Special feature section: Cloud - Delli.dell.com/sites/doccontent/business/solutions/power/en/Documents/… · proprietary solutions. In fact, driven by the need for increased agility,

10 2014 Issue 03 | Dell.com/powersolutions

Special feature section: Cloud

Innovative tools and services advance mainstream cloud

adoption, spurring IT and business leaders to create a best-fit

cloud strategy.

By Nnamdi Orakwue

Cloud gets down to business

Copyright ©2014 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright ©2014 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.

http://Dell.com/powersolutions

Dell.com/powersolutions | 2014 Issue 03 11

To meet far-reaching business expectations,

IT decision makers are exploring

transformative ways to improve service

delivery through cloud environments. As

a result, their strategic focus is shifting

from procuring and managing IT systems

to providing flexible, on-demand access to

applications and services.

Until recently, cloud has been

predominantly useful for software

application developers and organizations

with the specialized expertise to capitalize

on cloud capabilities. But now, the industry

is at a tipping point. The latest advances

enable many organizations — including

small and medium businesses — to

achieve measurable gains in speed and

agility from cloud.

However, despite the promise of

considerable benefits, many IT decision

makers are apprehensive about adopting

cloud across the entire organization. How

can IT groups create frameworks that

provide the flexibility to apply the right mix

of delivery models to each particular need

that arises, while maintaining necessary

governance and control? Compounding

the uncertainty, a saturated market of

cloud services calls upon IT leaders to

evaluate a sometimes bewildering array of

niche cloud providers as well as end-to-

end solution providers.

For example, small, specialized niche

providers enable do-it-yourself clouds

that may lack the performance, scalability,

integration and tooling provided by

proprietary solutions. In fact, driven by

the need for increased agility, individual

business units often engage different

cloud providers directly, independent

of the IT group. Nonetheless, IT must

manage the resulting complexity —

and consequently, deal with business

exposure to unnecessary risk. In particular,

when IT groups lack visibility into where

organizational data resides across multiple

cloud layers, the data may not be backed

up or encrypted. Moreover, the complexity

of integrating diverse cloud providers leads

to IT security gaps.

End-to-end IT solution providers

generally offer proprietary clouds designed

to deliver unified management, high

performance and broad capabilities

when used as a full stack. The trade-off:

Organizations may lose the ability to

benefit from best-of-breed technologies

and potential cost-savings that accompany

innovation in an open cloud model.

Leveraging choice and flexibility

Dell’s approach is to offer a flexible,

cloud-agnostic portfolio that empowers

decision makers to take advantage of the

agility of both public and private clouds.

At the same time, this approach enables

organizations to preserve existing IT

investments while meeting compliance

and governance needs. (See the sidebar,

“Accelerating cloud adoption.”)

Dell is committed to simplifying

cloud adoption by helping organizations

create the best-fit cloud strategy for their

individual needs. Dell provides the flexibility

to choose from the industry’s leading

cloud service providers while supporting

comprehensive cloud strategies through

an end-to-end portfolio that ranges

from cloud infrastructure and devices to

The strategic focus of IT decision

makers is shifting from procuring and

managing IT systems to providing

flexible, on-demand access to

applications and services.

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Accelerating cloud adoptionTo move cloud rapidly into mainstream IT

adoption, Dell combines a broad choice of cloud

solutions with world-class guidance to help

organizations of all sizes access IT services that

advance business outcomes. The Dell approach

for accelerating cloud adoption embodies three

key principles.

Integrated. An integrated approach to cloud

planning, deployment and management allows

organizations to leverage existing and future

investments regardless of where information

assets reside. Integration also helps reduce

complexity through the use of tools that don’t

require custom coding, pricey software licenses

or hardware appliances.

Cloud-agnostic. A cloud that is tailored to

today’s needs may not fulfill changing business

demands tomorrow. Flexibility and openness

enable organizations to avoid vendor lock-in,

reduce the risk of technology shifts, lower

total cost of ownership and leverage a wide

base of industry expertise in hardware, software

and services.

Secure. In the cloud world, secure must

be defined from the inside out, rather than

simply putting digital locks on network

endpoints to ward off intruders. Dell’s approach

is to strengthen security from the inside out

using best-of-breed solutions and services

that build multiple layers of security into the

cloud solution.

By delivering cloud solutions based on

these tenets, Dell enables organizations to

conquer cloud chaos, providing objective

guidance to help determine cloud strategies

that best fit specific requirements. In addition,

Dell cloud management tools streamline

administration by providing visibility across

legacy systems, clouds and the applications

that run on them. And because IT resources are

freed from many routine maintenance tasks,

IT leaders can drive innovation and growth

throughout the organization.



Because IT resources

are freed from many

routine maintenance tasks,

IT leaders can drive

innovation and growth

throughout the organization.

Co

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Dell.com/powersolutions | 2014 Issue 03 13

management and services. Organizations

can experience a simple path-to-value

from their cloud environment, whether

they are looking to build private clouds,

deliver cloud services or manage single-

and multi-cloud environments (see figure).

