The start of every calendar year heralds a number of key activities in the form of Sales Kick-offs, previous year reviews, and setting up goals and objectives for the year ahead. But among all the events and initiatives one of the things I look forward to most is celebrating our strong and thriving partnership with Cisco at its annual European conference, Cisco Live in Berlin.
The partnership between Dell and Cisco goes back to 2009 and has resulted in billions of dollars worth of business and generated tens of thousands of customers around the globe. Together we have changed the face of the IT industry by creating a new market category – converged solutions. We’re the undisputed leader as the number 1 vendor in Integrated Systems according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker.
There is no better validation of a portfolio than the testimony of satisfied customers who are happy to talk about their experience and the benefits they have realized from a technology they have deployed. Here are some of my top customer stories that showcase how we are enabling organizations to modernize and transform their digital journeys.
Etisalat Misr
Etisalat Group, one of the world’s leading telecom groups in emerging markets, provides innovative solutions and services in 19 countries across the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. The company was keen to maintain a competitive edge in a fast-changing marketplace through agile IT and an ability to exploit third-platform technology and big data. By deploying Dell’s converged solutions it was able to realize greater IT agility, higher user satisfaction, improved cash flow, greater scalability and lower costs. That’s what I call a slam dunk!
Unilin
A flooring, panelling and insulation manufacturer, Unilin sees innovation as the path to growth. The company wanted to optimize manufacturing with an agile, high-performing data center platform. By deploying Dell converged solutions, Unilin doubled performance of business applications and web servers, achieved up to 60 percent improvement in fault resolution times, and grew virtualization to 65 percent of total server estate.
Read the full case study here
EDF
EDF is the world leader in electricity supply and one of the largest energy companies in the world with over 39 million customers and 156,000 employees globally. The company wanted to provide its business units with more IT capacity and agility, and greater cost efficiencies. By moving to Dell converged solution, EDF lowered the total cost of ownership, provided for quicker global infrastructure updates from months to days, faster provisioning from weeks to minutes and more time for higher-value work and innovation. That is an electrifying story!
Find out more about how EDF did it
ProMedica is a locally owned, nonprofit health system providing quality healthcare services to people living and working in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. Rapid growth had created numerous IT issues around availability, performance, management, and support. With the help of Dell converged solutions, ProMedica has been able to realize significant benefits: unplanned downtime has been eliminated and 12 data centers have been reduced to four, resulting in cost and time savings. And further growth will be trouble free as virtual machines can be provisioned in minutes and upgrades are seamlessly applied.
ProMedica is a fantastic success story where IT is delivering real business value. Click here for more details. Watch this video to find out how forming a converged infrastructure team delivered immediate benefits to the healthcare provider and view this video to understand how converged infrastructure led to improved patient care and supported rapid growth of the health system.
In Berlin
During Cisco Live we are presenting two breakout sessions – Ted Streete will put a spotlight on why networks are the secret sauce to successful converged and hyper-converged infrastructure and in the second session Tom O’Reilly will focus on customer success stories. Our booth will feature the latest kit from Dell and incisive in-booth presentations which will educate the audience on our solutions and value proposition. Our social media team will live tweet from the converged platforms and solutions sessions at the main booth and breakout sessions. Get real time updates with our designated live tweeters including @youngP2, @nigelmou and @Dell_CI and join the conversation at #Dell!
There is no doubt that 2016 has been a seminal year for us. We’ve changed in many significant ways. However, one thing that has not only remained constant but grown stronger is our partnership with Cisco.
Cisco UCS in an essential component of Vblock and VxBlock and there are no plans to change it. Senior leadership on both sides have reiterated it several times, from Michael Dell, Chuck Robbins to Chad Sakac and Ravi Pendekanti from the Dell PowerEdge server team, the importance and power of our relationship is unwavering.
I’m tremendously excited about our joint future opportunities that will further strengthen this relationship and look forward to continue working with Cisco to deliver digital transformation for our customers.
Want to know more? Read Ted Streete’s incisive blog comparing motorsport duality and the modern data center here and David Hayward’s insightful blog Thinking Outside the Box: Extending Converged Infrastructure Across Networks here