Dell and Databricks Announce a Multicloud Analytics and AI Solution
Mon, 22 May 2023 16:58:09 -0000
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Dell and Databricks' partnership will bring customers cloud-based analytics and AI using Databricks with data stored in Dell Object Storage.
The biggest business opportunity for enterprises today lies in harnessing data for business insight and gaining a competitive edge. At the same time, the data landscape is more distributed and fragmented than ever. Data is spread out across multiple environments including on-premises and multiple public clouds, thus complicating the ability to access and process data efficiently.
Enterprises require solutions that enable a multicloud data strategy by design. That means leveraging data wherever it is stored, across clouds, with a consistent management, security, and governance experience to build analytical and AI/ML-based workloads.
At Dell, the business of data is not new to us. We store and process a large majority of the world’s data on our systems. And we work with customers across the globe every day to accelerate time to value from their data. Dell is building an open ecosystem of partners who together can help address next-gen challenges in data management.
Dell and Databricks
Today, during the opening keynote at Dell Technologies World 2023, Dell Technologies announced a strategic and multi-phase partnership with Databricks.
I want to share some additional details around that announcement.
Customers today can leverage native Databricks capabilities to process, analyze and share data stored in Dell object storage, located on-prem or in a cloud-adjacent datacenter like Faction, without moving data into the cloud. This unlocks phenomenal benefits for customers including compute on-demand to process on-premise data assets, the ability to securely share data within and outside the enterprise, reduced data movements and copies, compliance with data localization regulations, multicloud resiliency, the adoption of open architecture standards and an overall reduction in cost and complexity of their data landscape. Key to this integration is support for Delta Sharing, an open standard for secure sharing of data assets to securely share live data with any computing platform.
And that’s not all - our teams at Dell and Databricks are excited to engineer a deeper integration that will deliver a truly seamless experience of using Dell object storage within the Databricks Lakehouse Platform. This will completely transform the way customers manage on-premises data with cloud platforms.
Dell and Databricks realize it is a multi-faceted world, and customers benefit from being able to access data wherever it resides to unlock competitive differentiation. Dell and Databricks will closely partner in the market to bring these solutions to our joint customers.
“Databricks is focused on helping businesses extract the most valuable insights from their data, wherever it resides,” said Adam Conway, senior vice president, product at Databricks. “This partnership provides the ability to leverage cloud and on-premises data together with best-of-breed technologies, and to securely share that data through Delta Sharing. Combining the best of Dell and Databricks changes the data landscape for customers as they operate in today’s multicloud world.”
Data Management with Dell Technologies
This partnership is a great addition to Dell’s open ecosystem of technologies in the data space. Together with Dell’s market-leading portfolio of storage, compute and services, this ecosystem aims to provide the best-in-class data management solutions to our customers and help them build a multicloud data strategy by design. The data space is buzzing with new innovations and technologies and aimed at improving the user experience, productivity, and business value by orders of magnitude. Partner with Dell Technologies to create the right multicloud data strategy for your enterprise and unleash the next wave of transformation and competitive edge for your business. Visit us at dell.com/datamanagement to stay tuned to the latest in this space.
To learn more about how Dell and Databricks can help your organization streamline its data strategy, read the "Power Multicloud Data Analytics and AI using Dell Object Storage and Databricks" white paper, or contact the Dell Technologies data management team at Dell.data.management@dell.com.
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Navigating the modern data landscape: the need for an all-in-one solution
Mon, 18 Mar 2024 19:56:59 -0000
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There are two revolutions brewing inside every enterprise. We are all very familiar with the first one - the frenzied rush to expand an organization's AI capabilities, which leads to an exponential growth in data creation, a rise in availability of high-performance computing systems with multi-threaded GPUs, and the rapid advancement of AI models. The situation creates a perfect storm that is reshaping the way enterprises operate. Then, there is a second revolution that makes the first one a reality – the ability to harness this awesome power and gain a competitive advantage to drive innovation. Enterprises are racing towards a modern data architecture that seeks to bring order to their chaotic data environment.
