Many customers I speak to tell me they understand that digital transformation is becoming a critical path (in some cases a mandate) towards enabling new business outcomes/results, capitalizing on market trends, and gaining a competitive advantage. Hybrid cloud technologies are both a means and key tool in successfully taking that digital transformation journey.
We’ve worked with our long time industry partner, Microsoft Corp. to provide flexible, differentiated on-ramps to hybrid cloud environments. Now Dell and Microsoft are working together to leverage IT services delivered from Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to simplify and accelerate the successful implementation of hybrid cloud
environments and fuel the needed digital transformations our customers require.
Announcing Azure Cloud Services from Dell
Today, we are expanding our Microsoft hybrid cloud solutions with the announcement of the availability of Azure Backup and Azure TestDev Labs from Dell. Acquiring and using these services from Dell streamlines and speeds your IT operations into the cloud with rapid provisioning, multiple integrated adoption choices, and a
single point of contact for administration, billing, and support.
Data backup and recovery is by far the most common cloud use case we see. Azure Backup is an industry-leading solution in Microsoft’s hybrid management portfolio, providing data protection for servers, PCs, and Azure-hosted virtual machines. It is a flexible, secure, scalable cloud service with no requirement for capital investment and provides a compelling alternative to other traditional backup methods. Azure Backup delivers predicable costs, short recovery times, and up to 99 years of data retention.
The next most popular cloud use case is for application development environments. Customers need quick, controlled ways to create early-stage (“sandbox”) and test development environments, and Azure DevTest Labs provides this as a highly efficient, responsive, and governed cloud service. Developers can create and provision popular Windows and Linux environments on demand using reusable templates, formulas and artifacts. At the same time, control is maintained and costs optimized with policy-based limits on access, the number of virtual machines (VMs) per user, and the number of VMs per lab, as well as automated shut-down of VMs.
Why Azure Cloud Services from Dell?
Azure Cloud Services from Dell feature the same pay-as-you-go pricing you would expect from public cloud. Customers are charged for services consumed and there is no requirement for long term contracts. In fact, our customers can start or stop an Azure Service subscription at any time. Transitioning from traditional CAPEX models for acquiring IT resources to OPEX provides a transformative new mechanism to align IT costs to organizational operations and growth.
What Dell provides in this equation is what we always have—the lowering of barriers to free our customers and unlock greater value. Using Azure Cloud Services from Dell removes administrative burdens for customers adopting public cloud with rapid “white glove” provisioning and integrated billing and support, so they can focus more on driving business outcomes without worrying about processes and control. Typical provisioning times are measured in hours. Dell will even integrate ordering and provisioning where it simplifies things for customers: for example, Backup is an orderable option with every Dell PowerEdge server.
Being able to coordinate and scale IT services closely to business needs is the hallmark of a future-ready enterprise and a primary outcome of digital transformation. At Dell, we believe that hybrid cloud is your best tool for enabling this. Azure Cloud Services from Dell can deliver these capabilities to your organization immediately. And there is much more to come. We continue to listen to our customers, and will be adding new features and services in the weeks and months ahead. We can’t wait to share more with you.
Learn more about Azure Cloud Services from Dell or contact us directly via email.
