A Chinese portrait of Dell Technologies World 2019

Taking stock of an event as fruitful as Dell Technologies World is always a complicated exercise. But if there was one word on everyone’s lips this year, it was unquestionably Multicloud. We decode this phenomenon.

If Dell Technologies World were an IT infrastructure…

It would undeniably be Multicloud; one of the most discussed themes during the event. Organisations are no longer afraid to make use of the multiple large-scale cloud services they need. But administrators are experiencing the downside of this massive uptake: a strong increase in management complexity, which stops them from making full use of the technologies deployed. In this disparate Multicloud world, combining different areas of expertise at Dell Technologies truly makes sense and is about to deliver its true value.

If Dell Technologies World were a number...

97% of organisations have adopted a Multicloud strategy for their critical applications; in other words, nearly all of them. Therefore, I can safely make two assertions based on this number:

1.    Multicloud is a reality and not a concept fabricated by tech stakeholders.

2.    Multicloud is a crucial issue for organisations supporting critical business applications essential to their business.

I have already touched on the challenges caused by this in a previous article. An increased number of environments makes management a more complex job and requires different tools and specific skills to be used, as well as re-architecting work when you want to migrate an application to a cloud platform. All IT professionals who use in-house VMware environments and services on Azure, for example, will tell you as much. Well, used to tell you as much....

If Dell Technologies World were an image...

Satya Nadella, Pat Gelsinger and Michael Dell together on one stage to present a shared vision and make it a reality through a technological partnership: that is the image I’ve taken away from this year’s Dell Technologies World. Microsoft and VMware, historical competitors in the era of virtualisation, are becoming powerful partners in the era of the Multicloud. The agility of both companies and their ability to adapt their offering to new digital challenges will generate significant benefits for their (many) shared customers.

The reign of silos is over. Companies want to be able to freely access the resources they need, whether in the Datacentre, the periphery or the Cloud, regardless of the supplier. This is something these three major players in IT really understand.

If Dell Technologies World were an innovation...

Azure VMware Solutions. This is the announcement that, in my opinion, will be a game-changer in the realm of the Multicloud. Lots of companies were waiting to see these two names appear together in a single solution. It is now possible for a company that hosts VMware applications on-premise to migrate them to the Azure platform without changing their architecture leveraging their usual administration tools.

You know that critical application you would like to roll out to the cloud to improve its performance and availability? Or that software developed in-house that you would like to modernise, but that is so critical that any attempt to evolve it represents a high-risk venture for the business? You can now move it to Azure and build overflow or post-disaster recovery strategies in a very simple way, without quitting your VMware administration tool.

Add to that, the fact that VMware offers a similar partnership with Amazon Web Services, that VMware Cloud Foundation can be deployed to IBM / CenturyLink / Rackspace / NTT / OVH Clouds, and that a Google Cloud plugin for vRealize has recently been announced, and you will suddenly realise that the Multicloud has just undergone a major simplification!

If Dell Technologies World were a word...

Simplification. This is the key word to take away from this event. The Multicloud is an unlimited source for organisations that want to modernise their infrastructures, improve their processes and accelerate their growth.

“With this announcement Dell Technologies and Microsoft are working to simplify our customers’ entire technology environment,” says Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies. “At Microsoft, we’re focused on empowering customers […] through partnerships that enable them to take advantage of the Microsoft Cloud, using the technologies they already have,” continues Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. “These innovative cloud offerings will deliver customers even more value, provide more flexibility to accelerate their hybrid Multi-Cloud journey, and accelerate the digital transformation of their business”, adds Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware. That says it all!

If you were not at Dell Technologies World...

Many other innovations were unveiled during the annual event:

-       Unity XT: the new generation of mid-range storage, also designed for the Multicloud, which will enable you to reach a new milestone in terms of performance, deduplication and response time.

-       Dell Technologies Cloud: the joint power of Dell EMC and VMware to eliminate the complexity of the Cloud and provide a coherent operating model between private, public and edge infrastructures.

-       PowerProtect: a new complete portfolio including Software and Appliances, dedicated to Data Management and Protection.

We’ll be back! from 4 to 7 May 2020 for the next Dell Technologies World!