Gigamon Hires Former Dell EMC Exec as SVP of Worldwide Sales

#Gigamon, the network traffic visibility company, has hired Burney Barker, previously #DellEMC ‘s senior vice president of global sales for its converged platforms and solutions division ( #CPSD ), as senior vice president of worldwide sales.

At Gigamon, Barker will oversee the entire global sales function, including both direct and indirect sales teams. He has more than 25 years of sales, management and leadership experience in well-known technology brands.

“With his strong track record of managing global accounts and theaters, growing revenue across diverse market segments and effectively selling the value of premium products, Barker is a great fit for Gigamon,” said Paul Hooper, Gigamon’s CEO. “His focus on sales execution, understanding of complex enterprise sales processes and ability to leverage alternate sales channels are exactly what we need as we go into our next phase of profitable growth. With Burney at the helm, we will continue to focus on securing net new customers, expanding our footprint within our existing accounts and continuing to expand internationally.”

Barker’s experience at CPSD includes global account leadership where he increased customer acquisition, leadership of Americas sales where he led year on year growth, and a two-year assignment in London where he grew EMEA revenue. He also played a key role in leading partners and alliances, working with #Cisco and #VMware to form the unified #VCE leadership team that drove a significant portion of the venture’s revenue.

“Gigamon enjoys a commanding lead in the healthy and growing network traffic visibility market,” he said. “With industry-leading products that play a foundational and essential role in security solutions, as well as the ability to provide visibility across physical, virtual and cloud environments, we have a huge opportunity in front of us. I look forward to working with the executive team and the extended sales organizations to maximize our revenue potential.”

http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/2017/06/26/gigamon-hires-former-dell-emc-exec-as-svp-of-worldwide-sales/

Pure Storage: Street Likes Revenue, Profit Goals, Cisco Commentary

ByTiernan Ray June 14, 2017 4:09 p.m. ET Shares of flash-memory-based storage equipment provider #PureStorage (PSTG) closed up 2 cents at $12.68, after the company yesterday held its annual analyst day meeting, in conjunction with its “Accelerate” conference, during which the company talked about a goal of reaching $2 billion in annual revenue in the fiscal year ending in 2021. The company also offered several announcements about new product offerings and technologies. For more on those, see the company's press relations Web site. In introductory remarks, CEO Scott Dietzen hit all the important buzz terms, telling analysts that Pure is involved with artificial intelligence and cloud computing projects, and self-driving vehicles, and network “edge” data harvesting, and how Pure’s equipment achieves economies of scale in many of those areas that he said traditional storage equipment can’t manage.

CFO Timothy Riitters told the crowd "we fundamentally believe that we've got a greater than $2 billion opportunity out in what we call our calendar 2020 or what's also known as fiscal 2021."

"That means that business is growing at greater than 30% CAGR [compounded annual growth rate] over those course of next 3 years to deliver that market opportunity.” Riitters also affirmed a goal of $1 billion in revenue this year.

Among Street comments today, Mehdi Hosseini with Susquehanna, who has a “Positive” rating on the shares, was impressed with both revenue growth comments, and also profit prospects.

“We do not rule out PSTG turning profitable a quarter earlier than expected (Oct Q, vs. Jan Q),” writes Hosseini, "given encouraging commentary around salesforce productivity, FlashBlade momentum and Opex seasonality."

He also thinks the revenue goals "underscore our belief that PSTG can deliver on its $1B Revenue target from FlashArray alone, while investors get a call-option on FlashBlade."

Pure’s target for operating profit margin in 2021 "is conservative, given historical trends, improved sales productivity, and management optionality on Opex investment."

Hosseini also liked that the company sees its newer “FlashBlade” product increasing sales at a rate of twice that of the earlier “FlashArray” product. He likes how the company is “positioned” to “capture both ends of the spectrum” of what are known as “scale out” and “scale up” storage needs.

Pacific Crest’s Alex Kurtz, reiterating an Overweight rating, and a $17 price target, writes that Cisco Systems (CSCO) is becoming more and more important to Pure’s pursuit of the market:

#Pure highlighted momentum with its #Cisco partnership during opening remarks, accounting for 1,400 joint customers out of 3,350, growing 70% y/y. As the #Dell/ #EMC and #Cisco partnership fragments, and with #HPE acquiring #Nimble, Cisco will need to diversify its converged infrastructure business with independent array vendors like Pure Storage. For perspective, during the height of the #VCE relationship, EMC/Cisco drove >50% of the integrated systems market and Cisco benefited from EMC/VCE to help drive >50% of its historical UCS revenue (per IDC from C2013).

Kurtz also noted the company’s technology is letting it go after bigger deals:

Pure has finally announced a competitive solution to EMC's SRDF platform with ActiveCluster, delivering competitive replications at sub 5 milliseconds with a stretch cluster over 100 miles. We see this launch enabling Pure to compete for EMC VMAX deals that are often 1.5-2x in size given a second target array used for full replication. We see this helping increase penetration rates of the Global 2000, 12% in F1Q18. Pure also announced META, its AI for improving storage portability.

