform for VMware vSphere takes advantage of the rich VMware ecosystem to extend IT modernization and manage VMs on-premises and in the public cloud.
The shared enterprise software defined storage enables identical storage architectures across your multicloud environments, ensuring compatibility between private and public cloud deployment options. Dell APEX Cloud Platform for VMware vSphere is ideal for customers who want the flexibility to deploy vSphere fully integrated with highly scalable, high performance Dell software-defined storage for seamless data mobility between on-premises and APEX Block Storage for Public Cloud deployments or across APEX Cloud Platforms, or customers prioritizing consistency across their multicloud environments.