We live in a landscape where the only true constant is change. Modern organizations continue to deal with ever-larger amounts of data traffic across their IT infrastructures from demanding applications like artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data. At the same time, these apps’ locations are moving away from centralized architectures and becoming more and more distributed across data centers, the network edge and into multicloud environments. With this explosion of data has come an increasing number of cyberattacks, and security continues to be a major concern for organizations.
Last year, to help customers manage the changing data landscape and security issues, Dell Technologies and VMware jointly announced we will once again be breaking barriers together with the integration of data processing units (DPU), including NVIDIA Bluefield and AMD Pensando DSC2, into our portfolio of DPU solutions – helping customers investigate how to integrate this new technology into their environments with the VMware vSphere software they know and trust.
Today’s modern workloads and applications are placing unique demands on server CPUs and IT infrastructures. Innovative IT infrastructure solutions will play a major role in supporting these new applications by integrating DPUs as key components of IT infrastructures. Dell has engineered complete and integrated solutions to help enterprise organizations transition to a modern and automated DPU ecosystem. The benefits of implementing DPUs include offloading infrastructure services like networking from the CPU to the DPU to free up CPU cycles and accelerating these services via the built-in hardware accelerators on the DPU.
These purpose-built processors, known as DPUs, revolutionize data handling in modern computing systems, enhancing efficiency, speed and security. DPUs prioritize accelerating networking, storage and security tasks, alleviating the burden on traditional processors, which often face numerous tasks leading to bottlenecks and inefficiencies. DPUs excel at distributing workloads, offloading specialized tasks like network packet processing, encryption and deep learning inference to dedicated hardware. This specialization significantly boosts performance, enabling faster, more responsive applications and enhancing overall system efficiency.
In an era of rising data breaches and cyber threats, DPUs are pivotal for fortifying data security. They seamlessly integrate security protocols at the hardware level, rapidly encrypting and decrypting data and thereby reducing the risk of compromising sensitive information. Their efficient handling of network traffic ensures swift identification and mitigation of potential cyber threats. DPUs also offer scalable and flexible solutions adaptable to diverse computing needs, whether in data centers, cloud platforms or edge devices. Their modular design facilitates upgrades without infrastructure overhauls. Additionally, DPUs with ARM processors and task-optimized hardware consume less power than traditional processors, lowering operational costs and promoting sustainability.
Last year’s announcement led to the next stage of evolution for our open networking vision, where customers could choose from various DPU hardware in conjunction with VMware software, vSphere and NSX, based on their unique application and infrastructure needs. This marks an inflection point enabling the first step in the evolution of IT infrastructure disaggregation.
Now, Dell is making it even easier for customers to experience vSphere on DPUs without the potential for increases in costs that come with new servers. Customers with existing 15G Intel platforms can now get Dell’s new DPU customer kits designed to set up DPUs on their existing hardware. By offering these customer kits, Dell is ahead of the competition in enabling vSphere and retrofitting DPUs on more servers with available installation services.
We will offer these new customer kits for DPUs in factory install for 15G platforms. Customers can take advantage of Dell deployment services available to make onsite installation and service of the DPUs and immediately take advantage of the many benefits the DPUs have to offer.
Data processing units usher in a new era of computing prowess, accelerating data-intensive workloads, bolstering security and seamlessly integrating with cutting-edge technologies. With ongoing evolution, DPUs promise greater innovations, expanding the possibilities of modern computing. With Dell’s customer kits, you can get started in your journey.
Customers interested in the new customer kits should contact a Dell sales representative to discuss their DPU and customer kit needs.
