Multicloud Acceleration: Why Dell Now?
Tue, 25 Jul 2023 22:23:28 -0000
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It seems like we have a nice taste of Dell APEX sprinkled on everything these days. We are continuing to unpack all that Dell APEX can provide solutions for. Dell is right at the front, helping the multicloud acceleration adoption initiatives and efficiencies our clients are driving towards.
I am currently authoring a new paper on Dell APEX Block Storage that focuses on both the business case and the technical case. As I was writing, I included a few interesting nuggets on how Dell APEX Block Storage can accelerate multicloud SLA considerations. Multicloud acceleration focuses on improving performance, reducing latency, and optimizing resource utilization in a multicloud environment, by enhancing what the hyperscalers have already built. So, why Dell now?
I was recently having a conversation with one of Dell’s larger clients and they asked “Why is Dell getting into the software realm and competing with the hyperscalers? Isn’t Dell too late? Why Dell, now?”.
My response was this: With Dell APEX, we are arriving at the perfect time in history. We needed the hyperscalers to build out their extensive ecosystem topologies, PaaS and SaaS services and all the other good guy check boxes that create a gravitational pull to “the cloud”. Now, Dell Technologies matches the customer application needs with the correct solutions, in the correct location.
Dell is now uniquely positioned to offer our storage services (block, file, and backup) with the same platform admin skill sets, from ground to cloud, and cloud to cloud. We can even solve for cloud to ground with our APEX Cloud Platforms for Azure, OpenShift, and VMware. With Dell and any major cloud vendor, we truly have and deliver the ”AND” story.
So far, I have not seen the SLA angle addressed out in the wild, so let’s tackle it here. This is a super interesting opportunity for Dell APEX Block storage, and file, deployed in any public cloud to address SLAs (Service Level Agreements) that are lacking in public environments. As we all know, the cloud vendors are pretty much around three to four nines. Mostly three. Yes, you can potentially achieve additional “nines”, but this comes at a substantial cost.
Another awesome opportunity would be the ability to build in the SLA resiliency in “said cloud” with Dell APEX Block storage, without completely refactoring to cloud native. Many apps simply cannot get there because they’re constrained by legacy code and bloated data stores. The technical SMEs are required to find a way to lift and shift these legacy workloads to the cloud. These mission critical apps still need mission critical SLAs. With Dell APEX Block storage, these same mission critical legacy apps can now consume Dell APEX Block storage in AWS or Azure and potentially have the five or even six nines of availability. Our offer pools together the lower cost and lower durability volumes and can present up to six nines of SLA. Wow! That is awesome. The best of both worlds! Now, our legacy apps are resilient in the cloud and potentially can consume the additional PaaS and SaaS hyperscaler offerings.
Dell APEX Block Storage also saves VM storage deployment dollars by thin provisioning the storage that is presented to the VM. We also offer highly effective snapshotting without the snapshot count limitations, when compared with the hyperscalers.
We even have a single cluster combined with multi-availability zone configurations to allow our customers to provide highly operational efficiencies at the storage layer, within a cloud environment. Again, a win-win!
All of these factors line up to deliver the most stringent SLAs, in tangible and measurable ways. Combining the best of Dell software defined storage with cost-effective cloud agility is a win for even the most mission critical SLA requirements.
And if there is a need to move back on-premises, we also have that covered. The same software defined storage deployed as APEX Block Storage can also replicate back to on-premises as needed.
Stay tuned for my next white paper to expand on all the use case detail. Time to get back at it!
Resources
For more information, see the following:
- Video 1 APEX Navigator for Multicloud Storage demo
- Video 2 APEX Navigator Dell APEX Block Storage deployment into AWS
- Video 3 APEX Navigator and CloudIQ – Day 2 management and monitoring
- Video 4 APEX Navigator and Data Mobility
- Video APEX Navigator for Kubernetes
- The full APEX demo playlist
- Coming soon: White paper – Dell APEX Block Storage for Multicloud – AWS focus
Author: Robert F. Sonders, Technical Staff - Engineering Technologist, Multicloud Storage Software
Twitter: @RobertSonders
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/Robert-f-sonders
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APEX Navigator – General Availability
Fri, 01 Dec 2023 15:17:18 -0000
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We are finally at a point in the APEX Navigator journey that we are ready for prime-time general availability! Our highly anticipated release of APEX Navigator is now open and ready for all.
