Welcome to an inside view of Dell Technologies World 2023 (DTW), which kicked off on Monday, May 22nd, in a lively and very warm Las Vegas, Nevada. The overarching theme of this year's conference demonstrated that innovation and transformation is the key to human progress, and the hot topics continue to be AI, the edge, security, sustainability, and how the partner ecosystem is helping to fuel innovation.
Global Partner Summit (GPS) at Dell Technologies World added to the conversation with the art of the “and.” The value of what the partner ecosystem brings to customer engagement by filling gaps and extending reach. GPS sessions contained curated content specific to the partner ecosystem to deepen relationships, share ideas, and provide insight into what’s next. UNICOM Engineering participates heavily in this event as well as the OEM track to better understand the new products, services, and innovations specific to OEM and the customers we serve. Here is a recap of what we learned during our week in the City that Never Sleeps.
AI is Everywhere
Michael Dell joined the OEM Partner Leadership Forum to thank the community and get them excited and ready for what’s next. As you might expect, AI was at the forefront of the discussion as Michael shared insights and excitement about being part of this time of significant change and innovation. The physical world is becoming more intelligent, the data more prevalent, and our need as an industry to unleash the power of the data for actionable results is now. Businesses that are not already thinking about AI are behind the curve.
In today's world, AI isn't only for creative outputs but also to improve customer experience, detect fraud, and promote innovation. A key aspect of future success is business models that encourage ethically and responsibly sourced data to accelerate innovation. Indeed, Dell believes that a significant portion of AI processing will be inferencing and will happen at the edge, an area to which the company is fully committed. As Intel joined the conversation, it broadened to include accelerators to process the workloads enabling flexibility and software solutions to ease deployment.
Furthermore, encouraging non-developers to work alongside data scientists to drive AI solutions faster will break down barriers. Some examples given during the sessions include reducing the human burden within surveillance, healthcare, and other industries, allowing businesses to keep jobs while building scale. Working with partners that understand the AI landscape is critical to find the right technology that best fits your solution. Ultimately, it is about demystifying the hype because AI is changing everything about how we live and work, and we are just getting started.
Compute at the Edge
Despite over 20 years of evolution at the edge, it is just the beginning of the journey, with much more to come. In fact, 24% of customers today and up to 40% in the next 12-18 months are deploying solutions at the edge. With the sheer speed of growth at the edge, the question remains, how do you deploy and manage these non-traditional environments? With world-class equipment, rigorously tested to perform in these environments, and a partner ecosystem will help get you to your end goal – a complete solution that adds value.
Hayley Tabor, the Vice President of Dell Technologies Global Industries, Sales & Solutions, shared that companies continuously seek to compete, differentiate, and put their brand on the map. Still, there are some common challenges and best practices across industries that can ease the journey. One key aspect is a strong alignment between IT and OT for a successful deployment and accelerated time to value. Dell brings deep industry knowledge and a tested and validated solutions catalog, together with a partner ecosystem, so businesses can reduce the learning curve and shorten their time to value.
Gil Shneorson, the SVP of Edge Computing Offers, Strategy, and Execution, shared additional edge insights and unique challenges. For illustration, he spoke about a fast-food chain with tens of thousands of locations looking to deploy edge solutions. In this highly distributed deployment, a strong network for connectivity is a challenge, combined with a lack of resources at the edge to troubleshoot issues. In addition, security is also a factor as these solutions are more visible and accessible to the public. He goes on to describe the siloed approach that has taken place over the last two decades as people created point solutions to solve problems but struggled to bring them together. Dell Technologies has developed a new way to do edge operations.
With Dell NativeEdge, an edge operations software platform designed to help businesses simplify and optimize secure edge deployments, we can reimagine a new way to process edge operations without skilled local resources, with the potential for connectivity challenges, a lower barrier to entry, and working in multi-cloud by design. Dell reduces the complexity that impacts edge deployment by automating and securing edge solutions. The NativeEdge platform delivers the blueprint with applications in a catalog, automatically delivered to 1000s of devices, and remotely managed over time in a secure environment.
Security Abounds
Earlier this year, Dell Technologies released its Zero Trust Center of Excellence (CoE) at DreamPort, the US Cyber Command's premier cybersecurity innovation facility. The purpose of the CoE is to allow participants to test their applications against the government's zero-trust security specifications. Another step to this process was announced at DTW with the introduction of Project Fort Zero, which offers an end-to-end validated zero-trust solution for Dell customers to deploy. With a consortium of over 30 leading cybersecurity companies, Dell Technologies has a real incentive to deliver a wholly validated security solution within the next 12 months. Dell is expanding its security portfolio with Product Success Accelerator (PSX) for Backup, a new service to help organizations protect and recover data during a disruption.
Sustainability
DTW highlighted some of the issues many corporations face today centered around sustainability. As Chuck Whitten, Co-Chief Operating Officer at Dell Technologies, said, "Sustainability is no longer about style points." He highlights the headway Dell has made on their initiatives, such as recycled steel, packaging, and efforts in manufacturing to create a sustainable supply chain. From inception to end-of-life, Dell looks at the whole picture around sustainability. Cassandra Garber, VP of ESG, explains that Dell is committed to a 30% overall reduction in carbon emissions from all products sold. This includes making solutions more energy efficient and evaluating workload-optimized power consumption, which roughly uses 80% of a server's lifetime carbon footprint.
While many customers still utilize air-cooled servers, the data center is driving the move towards liquid cooling alternatives to reduce cost, complexity, and environmental impact. Additionally, workload-intensive trends like AI and machine learning demand dense CPU, GPU, and accelerator-packed solutions that require alternate cooling methods that liquid provides. Additionally, heat recapture stories were excellent illustrations of sustainability outcomes. The expo hall featured companies making advancements in liquid and immersion cooling. UNICOM Engineering is paving the way with Dell Technologies and Intel to enable the next wave of liquid-cooled solutions. Our very own Rusty Cone, General Manager of UNICOM Engineering, joined Cheryl Cook on The Partner Connection podcast to discuss a liquid cooling success story and how the partner ecosystem came together to make it all possible.
UNICOM Engineering and Dell Technologies, the Power of “And”
UNICOM Engineering is a Titanium OEM partner and recently won the Dell Technologies OEM Solutions NA Partner of the Year for the fourth time in five years. Our team is trained and ready to power your solutions with Dell's industry-leading portfolio technologies to deliver truly unique solutions faster and more reliably. We are truly better together!
Learn more about how we can help you drive your solution forward. Watch our UNICOM Engineering: Who We Are video or schedule a consultation today.