Operate like a public cloud but with the control, security, cost and performance benefits of a modern on-premise environment: That sums up Dell IT’s storage strategy to create standardized services that are simple, aligned to the business and provisioned on-demand.
By modernizing and simplifying our internal cloud using principles of public cloud, we have enabled developers, application owners and database teams to have self-service access to storage, compute and networking resources with the agility of a public cloud without going off premises. And if workloads do require the added capacity and flexibility of public cloud, we have that covered too with a multi-cloud strategy to deliver cloud capabilities anywhere with a consistent experience centered on the Dell Digital Cloud.
To accelerate these hybrid cloud services allowing our users to seamlessly move between private and public cloud, we are an early adopter of Dell Technologies’ APEX Data Storage Services — the first in a portfolio of elastic, outcome-based IT services which allow customers to only pay for what they use with the ability to scale up and down, delivered to the Service Level Objective (SLO) they need.
Standard storage building blocks
We began to evolve our storage strategy and approach with the virtualization and modernization of applications across IT to transition to cloud infrastructure. We simplified our storage building blocks around Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, Dell VxRail, PowerFlex Appliance and PowerMax.
Standardizing on these building blocks enabled our Dell IT teams to quickly optimize application and workload environments for the business. It has freed the storage team from lengthy back and forth with the business about storage sizing and product requirements and sped up deployment and provisioning tasks.
In the next step to become an even more agile partner to the business, Dell IT is serving as Customer Zero for APEX, which provides on-premises infrastructure that is owned and managed by Dell Technologies and is designed for operational expense transactions. APEX allows subscribers to easily manage their Storage-as-a-Service resources via the Dell Technologies APEX Console.
APEX has given Dell IT the unique opportunity to imagine how we can accelerate into our new, more agile model paying as we grow and having maintenance services provided by Dell Technologies – included in the subscription—assist us in keeping our infrastructure secure, up to date and performing at peak.
We are very excited about how APEX Storage-as-a-Service will transform the way storage can be procured and deployed and maintained within our own enterprise environment. APEX will help us to realize those goals by being able to shift our cycle time from months to days by using the APEX Console. That will allow us to more efficiently use and track our dollars and have capacity available when needed.
View this on-demand session recorded during Dell Technologies World, May 5-6, 2021. “Consuming Storage as-a-Service: Making Storage Work For Us”