The Need For An All-In-One Solution
Data platforms are constantly evolving, despite a plethora of options such as data lakes, data warehouses, cloud data warehouses and even cloud data lakehouses, enterprise are still struggling. This is because the choices available today are suboptimal.
Cloud native solutions offer simplicity and scalability, but migrating all data to the cloud can be a daunting task and can end up being significantly more expensive over the long term. Moreover, concerns about the loss of control over proprietary data, particularly in the realm of AI, is a major cause for concern, as well. On the other hand, traditional on-premises solutions require significantly more expertise and resources to build and maintain. Many organizations simply lack the skills and capabilities needed to construct a robust data platform in-house.
A customer once told me – “We’ve heard from so many vendors but ultimately there is no easy button for us.”
When Dell Technologies set out to build that easy button, we started with what enterprises needed most: infrastructure, software, and services all seamlessly integrated. We created a tailor-made solution with right-sized compute and a highly performant query engine that is pre-integrated and pre-optimized to perfectly streamline IT operations. We incorporated built-in enterprise-grade security that also can seamlessly integrate with 3rd party security tools. To enable rapid support, we staffed a bench of experts, offering end-to-end maintenance and deployment services. We also knew the solution needed to be future proof – not only anticipating future innovations but also accommodating the diverse needs of users today. To support this idea, we made the choice to use open data formats, which means an organization’s data is no longer locked-in to a proprietary format or vendor. To make the transition easier, the solution makes use of built-in enterprise-ready connectors that ensures business continuity. Ultimately, our goal was to deliver an experience that is easy to install, easy to use, easy to manage, easy to scale, and easy to future-proof.
Dell Data Lakehouse’s Core Capabilities
Let’s dig into each component of the solution.
- Data Analytics Engine, powered by Starburst: A high performance distributed SQL query engine, built on top of Starburst, based on Trino, which can run fast analytic queries against data lakes, lakehouses and distributed data sources at internet-scale. It integrates global security with fine-grained access controls, supports ad-hoc and long-running ELT workloads and is a gateway to building high quality data products and power AI and Analytics workloads. Dell’s Data Analytics Engine also includes exclusive features that help dramatically improve performance when querying data lakes. Stay tuned for more info!
- Data Lakehouse System Software: This new system software is the central nervous system of the Dell Data Lakehouse. It simplifies lifecycle management of the entire stack, drives down IT OpEx with pre-built automation and integrated user management, provides visibility into the cluster health and ensures high availability, enables easy upgrades and patches and lets admins control all aspects of the cluster from one convenient control center. Based on Kubernetes, it’s what converts a data lakehouse into an easy button for enterprises of all sizes.
- Scale-out Lakehouse Compute: Purpose-built Dell Compute and Networking hardware perfectly matched for compute-intensive data lakehouse workloads come pre-integrated into the solution. Independently scale from storage by seamlessly adding more compute as needs grow.
- Scale-out Object Storage: Dell ECS, ObjectScale and PowerScale deliver cyber-secure, multi-protocol, resilient and scale-out storage for storing and processing massive amounts of data. Native support for Delta Lake and Iceberg ensures read / write consistency within and across sites for handling concurrent, atomic transactions.
- Dell Services: Accelerate AI outcomes with help at every stage from trusted experts. Align a winning strategy, validate data sets, quickly implement your data platform and maintain secure, optimized operations.
- ProSupport: Comprehensive, enterprise-class support on the entire Dell Data Lakehouse stack from hardware to software delivered by highly trained experts around the clock and around the globe.
- ProDeploy: Expert delivery and configuration assure that you are getting the most from the Dell Data Lakehouse on day one. With 35 years of experience building best-in-class deployment practices and tools, backed by elite professionals, we can deploy 3x faster1 than in-house administrators.
- Advisory Services Subscription for Data Analytics Engine: Receive a pro-active, dedicated expert to maximize value of your Dell Data Analytics Engine environment, guiding your team through design and rollout of new use cases to optimize and scale your environment.
- Accelerator Services for Dell Data Lakehouse: Fast track ROI with guided implementation of the Dell Data Lakehouse platform to accelerate AI and data analytics.