Wells Fargo’s Maynard Um reiterates a Market Perform rating, writing that the company’s discussion was “positive with respect to near-term fundamentals and the long-term opportunities for the company."

The assumptions the company presented in its outlook are “reasonable,” though it’s hard to say if there’s upside to that because "we believe visibility is limited particularly,” writes Um, "in light of our expectation for intensifying competition as Dell EMC and HPE regroup (we think HPE, in particular, is under pressure to show revenue growth, resulting in the potential for price competition)."

R.W. Baird’s Jayson Noland reiterates a Neutral rating, and a $14 price target, writing that the company seems less of a takeout target.

Noland notes that all the talk of A.I. and cloud and such served to “highlight the company’s increasingly strategic position against the backdrop of several emerging use cases,” while noting that "several in management voiced a preference toward independence, indicating to us that a strategic takeout is less than likely."

http://www.barrons.com/articles/pure-storage-street-likes-revenue-profit-goals-cisco-commentary-1497470991

Dell EMC IDPA changes vendor's backup strategy

The Dell EMC Integrated Data Protection Appliance ( #IDPA ) marks a departure in #EMC 's enterprise data protection strategy. Instead of only selling backup software separate from its #DataDomain backup targets, it will sell IDPA as a turnkey appliance with software bundled. Data Domain's inline deduplication is a key piece of the Dell EMC IDPA, providing the data reduction to go with Dell EMC #Networker and #Avamar backup software.

The software package is the same on all Dell EMC IDPA turnkey appliances. There are four appliance models -- the DP5300, DP5800, DP8300 and DP8800 -- ranging from 34 TB to 1 PB of usable capacity. The appliances are Dell EMC PowerEdge servers.

"It's a one-stop shop for software," said Sam Grocott, Dell EMC senior vice president of marketing for storage and data protection. "The only decision is the capacity points."

The DP5300 appliance scales to 130 TB of usable capacity, and is rated for a maximum throughput of 24 TB per hour using Data Domain Boost software. The DP5800 stores up to 288 TB of usable capacity, with a throughput of up to 31 TB per hour with DD Boost. The DP8300 stores up to 780 TB of usable capacity, with a maximum throughput of 41 TB per hour with DD Boost. The DP8800 stores up to 1 PB of usable capacity, with a maximum throughput of 68 TB per hour.

The DP5300 and DP5800 are midsize enterprise models, while the DP8300 and DP8800 are for large enterprises.

Dell EMC claims an average 55:1 deduplication rate for the IDPA platform. Other built-in features include native cloud tiering, encryption and data analytics.

The EMC Data Domain platform has long been a favorite backup target not only for EMC Networker and Avamar software, but for other vendors' backup applications. Data Domain has dominated the backup target market for years, but it has lost ground to Veritas NetBackup integrated appliances over the past year.

Integrated data backup appliances remove the need for media servers and the need to buy backup software separate from the hardware. They are also simpler to set up and manage, although they may not scale as well as standalone disk backup targets.

The concept is hardly new. Veritas (then Symantec) launched its first integrated appliances in 2010. Other traditional backup vendors such as Arcserve and Unitrends have since adopted integrated appliances, and well-funded startups Cohesity and Rubrik have launched what they call converged secondary data platforms over the past two years.

EMC's first departure from its long-standing Data Domain backup strategy came in April 2016, when it launched a Data Domain Virtual Edition. DD VE separated the data deduplication software from the hardware, and will be part of the Dell EMC IDPA.

Last summer, EMC brought out a VCE Data Protection appliance for entry-level and midrange customers that scaled from 21 TB to 288 TB, and only included Avamar and Data Domain software.

Unlike traditional Data Domain appliances, the Dell EMC IDPA requires customers to use Dell EMC backup software as well as its hardware.
http://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/news/450418401/Dell-EMC-IDPA-changes-vendors-backup-strategy

7 Questions to Ask at Dell-EMC World

Next week is the first #EMCWorld since #EMC was assimilated into #Dell, and if you are one of the storage faithful making the annual trek out to Vegas, you are probably already coming with questions. This first #DellEMC World is a great opportunity to really get a sense for whether the new Dell-EMC is the storage company that deserves your business for the next decade. #DellEMC, #Compellent, #Isilon, #VCE, #VMware, #VSAN, #Vmax, #VNXe, #Nutanix, #DSSD, #XtremIO, #VxRail

While you likely already have your own questions, if we were going to Vegas, here are the ones we’d ask:

1. #XtremIO vs. #VMAX – which is the real Tier1 bet?  
EMC’s strategy for Tier1 block has been inconsistent and confusing, at best.  If you were at EMC World in 2014, you probably got the distinct impression that VMAX was over and XtremIO was the future (anyone remember the $1M guarantee?), but just two years later there was nary a mention of XtremIO with all the attention on the new All-Flash VMAX. And sales reflected this shift. According to IDC, XtremIO sales were down -27.7% year-over-year in 2016, as EMC pivoted focus back to VMAX, realizing perhaps that selling retrofit flash was easier than maturing their purpose-built all-flash platform.  What will 2017 bring, and where should your investment go?