Ready to fully embrace multicloud storage ecosystems? Then this is the release for you and your company. Enabling a free 90-day evaluation license that applies to Dell licensing only, as well as a common storage platform for block and file (in the near future) across on-premises and major hyperscalers, Dell APEX Navigator is here to bring you multicloud storage ecosystems at their most elegant. The centralized SaaS experience will synthesize your digital transformation across all clouds and all infrastructure services.
Vision, tooling, and commonality are at the core of Dell APEX Navigator, and our engineering teams have been exceptionally busy thinking through the permutations and experiences that a multicloud offering should deliver. With great success, I might add!
The Dell APEX block storage that will be deployed as part of the release has already proven to be the best of its kind in the industry, and our APEX Navigator portal provides the deployment orchestration, day two monitoring, and decommissioning that glues the entire ecosystem together.
With APEX Navigator for Multicloud Storage, you can:
- Centralize Dell Storage software deployment and lifecycle management across multiple public clouds, including:
- Drive data mobility between on-prem and multiple public clouds to meet shifting cloud strategies
- AWS available at release
- Azure to follow soon
- Integrate with popular automation tools such as Ansible and Terraform as part of our API-first architecture, so you can:
- Accelerate productivity
- Embrace Dell storage software in the public cloud as part of your broader IT strategy
- Take decisive action using intelligent insights and comprehensive monitoring across your entire Dell storage estate with CloudIQ integration to track:
- License inventory
- System health
- Performance
- Capacity
- Accelerate Zero Trust adoption with role-based access control, single-sign on, and federated identity, all incorporating Zero Trust principles for complete control of data
If multicloud use cases are currently on your strategy to-do list (and they should be), the time is now to embrace the innovation Dell is bringing to the space. And we’re just getting warmed up, with our evolution only accelerating.
Don’t miss the APEX Navigator video series to dive deeper into the exciting trajectory we’re on. More video demos are being added frequently, so stay tuned for more!
Resources
Check out the Dell APEX Navigator page for more information.
The following APEX demos and documents provide additional information:
- Full APEX demo playlist
- APEX Block Storage for AWS
- APEX Block Storage for Azure
- Performance Results for Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS
- Performance Results for Dell APEX Block Storage for Azure
Author: Robert F. Sonders, Technical Staff – Engineering Technologist, Multicloud Storage Software
@RobertSonders | |
Blog | https://www.dell.com/en-us/blog/authors/robert-f-sonders/ |
Location | Scottsdale AZ, USA (GMT-7) |
Multicloud—All the things!
Thu, 01 Jun 2023 17:12:40 -0000
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It has been a few months now since I moved over from pre-sales to a Dell Technical Staff role, supporting all our multicloud storage software offerings here at Dell Technologies. Once again, just like my previous role, this role is very broad and also very deep. Dell APEX has many facets, from both a horizontal view and a deep dive into each offering. I’m now part of the team driving the world’s most comprehensive multicloud portfolio, spanning the data center to the public cloud!
Over the past months, I have realized even more than before how awesome this opportunity is. It’s just like working for a startup, except at a big corporation. The teams are building exactly what our clients have been asking for. I am in the unique position to test, evaluate, document, and evangelize, all while getting the word out through training sessions, white papers, and so on.
Our latest announcement from Dell Tech World 2023 is APEX Navigator, which provides our client teams in the SysOps and DevOps spaces the ability to actually “Multicloud—all the things!” Previously, the reference to “multicloud” sounded great, on paper. Now, Dell has made multicloud a reality. And, as a bonus, Dell has also made it easy, by removing the need for any manual deployment management that could cause “day zero” failures. The same flexibility you have in your own data center can now be achieved in the public cloud with APEX Navigator at the helm.
We now have the SaaS offerings as APEX Navigator for multicloud storage management, which aligns our best of breed, enterprise-class technology with:
- APEX Block Storage for Public Cloud
- PowerFlex software-defined block storage
- APEX File Storage for Public Cloud
- PowerScale (OneFS file system – multi-protocol, NFS, SMB, and my favorite—S3 Object!)
The login experience has also been refactored to be clean and simple. The Dell Premier portal experience will guide our users directly to the full APEX experience. Where all things multicloud reside.
We also have, as part of Navigator:
- APEX Navigator for Kubernetes
- Data persistence management along with deployment and monitoring of Dell Container Storage Modules at scale
APEX Storage for Public Cloud is available in AWS today and will be available in Azure in the second half of 2023.