Learn More
With the combination of these capabilities, Dell continues to innovate alongside our customers to help them exceed their goals in the face of data challenges. We aim to allow our customers to take advantage of the revolution brewing that is AI and this rapid change in the market to harness the power of their data and gain a competitive advantage and drive innovation. Enterprises are racing towards a modern data architecture – it's critical they don’t get stuck at the starting line.
For detailed information on this exciting product, refer to our technical guide. For other information, visit Dell.com/datamanagement.
Source
1 Based on a May 2023 Principled Technologies study “Using Dell ProDeploy Plus Infrastructure can improve deployment times for Dell Technology”
Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for Safety and Security
Wed, 22 Nov 2023 00:17:57 -0000
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In the rapidly evolving landscape of technology, we find ourselves on the brink of a major technological leap with the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into our daily lives. The potential impact of AI on the global economy is staggering, with forecasts predicting a whopping $13 trillion contribution. While the idea of AI isn't entirely new in the security sector which has previously employed analytics to monitor and report pixel changes in CCTV footage, the integration of AI technologies such as machine and deep learning has opened up a world of possibilities. One particularly rich source of data that organizations are eager to harness is video data, which is pivotal in a variety of use cases including operational improvements for retail, marketing strategies, and the enhancement of overall customer experiences.
Industries across the board are exploring AI's ability to enhance business efficiency, underscored by a whopping 63% of enterprise clients considering their security data as mission critical. That said, the success of AI deployments hinges on the collection and storage of data. AI models thrive on large, diverse datasets to achieve effectiveness and accuracy. For instance, when analyzing traffic patterns within a city, having access to comprehensive data spanning multiple seasons allows for more accurate planning. This necessity has led to the emergence of exceptionally large storage volumes to cater to AI's insatiable appetite for data.
A considerable portion of data – approximately 80% – collected by organizations is unstructured, including video data. Data scientists are faced with the arduous task of mapping this unstructured data into their models, thanks in part to the fragmented nature of security solutions. Shockingly, over 79% of a data scientists’ time is consumed by data wrangling and collection rather than actual data analysis due to siloed data storage. Complex scenarios involving thousands of cameras pointed at different targets further complicate the application of AI models to this data.
Recent discussions in the field of AI have introduced the concept of ‘Data Fuzion,’ which underscores the importance of consolidating and harmonizing data, overcoming the current infrastructure's obstacles, and making data more accessible and usable for data science applications in the security industry. There is a significant divide between the potential for data science solutions to drive business outcomes and the actual implementation, largely attributed to – as previously mentioned – the fragmented, siloed nature of data storage and the scarcity of in-house data science expertise.
The AI solutions available today in the security domain often come as black box offerings with pre-programmed models, however end-users are increasingly seeking low- or no-code AI tools that allow them to tailor and modify models to meet their specific organizational needs. This shift enables organizations to fine-tune AI to their precise requirements, further optimizing business outcomes. Additionally, the rise of cloud computing has presented budgetary challenges as organizations are increasingly paying for data access, leading to a trend of cloud repatriation – moving data back to on-premises environments to better manage costs and reduce latency in real-time applications.
AI is transforming the way organizations protect not only their external security but also their internal data. Dell Technologies, for example, offers a solution known as Ransomware Defender within its unstructured data offerings, an AI-based detection tool which identifies anomalies and takes action when malicious actors attempt to encrypt or delete data by modeling typical behaviors and sounding alarms when suspicious activities occur. Check out the Dell Technologies cyber security solution page for more information.
To fully harness the power of AI and navigate these complex data landscapes, organizations are turning to single-volume unstructured data solutions that embody the concept of ‘Data Fuzion.’ Dell Technologies Unstructured Data Solutions, with their petabyte-scale single-volume architecture, offer not only the ability to support this burgeoning workload but also robust cyber protection and multi-cloud capabilities. In this way, organizations can chart a seamless path towards AI adoption while ensuring data-driven security and efficiency. Visit the Dell Technologies PowerScale solutions page to learn more.
Resources
Authors: Mordekhay Shushan | Safety and Security Solution Architect & Brian Stonge | Business Development Manager, Video Safety and Security