Dell Technologies follows a consultative and systematic approach to helping IT professionals modernize their infrastructure. Before recommending any configurations like those mentioned above, we begin with a thorough analysis of currently running workloads. Dell Live Optics is an industry-standard method of impartially documenting server and storage configuration and performance. By recording and exploring the current state of IT environments, we can help accelerate informed decisions and reduce the risk of under or overprovisioning the infrastructure.

An in-depth discussion of Live Optics is beyond the scope of this white paper. From a high-level, customers first engage with their Dell Technologies account team to have an account created on the Live Optics portal. Then they download and run the Optical Prime data collector software to capture inventory and performance insights from current hosts and VMs. Collectors can run from four hours to seven days, in offline or online mode, to create a local file of the results or stream the data securely to the associated online viewer profile. When data collection is complete, Live Optics visualizes the data using various rich reports available in the portal, such as the examples depicted in the following figures.