Dell Technologies Data Center as a Service and AWS Outpost
Transcript
>> Hey, guys, it's Keith Townsend from The CTO Advisor. We have our friends, Dell Technologies, at AWS re:Invent again. And while this is a sponsored video, we're friendly enough with Dell to have some friendly conversations. We're going to talk about Outpost, we're going to talk about data, their Data Center as a Service that they announced way back at VMworld. We're going to talk, we're going to go places around the AWS and Dell relationship that you would expect us to go, stay tuned.
(dramatic techno music) So, joining us in this sponsored video is Dell Marketing, I'm going to call you, 'cause you're more than marketing, you have a software background, >> That's right, that's right. >> Bob Ganley. You're in marketing, so we're going to give you the respect that a geek deserves. (Bob laughing) and we're going to go right at it and talk about, one, as we look at Dell Technologies, obviously the on-prem story is on point, you guys blew away the numbers this past quarter.
But, I want to talk about hybrid cloud, specifically, how do you guys, or you personally, how do you define hybrid cloud versus public cloud? >> Okay, that's a great question. And organizations today are adopting public cloud in droves. We're here at AWS re:Invent and their 60, whatever, thousand people here and most of those organizations also are running some on-prem infrastructure. And, so, they're trying to figure out how do they coordinate what they're doing on premises with public cloud. And if they're not coordinating that then what happens is silos develop, a couple of silos.
Silos from an application perspective because applications need to be modified in order to move them to Amazon, for example. And then silos from a management and operations perspective, as well. Meaning, you have different ways of managing resources in your private cloud versus your public cloud. In a hybrid cloud solution, you unify those approaches. So, number one, we say you have consistent infrastructure, meaning you can have the same VM or container move from private cloud to public cloud without modification, and hopefully in a non-disruptive fashion.
And then the second thing is consistent operations. And what that means is the ability to have a familiar set of tools that controls both private cloud and public cloud in a way that is well-coordinated. So that's hybrid cloud. >> So, I love your breakdown of hybrid cloud. In this era, I'm a big fan, I don't care, is it vSphere, Kubernetes, whatever the cloud infrastructure is, I don't think enterprises should be in the business of managing that control plane, that should be off to the side.
But the reality is is that there's still a need for on-prem resources. AWS Outpost, kind of the elephant in the room when you talk about the traditional vendors who are making the transformation to hybrid cloud, looks like a threatening solution. I'd like your input on where do you see Outpost as a indicator of the industry? >> Outpost is an indicator that organizations have voted that they need to have on-prem infrastructure. And we sometimes refer to the three laws, right? So we say it's the laws of physics, meaning speed of access to information.
It's the laws of economics, meaning you might want to pay for workloads as you're using them, as opposed to pre-paying. And the other one is laws of the land, which is you may have compliance issues or data locality issues that you need to take care of. And Outpost is Amazon's response to that. Customers have asked for on-prem infrastructure. And so we believe it's really a validation. And I think Andy said in his keynote this morning that very close to 100%, it's 95%, of all IT infrastructure spend is for on-prem today.
So, Amazon is acknowledging that, they are providing a solution to their customers. To those customers that are all-in on Amazon, Outposts could make sense. >> So, actually I think the number's 97%. >> Okay, there you go. >> So, that's a huge amount of opportunity for an awful lot of artisanal management that's happening on-prem today. I think the Data Center as a Service offering that Dell announced at VMworld this year, it peaked a lot of interest. So we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about that.
>> Sure. >> First off, what is the service? >> Okay, so, our Data Center as a Service is really allowing customers to have the flexibility of on-prem infrastructure without having to manage that infrastructure. The offer is called VMware Cloud on Dell EMC, and it's a completely-managed service. So, if a customer buys the solution, we bring infrastructure to their premises, we set it up for them, we connect it to the network, it connects to the latest and greatest software and downloads that software, much like a mobile phone updates itself when it's time to get an update.
And then if there's some issue with the hardware we come on premises to fix it. So it's completely managed, both from a hardware and software perspective, but the customer uses it exactly as they would their on-prem infrastructure. So they manage it through the same set of tools, the familiar VMware tools. >> So, how is that different than managed services? >> That's a great question. So, most organizations are looking for flexibility. So, some organizations want someone to come on prem and manage it for them.
Some organizations still want control of that software stack, if you will. So, in a managed services situation, which is something that at Dell Technologies we definitely provide, we'll come on, we'll actually manage that on a daily basis for the customer. Data Center as a Service is a complete turnkey offering, it's more of a utility, if you will, think of it that way. >> So, we understand what it is. We understand the solution that it solves. What I'm not 100% clear on is kind of the conversations that have been happening since VMworld.
There's been a lot of announcements from competitors, from partners, that have pretty much muddied the water. What has been the reaction from customers? How have they accepted it, are they getting, kind of, what this is? >> They're totally getting it, and customers are very excited. One of things we're trying to do is provide a spectrum of offers that allow customers flexibility with how they deploy that on-prem infrastructure and then connect it with public cloud in a true hybrid cloud solution. And so, we offer what we call Dell Technologies Cloud Platform, which is a much more traditional you-manage-it Mr.
Customer offer, but it's very tightly integrated with the VMware software stack in a way that allows cloud-like experience for on prem, a completely automated lifecycle management. And, yet, there are some customers that want to have purpose-built storage for, as I mentioned, the laws of the land. If they need, from a physics perspective, they need very low latency, high-speed access to data, they might be interested in a cloud-based solution for on prem that also includes some purpose-built traditional storage. And so, we also offer Dell Tech cloud-validated designs.
And then for customers that are interested in that fully-managed experience, we do have VMware Cloud on Dell EMC, or VMC on Dell EMC as we call it. So, there's been tremendous excitement for all three and Dell Technologies Data Center as a Service, or VMC on Dell EMC. And we've seen uptake from a bunch of different industries on that. So, we've got a new set of offers that we call Dell Technologies On Demand. And Dell Technologies On Demand is all about providing those cloud economics for on-prem infrastructure.
So if you hear from organizations asking for metered use and elastic capacity, and say that that's why they want cloud, right? Cloud as an operating model needs that agility. So, Dell On Demand provides that ability for organizations to pay for infrastructure as they use it to provide that metered use and elastic capacity. So, we're super excited to be bringing cloud economics to on-prem data centers as well. >> Bob, I really appreciate you taking the time out. That's it for this episode of The CTO Advisor.
I'd like for you guys to engage not just me but Dell Technologies on the web. They have a very active Twitter handle, #delltechcloud, in which you either want more information about what Bob just shared, or you want to challenge the team on Dell's vision. They are there, there's real people behind that handle. I absolutely suggest that you follow it. com, and on Twitter, @CTOAdvisor. Talk to you next CTO Dose.
