Dell Hybrid Cloud: Top Solutions for Enterprise Innovation
As organizations focus more on moving systems and business applications to a cloud infrastructure, they must make other changes to support the migration. Otherwise, they risk joining other failed cloud migration attempts by enterprises. Business leaders should focus on creating a technological foundation best suited to their organizational needs, including support for web and cloud-based solutions.
Dell Technologies provides various solutions to help IT leaders find equipment capable of supporting the need to maintain flexibility while allowing for innovation. It’s important to look beyond the technological exercises involved and consider the overall impacts on the operations. Dell understands the need for companies to continue providing high-level service while generating optimal business outcomes and cost-efficiency.
Why Hybrid Cloud? The Strategic Advantage for Modern Enterprises
A hybrid cloud is a computing architecture that combines public and private cloud technology. Combining the two allows organizations to exchange data seamlessly. Companies typically use a hybrid cloud when hosting a proprietary data center capable of handling workloads requiring a high level of security, performance, and compliance.
For example, a healthcare organization might have personally identifiable information (PII) and personal healthcare information (PHI) stored in a secure private cloud to comply with HIPAA regulations. Less sensitive information could be held in a public cloud like Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud.
One of the benefits of using a public cloud is the ability to scale up the cloud infrastructure to handle additional workloads in a cost-efficient way. Integrating both helps organizations handle a higher data capacity between the two environments depending on current needs.
Organizations need technology that gives them the ability to promote innovation while addressing the realities of existing legacy systems, compliance mandates, and budget issues. Moving to a hybrid cloud environment lets businesses use existing on-premises technology while leveraging public and private cloud services.
Dell Hybrid Cloud Explained: Simplifying the Complex Multi-Cloud Landscape
Bringing change to an organization requires a lot of negotiation and skill. People get used to their way of doing things and may resist changes to their processes. They worry that things won’t work as well and that the hybrid cloud might make it more difficult to perform tasks and fulfill responsibilities.
IT leaders may have trouble getting buy-in from C-suite executives who are not well-versed in technology topics. You must also address issues like finding technology capable of integrating your new cloud services with existing on-premises systems.
How Dell Hybrid Cloud Helps
Dell Hybrid Cloud platforms help modernize your company’s IT infrastructure by integrating your legacy systems with public and private cloud environments. You gain control over the security of all your cloud instances in the same way as your on-premises systems.
One of the benefits of using any Dell hybrid cloud solution is the ability to bring down the data silos that plague many IT organizations. Instead of dealing with information spread across different systems and data stores, you can bring it all together using solutions like Dell APEX and VMware.
Teams can quickly access data when they need to perform data analytics. That helps your organization obtain more value from the information it holds to drive informed business decisions. The platform gives your organization the freedom to explore expanding AI in ways that transform your organization into a digital powerhouse.
Key Features of Dell Hybrid Cloud Solutions
Let’s take a closer look at Dell's enterprise hybrid cloud technology, which you might consider as you upgrade your IT infrastructure.
Hyperconverged foundations
Dell HCI Foundations platform removes much of the complexity involved in migrating to a hybrid cloud infrastructure, making it easier for organizations to adopt. VxRail is a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) that emerged from a collaboration with VMware. It consolidates storage, servers, and networking into a centralized architecture.
VXRail makes it easier to combine multiple infrastructure layers into one management infrastructure. You can add nodes without major restructuring if you need to scale any part of your cloud architecture. Because information is stored on nodes locally, you can access it faster, which improves application performance. VXRail makes integrating a public cloud with an internal data center more manageable for IT personnel.
Dell APEX
Dell APEX is a software-as-a-service cloud platform that integrates with VMware Cloud Foundation. It provides enterprises with everything needed to manage a hybrid cloud environment, including compute and cybersecurity services. Administrators can manage tasks through the Apex Console, like health monitoring and overseeing procurement.
VMware integrations
Tools like VMware HCX and vMotion can move virtual machines and applications between cloud environments and data centers. They handle these processes with minimal downtime and no refactoring, allowing enterprises to shift workloads at their preferred pace to avoid disruptions to daily business processes.
For companies looking to scale cloud instances without a lot of redesign efforts, you can integrate VMware with hyperscalers like Microsoft Azure (Azure VMware Solution) and Google Cloud (Google Cloud VMware Engine). This lets you extend VMware-based workloads while helping teams save time and consume fewer resources.
Additional Hybrid Cloud Features
In addition to VMware, you can take advantage of other Dell Technologies hybrid cloud features like:
- Centralized cloud management: Create a hybrid cloud infrastructure that lets you exchange data seamlessly between public and private cloud instances.
- Compliance and security: Use Dell APEX backup services to set up secure backups across all environments. It also ensures you remain compliant with industry-specific data retention policies. You can also invest in VMware NSX, which enforces consistent firewall and network policies in all cloud instances. The solution supports the compliance needs of regulatory frameworks like HIPAA and PCI-DSS.
- Self-service capabilities: Use APEX Cloud Services to provision, scale, and manage compute and storage resources. Users can also add usage dashboards and service health monitoring to increase visibility into what’s happening in their hybrid cloud environment.
Modernizing Infrastructure for the Hybrid Future
Solutions like VxRail simplify cloud storage refreshes through a centralized platform that brings together all compute, virtualization, and storage resources. If you are looking to update your legacy systems using automation and hybrid cloud deployments, consider investing in Dell PowerEdge servers.
Remember your workforce. In addition to VXRail, you can promote Dell thin clients benefits. For example, the Dell Hybrid Client simplifies access to the organization's public and private cloud instances. It’s the kind of cloud client innovation that provides the workforce with a consistent, flexible experience, whether working in the office or remotely.
Managing and Optimizing Hybrid Cloud Complexity
Dell AIOps, formerly CloudIQ, provides insights into the information stored in your cloud solutions. It’s an AI-driven, cloud-based monitoring and analytics tool that provides insights into Dell solutions' performance. It also provides IT admins with guidance on optimizing cloud resources, which is especially important when performing a cloud migration.
Dell APEX’s Console can automate and standardize operations like service deployments, usage tracking, and policy enforcement across various hybrid environments. VxRail Manager aids in automation efforts by handling system patches and upgrades. You can also use it to set up consistent configuration templates and blueprints for your cloud resources.
The VMware vRealize Suite offers infrastructure-as-a-code benefits by automating cloud infrastructure management and deployments. This helps speed up migrations and reduces human error that can disrupt the process.