Our team has recently developed a manual that helps unlock the value of our customers’ Converged Systems’ investments and it got me thinking about how this can help transform IT overall.
Lots of people these days say IT organizations need to become more agile. But simply saying that versus doing it requires new approaches, new roles, and new organizational structures that support managing IT systems holistically versus managing individual IT components (storage, compute, and networking) in separate silos.
Today far too many IT organizations waste too much precious time integrating and then supporting all the hardware components that make up a system. It’s now possible to acquire pre-integrated systems such as Dell VxBlock and Vblock Systems, VxRack, or VxRail and XC series hyperconverged appliances that push all that time and effort back onto the shoulders of the IT vendor where it belongs in the first place. We all realize IT teams are a finite resource. IT leaders need to better understand how to unlock the value of their current investments to help them make a conscious decision concerning how much time they want their IT teams to spend on building and managing IT infrastructure versus driving innovation.
To help advance this understanding we invite you to download the “Getting the Most Value from Dell Blocks and Racks: An Owner’s Manual”. This manual distills the experience of working with thousands of customers to help optimize the IT and business value from Dell converged and hyper-converged systems.
The “Getting the Most Value” manual describes the substantial value customers realize from getting pre-assembled systems delivered in about 60 days from purchase that are engineered, pre-configured for their workloads, and ready for live operations within days of delivery. Customers also value Dell one company support for their converged infrastructure. While highly valued, these benefits don’t represent the majority of the potential IT and business value from Dell converged systems.
Ongoing Dell customer research indicates that by adopting new approaches to people and process, substantial improvements in the following critical areas can be realized: downtime, availability, performance, staff productivity, and business innovation. The manual describes Dell training and services to help our customers transform via new converged roles, organization structure, and processes.
The manual also describes the substantial advantages from: developing a baseline of the key IT metrics prior to delivery of a new converged system; establishing improvement goals for the new system; and measuring progress every 6-12 months to assess value realized and to identify areas that need improvement. Without this before and after data, customers often greatly understate the actual value realized and also miss opportunities to realize additional business value.
In addition to the “get the most value” manual, we have recently published these resources to help our customers get the most from their blocks and racks:
New Best Operating Practices Tool for Customers
This flexible Excel-based tool is designed to help IT management evaluate best practices for operating blocks and racks and to track their implementation progress. Customers can use the tool on their own or can engage Dell’s help. Available on the Dell Technical Resource Center here .
New Customer Guide: Getting Started with VxBlock™ and Vblock® Systems 340, 540, and 740
This in-depth guide contains everything system administrators need to start operating their Converged System after Dell deployment and implementation. Content examples include: tutorials on element managers and Vision software; provisioning an ESXi host (blade); and setting up passwords and credentials. The guide is available here .
To create these new resources we have tapped the experience and knowledge from every part of our converged platforms and solutions division including professional services, training, customer support , and business value assessment consulting. We have also incorporated the experience of our customers have been very generous in sharing information about the practices that have helped them to drive productivity, innovation and improved business results.
It is really rewarding to see our new and existing customers take full advantage of their investments.
