Dell NativeEdge Software 'transforms' edge operations

Dell Technologies Dell NativeEdge, an edge operations software platform, designed to help businesses simplify and optimize secure edge deployments. Customers can streamline edge operations across thousands of devices and locations from the edge to core data centres and multiple clouds.

Delivering on the promise of Project Frontier, Dell NativeEdge is said to be the industry’s only edge operations software platform delivering secure device onboarding at scale, remote management and multicloud application orchestration.2 It’s purpose-built to power any enterprise edge use case with zero-touch deployment and an open system design, integrating with a variety of hardware across Dell’s end-to-end portfolio. With Zero Trust capabilities built in, Dell NativeEdge reduces security risk by protecting customers’ applications and infrastructure across their entire edge estate.

“Moving data is complicated and expensive, which has resulted in massively distributed architectures that can be difficult to manage, provision and automate. As our customers look to fuel new workloads and AI at the edge, they are turning to Dell to find simpler and more effective ways to manage and secure their ecosystem of edge technologies and applications,” said Jeff Clarke, vice chairman and co-chief operating officer, Dell Technologies. “Dell NativeEdge puts them in the driver’s seat, so they can manage and simplify their entire edge estate with a single solution, helping deliver better experiences, products and outcomes.”

“Use cases for modern edge workloads are widely varied and growing, creating more complex infrastructure environments and edge operations,” said Jennifer Cooke, research director of Edge Strategies at IDC. “Dell’s introduction of Dell NativeEdge offers an interesting new solution that addresses this complexity, and many of the security issues inherent with deploying devices and applications at the edge, with comprehensive software that aims to help customers streamline their edge operations.”

Faster deployment times and cost savings with Dell NativeEdge

For example, a large manufacturer may need to automate packaging and shipping across its numerous factory sites in various geographies. This means connecting multiple technologies, like IoT, streaming data and machine vision, which requires dedicated devices to run multiple software applications across locations. Testing and deploying infrastructure to run the applications can take months. Using Dell NativeEdge, the manufacturer can consolidate its technology stacks using existing investments and reduce the time to deploy edge assets and applications from months to weeks. The platform uses automation to streamline edge operations and helps the manufacturer quickly and securely roll out new applications to all sites from a central location.

A Dell study of nearly 100 large customers examined the potential economic impact of NativeEdge-enabled deployments for a typical manufacturing customer with an average of 25 facilities. A three-year investment in NativeEdge managing 75% of a manufacturing organization’s edge assets showed that a customer could achieve:

· Up to 130% return-on-investment on their Dell NativeEdge deployment.

· A reduction in time required to onboard devices by up to 20 minutes for each edge infrastructure asset managed and a significant reduction to enterprise risk, resulting in cost savings.

· Accelerated edge asset deployment times and a decrease in edge operations costs with zero touch provisioning.

· Savings on transportation costs by decreasing the need for site-support dispatches, helping to reduce travel time as well as carbon dioxide emissions by up to 14 metric tons.

Customers across various industries could achieve similar impacts and benefits of NativeEdge.

New retail edge solution simplifies operations at retail stores and warehouses

Dell expands its retail edge solutions with a new Dell Validated Design for Retail Edge with inVia Robotics intelligent automation. Online ordering and curbside delivery have pushed more costs onto retailers. This solution uses software and automation to help retail employees become more efficient with last-mile picking, packing, shipping and delivery by converting existing warehouse and retail space into micro-fulfilment centers. With easy-to-manage technology at retail locations where data is generated, retailers can provide employees with more efficient pathfinding and order-picking across retail locations to significantly improve order fulfilment times and worker productivity.

The pre-tested, validated and Dell-supported infrastructure solution puts edge retail IT and applications onto a single infrastructure stack for efficient deployment, management and support. Customers will be able to deploy this solution on Dell PowerEdge servers with their choice in unified management, including Linux, Microsoft Azure Stack HCI and VMware Edge Compute Stack. The solution offers customers a simplified and flexible path to intelligent retail automation.

Connectivity, efficiency and global support simplify the edge

With 81% of Fortune 100 companies using Dell edge solutions, Dell continues to bolster its portfolio with new solutions and capabilities to help customers simplify and gain more value from the edge:

· Dell Private Wireless with Airspan and Druid is a validated private wireless solution that gives enterprises reliable, secure wireless connectivity for thousands of remote edge technologies, like devices and sensors, distributed across edge locations. Part of the Dell Private Wireless Program, the solution offers choice in private wireless for enterprises at the edge. The solution is easily integrated with enterprise IT and operational technology (OT) systems and includes tailored implementation, end-to-end management and support.

· Enterprise SONiC Distribution by Dell Technologies 4.1, a scalable, open source-based networking operating system on Dell switches, extends additional data centre network features to edge deployments, including User Container Support (UCS) and streaming telemetry that provide better fabric visibility, security and performance. Dell’s SONiC solution provides a single network operating system that combines the flexibility of a multi-vendor ecosystem with

the simplicity of common open-source toolsets to help customers simplify lifecycle management of the network fabric and avoid vendor lock-in.

· Dell ProDeploy Flex is a modular deployment service designed to further accelerate time to value for customers at the edge. The flexible nature of the service allows customers to effectively tailor their edge deployment service needs to get the most value from their edge infrastructure and applications.

Dell continues to expand its edge solutions portfolio to help customers optimize the placement of workloads and data with plans to deliver more Dell edge solutions as a service to meet the changing needs of IT. Dell’s expanding edge partner ecosystem is critical to customers’ success at the edge. Through the Dell Edge Partner Certification Program, ISVs, system integrators and OEM partners will be able to test and validate their software applications on Dell NativeEdge to deliver integrated edge infrastructure solutions to customers.

“Dell Technologies and Schneider Electric’s decades-long relationship has provided customers with innovative solutions to solve their greatest IT challenges in a smart and secure, always-on, and managed fashion,” said Vandana Singh, senior vice president of Secure Power North America, Schneider Electric. “With the introduction of Dell NativeEdge, we see new opportunities to integrate and better meet our customers’ mission-critical needs at the edge.”

"Fastly is thrilled to see Dell take such industry leadership in uniting edge hardware and software platforms with the release of Dell NativeEdge," said Artur Bergman, chief architect and founder, Fastly. "The timing couldn't be better, as every day we hear from customers and prospects seeking new ways of deploying Fastly services like Next-Gen WAF, or our Web Assembly powered Edge Computing and Delivery platform, in environments beyond the traditional data centre or cloud."