 

2. #DSSD – what happened?

For the past two years at EMC World, DSSD was touted as the next big thing, promising an “order of magnitude improvement” and “insane low latency.”  Michael Dell even called DSSD “a game changer” a few months ago at Dell World. Unfortunately, it was storage for the 0.01% – expensive, exotic, low on scale, and non-existent on software data services. Abruptly, last month, DSSD appears to be gone (at least as a stand-alone product). The go-forward plan is to apparently integrate DSSD NVMe technology into other EMC products, which one has to imagine means another retrofit coming for VMAX. Meanwhile, if you want affordable NVMe today, that’s non-disruptively backward compatible with the products you previously purchased from Pure, we have youcovered.

 

3. #XtremIO #X2 – Can you get there from here?
Industry rumors seem to indicate that a new “X2” version of XtremIO is coming.  It’s time. XtremIO is really, really due for a hardware refresh as the core hardware hasn’t substantially evolved since GA in 2013. Even XtremIO’s spec sheet is pushing 2 years old. The X2 story has been an interesting one, as the marquee feature seemed to be native file integration, as publicized at Dell World, and regularly tweetedabout by the XtremIO team. Then a few weeks ago, news surfaced that project was halted. As we contemplate new XtremIO hardware, questions about upgradability come to mind, as such issues have plagued XtremIO customers in the past. In a world where customers still can’t mix 10, 20, and 40TB X1 bricks in a cluster (is that really scale-out?), will existing X1 customers even be able to adopt new X2 bricks? Will X2 support NVMe flash capacity? Will the move to X2 be non-disruptive and will customers be able to trade-in X1 bricks for X2 bricks? Since XtremIO’s GA, Pure has shipped three generations of FlashArray hardware, 12 software releases, and introduced NVMe flash capacity, all non-disruptively and fully-upgradable. This is the new standard.

 

4. #VNX vs. Dell #Compellent (vs. #Nutanix vs. #vSAN) – which is the mid-range bet?

Things get even murkier at the mid-range.  First, assuming Dell will eventually consolidate into one mid-range platform, choosing between EMC Unity and Dell Compellent is a non-obvious choice. Both Compellent and VNX/ #Unity are large, multi- $100M businesses. Compellent has a solid user base in Dell, but hasn’t been ultra-aggressive about retrofitting for flash. Unity, on the other hand, is a new reincarnation of VNX/CLARiiON with a flash focus and (allegedly) a new codebase. We’re not sure you should bet the farm (er, cattle ranch) on it yet. Meanwhile – there’s a bigger skeleton in the strategy closet – hyper-converged. It would seem that Dell needs to consolidate product lines to re-pay debt, and as a server company, maybe hyper-converged looks like a good bet for these Tier 2 / Tier 3 and smaller customer workloads? If you read Chad Sakac’s blog – that certainly seems to be Dell’s strategic direction. Leading analysts have encouraged Dell EMC customers to seek written guarantees that their selected product isn’t facing a near-term end of life. If your Compellent or VNX array is up for refresh, there’s never been a better time to push to understand Dell’s go-forward strategy before you make another 3-5 year investment.

 

5. Nutanix? #VCE #Vblocks?  How long will Dell resell multiple competing products?

Dell has always been nothing if not pragmatic – focused on whatever product drives sales vs. squabbling over who invented it. In fact, this pragmatism led to years of relatively peaceful resale of EMC VNX by Dell in the 2000s. But, Dell also knows that long-term customer relationships matter, and OEM products are not the path to long-term customer loyalty. So it’s instructive to look at what happened to that VNX resale deal. Eventually it was dissolved, Dell tried to acquire 3PAR and eventually did acquire Compellent to replace it (and amusingly, Dell is once again facing the Compellent vs. VNX choice). Fast forward to today, and there are two very obvious “inconvenient partnerships” in the Dell product lineup – reselling Nutanix (in competition w/ VMware vSAN) and selling VCE Vblock solutions with Cisco servers and networking, in competition with Dell servers.  How long will these  last?  If I were a customer who wanted Nutanix, I’d buy it directly from Nutanix.  If I wanted hyper-converged from Dell, I’d buy #VxRAIL.  And if I was a customer running a lot of VCE, I’d be really questioning the long-term roadmap of that stack.

 

6. #IsilonNitro – Ready for Prime Time?

Last year at our //Accelerate conference, Pure introduced FlashBlade – putting NetApp and EMC’s Isilon on notice that the world of high-performance storage for unstructured data was about to undergo some major disruption. Just a few weeks later at EMC World, EMC announced a competing product – Isilon Nitro. Nitro was so new, in fact, that it didn’t even make an appearance at EMC World on stage “in the hardware” – with EMC just showing some bezel renderings. Well, we can confirm that Nitro does in fact exist (we’ve competed with and beaten Nitro head-to-head in a few accounts already), but these first few Nitro encounters lead us to believe that the product is still early. It’s a year later, plenty of time to go from announcement to GA. We’ll be looking forward to hearing about Nitro customer adoption, roadmap and how much work was done to rewrite Isilon’s OneFS for flash vs. just another retrofit.