Building on-premises cloud

environments. Dell enables organizations to

build and evolve their existing IT infrastructure

and incorporate private cloud elements such

as self-help, chargeback and on-demand

scalability. IT leaders can select from a variety

of leading proprietary and open-source

platforms for building a private cloud.

For example, Dell can help organizations

adopt a cloud platform based on their

existing investments, such as the Microsoft®

Hyper-V® or the VMware vSphere® platforms.

In addition, Dell has partnered with Red Hat,

the world’s leading provider of open-source

solutions, to co-engineer enterprise-grade,

private-cloud solutions based on the

OpenStack® software distribution. These

solutions have been optimized and validated

by Dell and Red Hat to provide rapid

on-ramps to OpenStack private clouds.

Delivering off-premises cloud services

to end users. Some organizations want to

reduce infrastructure and application

management costs so they can reinvest

capital elsewhere. Or they just want to gain

immediate access to IT resources without

building their own cloud environment. To

ease the management of this process, Dell

offers access to leading public cloud providers

that deliver infrastructure as a service, platform

as a service and software as a service.

In this way, much as Dell pioneered

a direct-sales business model that drove

down the price and boosted the power of

PCs, Dell is helping simplify the operations

side of cloud deployment by acting as a

cloud broker. Later this year, Dell plans to

make public cloud services available for

The Dell cloud strategy helps simplify adoption.

Cloud broker | Cloud management provider

Cloud infrastructure

Cloud clients

On premises

Convergedsolutions

Advancedvirtualization

Open-sourcesolutions

• Provisioning, governance and risk managment across single and multiple cloud environments

• Performance monitoring and service assurance

• Software-as-a-service, data and application integration

O� premises

Public cloud ecosystem

Software as a service

Vertical cloud

Managed private cloud

Dell cloud consulting and application services

Build cloud environmentsManage and integratecloud environments Deliver cloud services

Dell enables organizations

to build and evolve their existing

IT infrastructure and incorporate

private cloud elements.





purchase through Dell.com as part

of the Dell Cloud Marketplace, an

ecosystem of large cloud providers

that are members of the global

Dell Cloud Partner Program. With

the same Dell My Account sign-on

used to buy Dell hardware and

software, organizations may easily

procure cloud services through

the marketplace. To streamline the

management and governance of

these cloud services, Dell Cloud

Manager and powerful analytics

are included in the experience,

enabling organizations to get the

most from their investment.

Off-premises cloud solutions

tailored to the needs of specific

industries are also offered by

Dell. For example, the Dell

Cloud Clinical Archive (DCCA)

provides intelligent cloud-based

storage, access and management

of medical imaging data for

healthcare professionals. By

consolidating and moving archiving

to an off-premises cloud, hospitals

and imaging centers help ensure

business continuity and gain

exceptional scalability. Government

agencies can leverage cloud

through Dell as well. Designed to

meet exacting U.S. government

standards, Dell Cloud for U.S.

Government solutions include

the Federal Risk and Authorization

Management Program (FedRAMP)

Cloud, a multi-tenant, secure cloud

that allows quick access to Federal

Information Security Management

Act (FISMA) Moderate cloud

resources, facilitating easy

migration of secure workloads.

Managing and integrating

single- and multi-cloud

environments. To minimize

operational overhead, organizations

can deploy Dell applications

and services that automate the

management, monitoring and

problem resolution of the cloud

environment and applications. Dell

cloud management tools provide

single-console visibility to monitor

performance, manage capacity,

maximize usage and allocate costs

across private, public and hybrid

cloud environments.

Reinventing IT services

Cloud represents both a natural

evolution of the data center and

the future of IT service delivery.

With a cloud approach centered

on simplifying this transition,

Dell is playing a pivotal role in

reinventing IT — helping IT groups

and business units work together

in exciting new ways to achieve

unprecedented results.

Based on firsthand experience

building some of the largest

clouds in the world, Dell offers

the expertise to expedite both

public and private cloud adoption

and streamline the process of

developing multi-cloud strategies.

And as a broker of public cloud

services, Dell delivers technologies,

solutions and pricing models from

best-of-breed cloud providers to

meet a comprehensive range of

service delivery needs.

By supporting a platform-

agnostic approach, Dell empowers

organizations to integrate existing

investments with the latest

innovations. As a result, Dell

enables organizations to embrace

cloud in a way that achieves the

optimal return on their technology

investment — delivering on the

cloud’s promise of increased IT

flexibility and greater business

agility for organizations of all sizes.

In this way, much as Dell pioneered

a direct-sales business model that drove

down the price and boosted the power

of PCs, Dell is helping simplify the

operations side of cloud deployment

by acting as a cloud broker.

Author

Nnamdi Orakwue is vice president of

strategy, operations and cloud in the Dell

Software Group. He is responsible for

coordinating cloud strategy across Dell, in

addition to overseeing global support and

operations for Dell software solutions.

Learn More

Dell Cloud Computing:

Dell.com/cloud

Dell is a trademark of Dell Inc.



http://Dell.com/cloud