Dell sees a great opportunity as APAC markets embrace the digital wave

Data is the new capital and Indian firms are witnessing an increased data growth, while there is also an increased need to modernize IT infrastructure.If looked at the rate at which Dell Technologies is capturing the data and storing it, the numbers are completely mind blowing. Paul Henaghan, Vice President- Data Centre Solutions, APJ, Dell Technologies shares the transformations that are being witnessed in data management space across APJ markets and also the kind of data center growth seen globally and APAC markets - 

What percentage of traditional datacenters are getting modernized today and at what rate? 

As per the industry forecasters, the growth supporting data explosion is going to double the GDP of aparticular country across the globe, over the next four to five years; such is the power of data. And we, at Dell Technologies see this growth taking place in the traditional data center. So, there are organizations today driven by compliance regulations,ofwhether they are driven bythe true sensitivity ofthe data, or they are driven by the response requirements of their organization to access that data and still need the capabilities to run an onsite datacenter. What's important to those organizationsis that they are able to do so in a modern way. Supporting them to do that with the new tools and technologies as well as the software defined infrastructure is critically important, which enablesthem to run those established legacy because they have got value. 

At Dell Technologies, we have got over 4200 cloud service providers who are certified to work with us,with VMware in particular, to help support these organizations to capture their data, compute their data, store their data, and get the insights &analytics that drive their business in acost effective growth environment. We also see that the advent of cloud in multiple forms. So, there is the public cloud, the private cloud, software as a service and then the real growth area, which we are particularly excited about, which is the advent of the edge cloud. We used to run a world where we siloed the data into the datacenter. But that's not where the data is created. The action takes place in the real world where the data is captured and that's the edge. 

Can traditional datacenters support modern technologies like AI, ML?

When we brought Dell and EMC together, we had two exceptionally large organizations that ran their own datacenters, infrastructure, applications and their own business processes. We have been able to leverage the technologies that we now share with our customers to truly enable them meet the demands of a digital world. There is a need to modernize the underlying infrastructure, which is an ongoing journey. It is how you look at your existing infrastructure today and the capabilities that it delivers.Recently, we have just announced, our Unity XT product, which sets a new benchmark of performance in the industry for mid-range storage solutions. Now, if we compare this to a product thatwe were working on over five years ago and apply the principles of how much improvement we have been able to drive in terms of the performance metrics of the product or in terms of massive reduction in power consumption, although the solution still provides the capability to run on the on-premise datacenter, it now gives more the flexibility to do it more quickly, at reduced costs and with less power consumption. So, from an operational and a performance perspective, it is worlds apart from where we were five years ago.

What kind of a datacenter growth do you see globally and at the APAC level?

As per the IDC results, we see a real enthusiasm among organizations to invest in being able to capture, analyse and grow their business through the use of data. This means that the server, storage and networking infrastructure grew significantly last year. However, this year there has been a macro impact, which is impacting the growth across the globe. Dell Technologies as a company experienced a phenomenal 6% year-on-year growth in the segments of corporate workstations, desktops, and monitors. 

Interestingly we are growing faster in APJ than across the globe. If you look at the more mature markets and if compare it to some of the developing markets in this part of the world, we are truly excited by the growth opportunities in these markets as they embrace the digital opportunity. Digital India is a great example. 

With respect to APJ, which country is your top priority and where does India fit in?  

India is one of our top priorities. We certainly have a great presence and market relationships that we continue to invest in, across the mature markets like Japan, Korea, Singapore, Australia, and even New Zealand. But, India is an exciting market, from the perspective of truly deliveringan exponential growth, to truly having an impact on society and the growth of a broader economy.There’s a lot of true innovations coming out of India todayand we invest heavily in our capabilities to support that not only from the local market support perspective but also from an external market support perspective. 

How strong is Dell in terms of providing a security architecture when you design a complete framework of the modern datacenter? 

It is important to understand that together with companies like VMware, Secureworks, RSA, Pivotal, there is a need for us to embracethe broader market. We recognize that Dell Technologies is not the only solution provider and therefore, our associated business units need to have the flexibility to work in a broader ecosystem, so that we meet the requirements of our customers. But, we and our customers also recognize that by bringing this together, and by truly delivering an outcome, we are able to differentiate ourselves significantly in the marketplace. If you look at us, our top 30,000 customers have procured more than four lines of business from us, and that's growing exponentially quarter on quarter. The reason that has been possible is because we are able to transform the complicated into simple.