 

7. Does the storage fire still burn strong?

Finally, a softball question, but perhaps the most important one. Storage is all about trust. Trust that your vendor will have your back, trust that the support team rocks, trust that your relationship is valued, trust that the product you are betting on will have another decade of investment. So as you head to EMC World, it’s a great opportunity to feel out EMC leadership, both business and technical. How excited are they? How dedicated are they? Are they pumped-up for the next decade of innovation under the Dell family?

http://blog.purestorage.com/7-questions-to-ask-at-dell-emc-world/

Quest Software Makes Karabatsos Channel Chief In Wake Of Channel Veteran Peter Koliopoulos' Departure

#QuestSoftware has made George Karabatsos, a sales and distribution executive who came to the IT management software firm when it was sold by #Dell, its channel chief. Karabatsos replaces Peter Koliopoulos, who left Quest earlier this month, a company spokesman confirmed. The spokesman wouldn't discuss where Koliopoulos had gone. He held the vice president global channels and alliances position for less than a year.  Koliopoulos is a channel veteran credited with helping to establish #EMC Corp.'s channel operation as it transitioned from a direct sales model. He was at the data storage giant between 2006 and 2011 before becoming vice president of global partner marketing at EMC's #VCE unit.

http://m.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300083963/quest-software-makes-karabatsos-channel-chief-in-wake-of-channel-veteran-peter-koliopoulos-departure.htm

Video: Dell EMC Converged Infrastructure Saves You Time, Money and More

This short video from #DellEMC offers an insight to the simplicity, speed and benefits of Dell EMC’s industry-leading blocks, racks, and appliances to any workload in any data center with the groundbreaking innovation of Vscale™ Architecture. Learn more how #VCE #VScale architecture enables to extend the benefits of converged infrastructure across multiple systems and data center

http://www.techrepublic.com/resource-library/whitepapers/video-dell-emc-converged-infrastructure-saves-you-time-money-and-more/

Former VCE CEO Ready To 'Disrupt' Networking Industry By Leading SD-WAN Startup Viptela

Praveen Akkiraju, who was instrumental in growing #VCE into a $2.1 billion business, is now placing his bet on the fast-growing software-defined WAN market by taking the helm at startup @Viptela, which has embraced a full channel sales model. "I saw in Viptela an opportunity to lead that second wave of disruption in in the #softwaredefinednetworking space," Akkiraju said in an interview with CRN. "In the next five years, the truly top problem to solve is to help customers migrate to the cloud – applications, users, connectivity -- and I see Viptela and this particular wave of technology playing a very critical role in that. … 2017 is the year of software-defined WAN."  Akkiraju helped build converged infrastructure behemoth VCE as its CEO for three years before he left in 2016. Prior to VCE, he was a top #Cisco executive for nearly two decades, holding titles such as senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's enterprise networking and cloud infrastructure. [Related: Aruba Founder Melkote On President's Departure, Keeping Aruba's DNA Intact And Picking A Fight With Cisco] Partners said Akkiraju's decision to take over the San Jose, Calif.-based startup bodes well for the channel. "Bringing in someone with these sorts of credentials that has done it before and successfully -- plus with the Cisco background and understanding how to leverage the channel -- is just fantastic news for us," said Steve Inman, president of Teneo, a Richmond, Va.-based solution provider and Viptela partner. "Praveen is a person that would have lots of different opportunities to do lots of different things, and the fact that he chooses this space as his next adventure is very compelling to me." Research firm IDC estimates that worldwide SD-WAN revenue will exceed $6 billion in 2020 with a compound annual growth rate of more than 90 percent over the next three years. "We're a startup in the valley here," Akkiraju said, "so this is a time for you to be breaking glass, disrupting – and there's no better place to do it than in a company like Viptela, where they have great technology, tremendous market traction, and SD-WAN is an excellent opportunity." Viptela emerged from stealth in 2014, led by founder and CEO Amir Khan, a former executive at Juniper Networks and Cisco. Khan will continue to play an active role inside the company as president and board member. Viptela provides SD-WAN technology that virtualizes WAN infrastructure. The platform allows enterprises to build carrier-agnostic, policy-controlled and cost-effective WANs. The startup's offerings have been deployed at thousands of sites by more than 25 Fortune 500 enterprises, while carriers including Verizon and Singtel are using Viptela to deliver managed SD-WAN services. More than 15,000 of its vEdge SD-WAN routers are in production across the globe. In October, the startup launched its first partner program: the vForce Global Partner Program. Highlights of the program include assured margins, a rapid on-boarding process and “partner success” funding.
http://m.crn.com/news/networking/300083386/former-vce-ceo-ready-to-disrupt-networking-industry-by-leading-sd-wan-startup-viptela.htm?itc=hp_tax_networking

