Today, Dell Technologies customers have a lot to consider when choosing the storage that they need to run their workloads. Their storage requirements must scale easily and meet the I/O demands of their applications.

Organizations with large databases, such as those used for big data, machine learning (ML), and AI initiatives, have storage-intensive requirements. Storage must be cost-effective and scale across multiple tiers. 

Data protection (backup), disaster recovery, and multisite high availability are other factors in a storage footprint. The flexibility to support different storage types across different platforms is also important. This flexibility helps organizations contribute a consistency that is nondisruptive to their hybrid cloud and multicloud strategy. VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail offers flexible storage connectivity options that cater to these different use cases to assist customers in their transition to a software-defined platform and operating model.

Customers commonly ask whether they can use external storage in Cloud Foundation on VxRail deployments. The answer is Yes. This helps customers ease into the transition to a software-defined architecture from an operational perspective. It also helps customers leverage the investments in their existing infrastructure for the many different workloads that might still require external storage services.