Dell Technologies is putting its as-a-service aspirations into overdrive, unveiling a new initiative called Project APEX that it says will ease the company and its partners and clients into the as-a-service world.
“Project APEX is our strategy for delivering a simple as-a-service and cloud experience to our customers and partners,” Sam Grocott, senior vice-president of Dell Technologies business units marketing, said during a webcast with reporters. “It’s the culmination of our strategy, how we are going to take our existing as-a-service business to the next level and redesign it with simplicity, ease of use and speed.”
Grocott cited IDC data that says by 2024, more than 75 per cent of infrastructure at the edge and roughly 50 per cent of all data centre infrastructure will be consumed as a service. IDC also projects that by 2023, over 500 million digital apps and services will be developed and deployed using cloud-native approaches – the same number of apps developed in the last 40 years.
It’s these types of numbers that propelled Dell to create its “North Star” in Apex.
“This will allow us to bring together not only our external message in how we communicate our offers as we go forward, but also internally in how we align and transform to deliver this as-a-service experience across all the various functions across Dell Technologies,” Grocott said.
Initially, Project APEX will have three components: Dell Technologies Cloud Console, Dell Technologies Storage-as-a-Service, and Cloud Platform Workload Instances. The console provides customers with a single, self-service online interface to manage every phase of their cloud and as-a-service strategy. The Dell Technologies Cloud Console is available now as a public preview in the U.S. General availability is expected in the first half of 2021.
Grocott says Storage-as-a-Service is an on-premises as-a-service portfolio of scalable storage resources that will offer block and file data services, plus a wide-range of enterprise-class features. It’s a complete turnkey on-premises managed service performed by Dell or a channel partner. Customers can select what type of data service they’re looking for when deploying Dell Technologies Storage-as-a-Service through a new portal, while also choosing block or object types, capacity criteria, and term lengths. Dell Technologies Storage as a Service will be available in the U.S. in the first half of calendar year 2021.
Lastly, the Dell Technologies Cloud Platform is the company’s flagship turnkey service for hybrid cloud architecture. It includes VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure and VMware Cloud Foundation. Cloud Platform customers can get started with a monthly hybrid cloud subscription. Prices start at $47 per instance per month. Dell says Dell Technologies Cloud Platform with subscription pricing is now available in the U.S., U.K., France, and Germany.