DATA RECOGNITION CORPORATION Uses Dell/EMC VxRail

Data Recognition Corporation has virtualized a completely physical environment onto the #DellEMC #VxRail Appliance to provide them with flexibility, scalability and security for their enclave environment. They are now able to spend a lot less time focusing on IT and can spend more time planning and strategizing for the future.

http://www.vce.com/about/media/videos/player?id=5168263571001

Dell EMC launches VMware-powered VxRack system with PowerEdge servers

#Dell, #EMC, and #VMware rolled out a new #VxRack hyperconverged system that has migrated to Dell's #PowerEdge servers. #DellTechnologies portfolio companies launched the #DellEMC VxRack System for #SDDC. EMC, before Dell acquired the company, launched #VxRail in 2015 with white-box servers, EMC storage and VMware software. For EMC, the VxRack system marked a departure from the #VCE partnership with #Cisco. EMC had teamed up with Cisco on converged VCE building blocks, but later bought the networking giant out.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/dell-emc-launch-vmware-powered-vxrack-system-with-poweredge-servers/

CRN Exclusive: Dell EMC's Sakac On Partners' Path To Profits In The Cloud And Why The Channel 'Has To Be Disrupted'

@ChadSakac, head of #Dell #EMC 's Converged Platforms and Systems business, estimates that in as little as four years, the majority of data center hardware could be sold as part of engineered systems and platforms for customers demanding turnkey solutions for their cloud-based businesses. The transition is already putting intense pressure on vendors, as well as solution providers. Just last week, research firm Gartner's third-quarter data showed significant, across-the-board declines for the server market's major vendors in both revenue and shipments. Major solution providers also have posted steep declines as the market shifts, and many are wary of committing resources to hiring and development of a hyper-convergence practice before booking any revenue in that area. "If their business was in the assembly of goods, packaging things together for purchasing or in assembly on-site, and that was the bulk of their value, that is getting to be harder and harder every single day," Sakac told CRN in an exclusive interview. While Sakac, who became president of #VCE, now known as the Converged Platforms and Systems Division of Dell EMC last January, recognizes that the vast majority of server and storage hardware sales still follow traditional patterns, growth in that market has all but stopped, he said. And while growth in converged and hyper-converged systems has been explosive, that play still represents a tiny fraction of the market.

http://m.crn.com/slide-shows/cloud/300083023/crn-exclusive-dell-emcs-sakac-on-partners-path-to-profits-in-the-cloud-and-why-the-channel-has-to-be-disrupted.htm?itc=ticker

Dell EMC kills off VxRack Neutrino

#EMC is end-of-lifing its #hyperconverged, rack-scale, scale-out, turnkey #VxRack #Neutrino product. #VxRackNeutrino was announced in February this year as a product on which to run cloud-native apps and Big Data analytics workloads in large data centres. The component storage pieces in the #VxRack 1000-based product were #ScaleIO virtual SAN storage software and the ECS #objectstorage software, and a #DSSD all-flash array. In May the system was named the VxRack System with Neutrino Nodes - there could be up to 108 of them, and described as a pre-packaged #OpenStack system. It was composed from P Brick processing nodes and #IBrick storage/compute nodes with #hybridflash and #diskstorage. The minimum VxRack system had four racks, 45 bricks and 108 nodes made from P and I bricks. There was then a separate VxRack System with DSSD. Seven months later, EMC has decided to kill off the Neutrino systems. Customers, it said, wanted more flexibility than they got with a fixed, turnkey design. They also wanted to get support and training outside Dell EMC, with Red Hat mentioned as an alternative. The blog (by engineering veep Doug Bowers from Dell EMC’s Infrastructure Solutions Group), states: Dell EMC has made the strategic decision to meet this customer demand for OpenStack private clouds with our Reference Architecture and Validated System portfolio and end of life VxRack Neutrino. The alternatives for the VxRack Neutrino target customers are “The Red Hat OpenStack Solution – A validated solution using Dell servers and switches delivered via our strategic partnership with Red Hat and jointly engineered by Dell EMC and Red Hat,” or ScaleIO OpenStack Reference Architectures, which support Mirantis and Canonical OpenStack environments. The VxRack system with DSSD is not specifically called out in EMC’s blog, although a search for "VxRack system with DSSD" on theregister.co.ukEMC's website reveals no results.

A Chad Sakac* blog on the build-vs-buy system continuum provides a view on how to position reference architectures, bundles, validated systems, engineered systems and, at the end of this continuum, hybrid cloud platforms. Going on this post, VxRack Neutrino was too far to the right on the continuum for OpenStack customers. ®

* Chad Sakac is president of the VCE - Converged Platform division of EMC.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/02/dell_emc_kills_off_vxrack_neutrino/