In this video, you can see how simple it is to configure and deploy APEX Navigator— with only four steps and just a few more clicks. This process has removed the error-prone time on keyboard to a fully automated deployment in the public cloud of your choice. Here is what the process looks like in AWS, so none of this work in AWS is needed. It provides a clean interface, with day two CloudIQ monitoring included. CloudIQ, described here, also brings real-time intelligence to your storage endpoints. It offers both predictive and AI anomaly detection to provide XOps engineers and developers quick insight into their multicloud world and allows them to take action where it might be required.
The reality is this: Today’s data center has also been modernized. The initial attraction to public-only was the rich service offerings that existed in cloud-only. Now, with Dell Technologies leading the way, our clients can manage all their distributed data requirements, and all with predictable costs. Ground to cloud and cloud to ground are all part of the “All Things” story.
Our clients who are investing in multicloud are also growing and retaining the top industry engineers. The APEX Navigator portal delivers the rich automation to partner with our client engineers for consistent operations, wherever the data resides. This is a BIG deal!
The right data, placed in the right location, at the right time, for the right consumption service.
We have also announced APEX Navigator for Kubernetes. Simply put, Kubernetes is vast. APEX Navigator for Kubernetes can provide observability across the multicloud, multisite, microservice landscape. Make your DevOps teams happy while protecting and governing these assets.
Why Navigator?
I am asked this question almost daily: Why use Navigator and all the software-defined storage deployment, management, and monitoring? Here are the answers:
- Integrated zero trust security (SSO, RBAC, and Identity Federation)
- Seamless SSO!
- Unique performance and deployment
- Extremely high I/O performance is cheaper with PowerFlex deployed into any public cloud.
- Simple, day zero deployment
- A deployment process the only requires four simple steps.
- 90-day evaluation license! (applies to Dell licensing only)
- Federated storage protection with multi-availability zone resiliency and flexibility
- Protection and scalability reach across availability zones.
- Rebuild times decrease with additional availability zones.
- Data mobility, ground to cloud, cloud to ground
- Meet any shifting cloud strategy
- Crash consistent copies
- Efficient – Changed blocks only snapshot shipping
- API-first integration with many of the most popular automation tools
- Ansible and Terraform – Yes and yes!
- Currently, our customers can create their own artifacts for API integration
- Ansible and Terraform – Yes and yes!
- Cost
- Predictable
- Data services that the cloud alone cannot provide
- Better services at a reduced cost
- Thin provisioning
- Multiple and efficient snapshots
- Public cloud PaaS services, with only data attributes you want, consumed in the cloud—a true hybrid model—as shown here
- Rich PaaS feature set reporting capability
- AI/ML model training
- Consuming just what you need without incurring any egress fees; then, rinse and repeat
- If you need to export—we have the proper compression in place to minimize any egress fees
- Mountable snapshots
- Kubernetes namespace data mobility, inclusive of all PV (Persistent Volumes) and PVC (Persistent Volume Claims), with an option to even rename a namespace in flight (think Dev, Test, Stage for micro-services)
- Evolving S3 Object solution sets (to be discussed in a future blog)
- Monitoring all endpoints from a single pane of glass
- Robust monitoring—View of all systems, public or private, to observe and act on the performance, health, inventory, and capacity
- Licensing inventory
- Active AI for anomaly detection
My next white paper will go into the details of each of these answers.
Release timelines
APEX Navigator will be generally available in the United States around the second half of 2023. At the same time, APEX Navigator for Kubernetes will be generally available in North America, France, Germany, and the UK. Additionally, APEX Block Storage for Microsoft Azure will be available through RPQ.
Finally, it is important to mention that not all feature sets previously referenced will be available on the release-to-service dates. The teams are working hard to solve all the complex problems—with great success.
If your organization is interested in participating in our APEX Navigator program, visit here.
Resources
For more information on our APEX Storage for Public Cloud, visit this page.
Video 1 APEX Navigator for Multicloud Storage demo
Video 2 APEX Navigator PowerFlex deployment into AWS
Video 3 APEX Navigator and CloudIQ – Day 2 management and monitoring
Video 4 APEX Navigator and Data Mobility
Video APEX Navigator for Kubernetes
Here is a link to the full APEX demo playlist
Author: Robert F. Sonders
Technical Staff – Engineering Technologist
Multicloud Storage Software
@RobertSonders | |
Blog | |
Location | Scottsdale AZ, USA (GMT-7) |