Travis Zhao, Dell & Ian Pilcher, Red Hat | Dell Technologies World 2024

Summary

At Dell Tech World in Las Vegas, Nevada, the spotlight is on the enhanced partnership between Dell and Red Hat. The discussion centers around the Apex Cloud platform for Red Hat OpenShift, highlighting its evolution into a co-engineered solution that simplifies cloud-native application management. The platform's ability to integrate virtualization and AI workloads is emphasized, showcasing a hybrid approach that aligns with the digital transformation and AI-driven future of enterprises. The conversation also touches on the importance of an open ecosystem and the customer-centric feedback loop that drives product innovation.

Takeaways

• 🎥 The event is a three-day live coverage at Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas, Nevada, with a focus on partnerships and technological advancements.
• 🤝 The partnership between Dell and Red Hat is highlighted, emphasizing a collaborative effort on the Apex Cloud platform for Red Hat OpenShift.
• 🔧 The Apex Cloud platform is a co-engineered solution that simplifies the management of Kubernetes and virtualization, offering an easy-to-consume package with single-point support.
• 🚀 Enhancements to the Apex Cloud platform are discussed, including the integration of AI and the expansion of GPU support with Nvidia to cater to demanding AI workloads.
• 🛠️ OpenShift virtualization is a feature that allows virtual machines to operate within the OpenShift environment, supporting cloud-native features without modification.
• 🔄 The discussion suggests a move away from traditional virtualization solutions towards more modern application architectures, such as those provided by the Apex Cloud platform.
• 🌐 The importance of a hybrid cloud approach is emphasized, with Dell and Red Hat providing solutions that allow for flexibility between on-premises and public cloud deployments.
• 🔒 Trust and comfort in the partnership between Dell and Red Hat are underscored, with a focus on co-engineering and a tightly integrated ecosystem for customer assurance.
• 📈 Feedback from customers is a driving force in the development of the Apex platform, with a focus on simplifying deployment and management to achieve faster time to value.
• 💡 The potential for AI to have a positive impact on society is highlighted, with the hope that future discussions will include real stories of AI improving lives.
• 🌟 The future vision includes a 'composable AI Factory' that allows for the rapid and effective composition of AI configurations for various use cases, including edge and remote sites.

Q & A

What is the main event being covered in the script?

The main event being covered is Dell Tech World, a three-day live coverage event taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Who are the hosts and guests mentioned in the script?

The hosts are Savannah Peterson and Bob La liberte, and the guests are Ian Pilter from Red Hat and Travis Z from Dell.

What is the significance of the partnership between Dell and Red Hat discussed in the script?

The partnership between Dell and Red Hat is significant because it involves a co-engineered open shift Appliance solution, which is a collaborative effort to provide an easy-to-consume and easy-to-run package for customers.

What does the Apex Cloud platform for Red Hat OpenShift offer to organizations?

The Apex Cloud platform for Red Hat OpenShift offers an integrated solution that includes Red Hat's open shift container orchestration platform on infrastructure, packaged with Dell's compute, software-defined storage, and automation software.

How does OpenShift Virtualization fit into the Apex Cloud platform?

OpenShift Virtualization is a feature included in the Apex Cloud platform that allows organizations to bring virtual machines into their OpenShift environment, making them 'good citizens' of the environment and enabling them to participate in cloud-native features and technologies.

What is the role of Dell Apex in the context of virtualization?

Dell Apex provides a bare metal-based OpenShift Appliance that is virtualization-ready out of the box, offering a seamless experience for deploying and managing virtualized workloads alongside containerized applications.

What is the importance of the storage solution provided by Dell for OpenShift Virtualization?

The storage solution provided by Dell is crucial for OpenShift Virtualization as it offers the right type of storage with the appropriate scale and performance to support different use cases, complementing the virtualization capabilities.

What does the term 'composable AI Factory' mentioned by Travis Z refer to?

The 'composable AI Factory' refers to a concept where AI configurations can be composed and adapted for various use cases, allowing for fast and effective deployment of AI solutions in different environments such as data centers, edge, or remote sites.

How does the collaboration between Dell and Red Hat benefit customers in terms of support and reliability?

The collaboration ensures that Dell and Red Hat co-engineer and test the pre-release code through a CD pipeline to Dell's release cycle, providing customers with a single package that is tested and ready to run, thus reducing concerns about compatibility and reliability.

What are some of the enhancements discussed for the Apex Cloud platform going forward?

Some enhancements discussed include extended GPU support with Nvidia, refreshed validated designs for building digital assistants, and the introduction of support for object scale storage for efficient data management of large datasets and AI models.

What is the vision for AI transformation as discussed in the script?

The vision for AI transformation involves making AI a reality in people's lives, focusing on the positive impact it can have, such as in healthcare with applications like fetal image scanning, and moving beyond just discussions of hyper-scale and ecosystems.