VDI with Hyper-converged Infrastructure

#VxRail™ is the only fully integrated, preconfigured, and pre-tested #VMware hyper-converged infrastructure appliance family on the market. Powered by industry-leading VMware Virtual SAN and vSphere software, the #Dell #EMC VxRail Appliance is the easiest and fastest way to simplify and extend a VMware environment while dramatically simplifying IT operations and lowering capital and operational costs. Now with #Dell #PowerEdge server options, VxRail offers highly configurable appliances that meet any use case. Discover why the #VCE VxRail™ hyper-converged infrastructure ( #HCI ) solution is ideal for a range of VDI environments.
http://www.techrepublic.com/resource-library/whitepapers/vdi-with-hyper-converged-infrastructure/

Dell EMC Keynote: Let the Transformation Begin

This is a big moment for #Dell, and @MichaelDell in particular. This Dell #EMC merger is the biggest and fastest merger I’ve ever seen done. One year ago, Dell announced at Dell World that it was going to attempt to acquire and take EMC private. The task seemed impossible, but the companies got it done. Michael Dell is opening his keynote with his comment from last year, “go big or go home, and apparently no one went home.” Michael Dell clearly came to the conclusion that he, like most his peers, could attempt to respond to the coming world technology transformation, often called the Second Industrial Revolution, or he could drive that transformation, often referred to as the Third Industrial Revolution. He chose the latter and this was the core of his talk this morning. Here is what I took from Dell’s talk. The Next Industrial Revolution Technology is advancing, in terms of performance, at a rate of 10x every five years. In a short period of time, we’ll have self-driving cars and functional artificial intelligence, all resulting in the sunrise of a new era, a digital dawn. Technology is working to solve problems ranging from business to curing illnesses. Dell Technologies is number one, according to Gartner, in 20 magic quadrants, 20,000 patents and applications, and $4.5B in R&D annual spending, and about twice the nearest competitor. Dell went on to point out that the combined company is in between 70 percent and 100 percent of every listed market and market segment. Dell spends less on debt then its competitors spend on stock buyback programs and dividends. I think this point is important because there is a standing belief that Dell’s debt load makes it uncompetitive but, while this isn’t optional like the other programs are, the need to support stock price is forcing public firms to spend massively to prop up their stock. That is something that Dell Technologies no longer needs to do. The overall goal for the new Dell is to become THE trusted provider of essential infrastructure for the next industrial revolution. This is also a very important difference. While public companies have to focus like lasers on their quarterly results, Michael Dell is focused like a laser on the next world pivot and building a company to take advantage of it. GE’s CEO had a taped spot that spoke not only to the need for GE to change but how he uniquely appreciated Dell’s help and was pleased that other firms at that scale, like Ford, were getting on board. Customers are a central theme for this keynote talk, and they are at the heart of the changes going on in Dell Technology and the related products. VMware is now a central part of the theme, as is VCE. Both of these brands were in question during the merger and Dell is reaffirming support for both and their critical roles in his view of the future of the data center. He is also reaffirming the breadth of solutions and validating existing relationships with partners ranging from IBM, to Microsoft, and AWS for cloud deployments, rolling against the concern that flows through customers with regard to lock-in when firms become this big and complete. Dell apparently doesn’t believe in lock-in (neither do I, actually, because it tends to result in stupid decisions). Dell started out as a PC company and Michael Dell still believes that the client is a critical part of any solution. While it is clear the client will change, Dell is saying the company will not only ride out this change but drive it. He feels by leading in both infrastructure and client solutions, the company can better drive the coming change, as opposed to just being affected by it. Ford spoke to the fact that cars are quickly becoming rolling computers, they are working with Pivotal to help transform their efforts, and they are undergoing a massive internal change to adapt to the coming world of connected, autonomous cars. Dell feels that his firm is now large enough and powerful enough to stand at the center of world power and advancement, which means he and his firm are now fully able to craft and drive change. This is important, but virtually all other firms are simply reacting to it. If he is right, this will give Dell Technologies a sustainable advantage as we move to the next age.

http://mobile.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/unfiltered-opinion/dell-emc-keynote-let-the-transformation-begin.html

Partners: Cisco And Dell EMC Will 'Inevitably' Hit VCE Architecture And Sales Crossroads

Although #Cisco and #Dell are playing nice for now pledging support for their VCE partnership, partners expect new sales incentives and architectural changes to impact the wildly successful #VCE alliance. Several top CRN SP500 solution providers, who have built successful practices with Cisco, #EMC and #VMware said they are already bracing for new sales incentives that reward the channel to sell Dell's own servers and networking portfolio more aggressively than Cisco's solutions like Unified Compute System ( #UCS ). That change could come as soon as Feb. 1, they said, when Dell unveils its new Dell EMC unified channel program.  "Make no mistake, Dell has to compensate for nearly $50 billion worth of debt and they're not going to do that by selling competitors' products when they can sell their own," said one top executive from a solution provider who is a Cisco Gold and EMC partner and asked not to be identified.

http://m.crn.com/news/networking/300082316/partners-cisco-and-dell-emc-will-inevitably-hit-vce-architecture-and-sales-crossroads.htm

