Dell Technologies Delivers New Innovations for Hybrid Cloud Environments with Microsoft

by Sudhir Srinivasan, senior vice president of multicloud and data solutions, Dell Technologies

Continued data growth and global, distributed IT challenge many IT organizations considering data center modernization. On top of that, they’re contending with data silos, unpredictable spend, skills gaps and decreased developer velocity. How can organizations take better control?  By implementing an integrated hybrid cloud strategy that delivers a consistent cloud approach everywhere data resides.

The Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) ecosystem of partners, such as Microsoft, play a key role in delivering that consistent cloud approach. We’re building on our long history of collaboration with new advancements for Dell Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI. Today, we are announcing a collaboration with Microsoft to deliver new single-node configurations for customers with smaller data center footprints, increased AI/ML workload performance, and support for the latest release of Microsoft Azure Stack HCI.

Dell Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI brings together the power of Microsoft Azure with the control and inherent security of on-premises infrastructure. With our automated, integrated systems for Azure Stack HCI, organizations can simplify Azure hybrid cloud operations and drive consistent management and data sovereignty across on-premises and public cloud environments.

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Two-thirds of all Microsoft software-based HCI systems run on Dell infrastructure.¹ One example is Spring Branch International School District (SBISD), in Houston, Texas. SBISD’s senior system engineer Ben Allen shares, “Dell Integrated System for Azure Stack HCI has transformed our IT infrastructure environment. We’ve been able to reduce our data center footprint by 83%, improve performance by 87% and experience 99.999% uptime. The continued collaboration between Dell and Microsoft will help us realize even greater performance while reducing other costs associated with IT maintenance.”

Dell Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI is designed to streamline hybrid cloud ecosystem management and deliver a seamless experience across customer’s hyperconverged infrastructure and Azure. With our latest advancements, we are delivering more consistent and secure Azure deployments through deeper integration between Dell OpenManage software, Windows Admin Center and Azure Arc. These integrations allow our customers to modernize applications and deliver cloud services across IT locations with centralized Azure Arc management.

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Here are just a few of the new advancements for Dell Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI:

• Single-node configurations: Customers now can start an on-premises Azure footprint with the smallest configuration to date and consistent management, security and application services across any location.
• Improved GPU support: We’ve improved artificial intelligence and machine learning workload performance with NVIDIA A2 GPU support. Dell also offers greater choice by allowing customers to select either the NVIDIA A2 GPU or A30 GPU based on workload and performance demands.
• Greater security: Deeper integration with Microsoft Azure Arc enables consistent security, compliance and Dell infrastructure security for customers from edge locations to core data centers to Microsoft Azure public cloud environments.

We will also support the latest release of Microsoft Azure Stack HCI, which will further improve a customer’s hybrid cloud experience through storage, networking and security enhancements.

Roanne Sones, corporate vice president of Azure Edge & Platform at Microsoft said: “Our joint customers are evolving their data centers and edge locations to integrate hybrid cloud delivery models for greater agility. As they build out these architectures, they want to harness the power of Microsoft Azure while retaining the benefits of proven on-premises infrastructure. Our continued collaboration with Dell will allow us to deliver solutions that give customers the flexibility to process and secure their data wherever it lives.”