Dell-EMC's dual server supply problem... is not a problem, it reckons

You might have thought it did not compute, #Dell having its own in-house server operation for its acquired #EMC kit to use while EMC’s #VCE operation uses #Cisco server-powered #Vblocks in its converged systems. But no, having a dual server supply is fine. In a blog post, Chad Sakac, president of the Converged Platforms and Solutions operation at Dell EMC, says #Cisco servers will continue to be used in Vblocks and #VxBlocks, the Converged Infrastructure (CI) systems, while the hyper-converged infrastructure ( #HCI ) products will use Dell PowerEdge servers. We ARE (not WILL be) working behind the scenes to leverage the power of our Dell EMC family to welcome Dell PowerEdge Servers into our HCI portfolio soon. Why? On the server hardware front, Sakac says CI systems, with an integrated external storage array, need “the peak of blade system design with the most dense CPU/memory model” and he’s fine with Cisco supplying that. HCI systems, with no external storage array, need a rackmount as well as modular server design with dense storage, compute and memory components. Dell is providing the PowerEdge R-series for rackmount needs and the PowerEdge FX-series for modular needs. Sakac believes that the hardware element “of the [HCI] system-level offer depends on having an awesome, fast, flexible, and cost effective x86 rackmount, modular set of systems, and an incredible supply chain,” support model, and “configure to order” flexibility.” Which Dell has. He plays the why-fix-what-isn’t-broken card: “It’s a no brainer to ensure the continuity and strength of our CI leadership Vblock and VxBlock with Cisco UCS.” And implies Dell is better than Cisco for HCI because “it’s a no brainer for us to combine PowerEdge servers with our HCI #VxRack and #VxRail offers to give our customers more choice, more configure to order, faster access to the whole Intel ecosystem, and ultimately better flexibility at a better price point.” Dell EMC is working to deeply integrate PowerEdge server design, roadmap, manufacturing, supply chain and support into the VxRack and VxRail products. On the reference architecture front, we are told: “ #VSAN -Ready Nodes and ScaleIO-Ready Nodes, and validated systems – Dell EMC PowerEdge, Dell EMC Storage, and Dell EMC Networking will be at the heart of reference architectures, bundles, and validated systems.” Comment Dell does have its own blade servers, which a Cisco white paper says are not as good as its UCS blades: "Dell has tried to implement this vision twice: first with the Dell M1000e blade enclosure and now with the Dell FX2 architecture. Meanwhile, the Cisco Unified Computing System is the only blade system on the market today that delivers “true unity computing” while also giving you choice. This document describes the benefits of the blade server vision and how Dell and Cisco measure up to the vision." Conversely, a Dell document (PDF) says its own blade servers outperform Cisco gear. We might suppose there are no substantial technical obstacles to Dell servers being used in the Vblock and VxBlock CI systems, but it suits both Dell and Cisco from an enterprise selling and support point of view to continue with the battle-hardened, successful and proven VCE operation. El Reg would also like to gently point out that Dell EMC’s Vblock and VxRack CI offerings are based on VMware. It’s not inconceivable that Sakac’s operation could develop Hyper-V virtualisation-based HCI and CI offerings. These could use Dell server and networking technology in both the CI and HCI categories. Cisco’s sales reps for Dell EMC must know they face a continuing threat of Dell servers being used instead of Cisco UCS boxes in the future. They have a continuing mountain to climb.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/29/dell_emc_dual_server_supply_problem/

Michael Dell And Chuck Robbins Are VCE BFFs

Have no fear channel partners, the "C" in #VCE is staying intact. #Cisco Systems CEO @ChuckRobbins and #Dell CEO @MichaelDell shook hands and pledged their allegiance to their VCE alliance and its $3 billion Vblock business in a face-to-face video interview. "Everywhere I go our customers have asked, ‘What's the commitment to #Vblock ?'" said Robbins in a one-on-one sit-down with Michael Dell posted on YouTube by Dell #EMC. "From our perspective it drives UCS, it drives our Nexus portfolio, it drives our ACI portfolio -- so we are committed. … We both feel like our customers and our partners can continue to invest with confidence." #DellTechnologies

http://m.crn.com/news/networking/300082172/michael-dell-and-chuck-robbins-are-vce-bffs.htm?itc=hp_ots

Dell-EMC, with its VCE group, is well positioned to become the hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) market leader in a relatively short period of time

It seems the topic of hyper-converged infrastructure ( #HCI ) comes ups in almost every conversation I have with IT leaders regarding their data center modernization plans. A few weeks ago at VMworld, #VCE —the converged systems group of #EMC, now #DellTechnologies—hosted an analyst breakfast, and as expected, HCI was a significant part of the discussion. Since then, I’ve had some time to talk to businesses about HCI and to noodle on the open discussion that we (the analysts) had with the head of #VCE, Chad Sakac. I believe VCE's products and the way they go to market positions the combined Dell-EMC extremely well in the HCI market
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3121309/data-center/dell-emc-positioned-to-take-the-lead-in-the-hci-space.html

Hyper-converged hyper-contender ZeroStack starts connecting clouds

#HyperConverged HyperContender #ZeroStack has started connecting public clouds to its on-premises kit. ZeroStack promises the usual “Our beautiful GUI and cunning plumbing means that if you turn on our boxes and go make a cup of coffee there's be VMs running before the cappuccino foam falls” experience. The likes of #VMware, #VCE, #Scale Computing #Nutanix and #SimpliVity say that too. And like ZeroStack they all rely on dense 2U servers to make the magic happen. ZeroStack's schtick is that it works with #KVM – hello, low acquisition cost – and says it can get you to a complex hybrid cloud without the need to hire any expensive architecture folks. It's validated servers from #Dell, #HPE , #Supermicro and plans more hardware partners real soon now. It also emphasises analytics that warn you in advance when storage is running low or something is awry before it ruins your weekend. The company's been selling this stuff since March 2016, has Series B finance to help it along and claims “double digit” customer numbers but didn't tell The Register if it's closer to 10 than 99. The company will say it's just released some code that moves workloads from ESX into its own environment. It promises dependencies will make the jump, too, without need for re-plumbing. And makes the same promise for workloads flowing from its own boxen to #Amazon Web Services, then back again. HyperConverged systems are a busy market with clear and cashed-up leaders, general agreement on the need for tight coupling between hardware and software and a known Big Moment on the way in the form of #Microsoft 's #Azure Stack arriving. So good luck, ZeroStack! ®

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/14/zerostack_hybrid_cloud/

vROps in a (Hyper)converged World: FlexPod, VCE and Nutanix

Customers are always looking to reduce admin effort and TCO of their virtual environments. In a typical setup, #VMware admins have to look after the X86-servers their #vSphere hosts are running on, some form of storage area network – SAN or NAS – and the network in between all those elements. A data center might have generations of products from diverse vendors, acquired over the years. This can make provisioning or repurposing slow. A few years ago vendors started introducing ‘converged’ infrastructure in the market. In this Lego-style approach, all the building blocks for your infrastructure are standardized, validated and tested for your VMware environment. By using these standard building blocks it becomes easier to do administration, to install software updates and repurpose or expand parts of your environment. The two prevalent families are: #NetApp #FlexPod: Cisco UCS servers, #Cisco #Nexus switches and almost any NetApp storage, building on Data Ontap (Clustered Ontap). #EMC #VCE: Cisco UCS servers, Cisco Nexus switches and EMC storage arrays. Naturally this standards-based approach benefits from an equally centralized management environment. Full stack visibility takes on a new meaning here. For FlexPod we had individual solutions at Blue Medora: the management packs for NetApp, Cisco UCS and Cisco Nexus enable you to manage all building blocks of the converged infrastructure in your VMware vROps management platform. Our FlexPod bundle gives you dashboards and reports for a complete solution.

http://blogs.vmware.com/management/2016/09/vrops-hyperconverged-world-flexpod-vce-nutanix.html

Dell Technologies lifts off: Here's what to watch as Dell, EMC, a bevy of enterprise businesses combine

#DellTechnologies will be comprised of #Dell, #EMC, #VMware, #SecureWorks, #Pivotal, #Virtustream, #VCE, and #RSA. It's a datacenter juggernaut that'll need to be nimble as workloads move to the public cloud.

Dell is about to take the wraps off its new name, Dell Technologies, with Dell EMC as the company's enterprise brand, Dell for PCs and VMware, the linchpin in @MichaelDell 's master plan for reinvention.
On Sept. 7, Dell will close its EMC purchase. Dell Technologies includes the businesses of Dell, EMC, a PC unit, VMware, SecureWorks, Pivotal, Virtustream, and RSA. Toss in converged infrastructure from the likes of EMC's VCE for good measure.

Simply put, the Dell Technologies menu is massive. How this enterprise giant navigates account management, innovation, and product overlaps for technology buyers remains to be seen. What's notable here is how rival Hewlett-Packard split up into Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. Lenovo has bulked up its enterprise ambitions. And IBM is retooling to shed commodity datacenter gear and focus on Watson, analytics, and growth markets.

Indeed, Michael Dell appears to be zigging toward scale when other datacenter players are trying to slim down and be nimble. The elephant in the enterprise room is Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure as a trio that's taking more workloads.

The CEO of Dell has promised to be more nimble and innovative -- even as the combined company swells. We'll see how this one turns out. In the meantime, here are the key questions.

HYBRID JUGGERNAUT -- BUT THEN WHAT?

There is no doubt that the combination of Dell and EMC will dominate the datacenter. It's likely that every enterprise will be buying from some tentacle of the company. And if you add VMware in the mix, it's clear that most enterprises will be working with a few less vendors.

Is that a good thing? Dell Technologies will argue that, yes, scale is wonderful since there's one less throat to choke. The IT buyer, however, may want diversification. Yes, Dell Technologies will have more of your technology budget, but many companies will aim to diversify out of principal.

The big question is how companies will diversify. Will more of their datacenters go to a traditional rival, such as Lenovo or HPE, or the public cloud players?

http://www.zdnet.com/article/dell-technologies-lifts-off-heres-what-to-watch-as-dell-emc-a-bevy-of-enterprise-businesses-combine/