Dell says the future is all about software-defined architecture

The software-defined data
centre was a major theme at
the Dell Solutions Tour.

Companies are moving from dealing with traditional IT workloads like SAP, Oracle and Microsoft to virtualising their environments with VMware and Microsoft, gaining efficiencies in the process, but see even more benefits through migrating to the software-defined data centre, software-defined network, software-defined compute power, and software-defined storage, said a senior Dell executive during the Dell Solutions Tour in Singapore.

"We believe in helping the customer to evolve to the new IT. There is an inflexion point coming," said Mak Chin Wah, GM, Enterprise Solutions, Dell South Asia. Customers are looking at software to help them be more agile, to manage their environment. It's a big change for the industry."

According to Mak, competitors typically have a legacy to protect, so they have a vested interest in locking customers in to buying only from them, at high prices. Many vendors have invested heavily in a traditional business model, offering hardware that is basically a 'black box'. Such black boxes are difficult for a customer to manage or upgrade, enabling the vendor to charge a lot of money for support. 

On the other hand, no support at all can cause problems too. Mak also touched on the practice of 'whiteboxing' or selling hardware with the minimal number of components for the cheapest price, and said can turn out to be expensive for a customer as they still have to pay for support that vendors such as Dell may have integrated with their equipment.

"With a whitebox, you need to have to think about how to support it. Whiteboxes are very low CAPex but very high OPex as you must write software to manage it," he said. Other vendors which prefer to lock in customers may offer standard hardware plus some form of support, leading to a high CAPex and moderate OPex model; Dell offers the best of both worlds with a low CAPex, low OPex model, he said. 

"For Dell we don't have that legacy. Software-defined (anything) can lower CAPex and OPex," he said. "We believe that in a software-defined environment hardware is the least of it," he said. "Software is going to be the important thing."

Mak added that the software-defined world "plays to Dell's strengths a lot", whether it is networking or storage. Moreover, the software resides on servers, and Del's servers are leading in the industry, he said. 

Ng Tian Beng, VP, Commercial Channels, APJ and MD for South Asia & Korea, Dell, stressed that the software is key. "Vendors may say they have standards based solutions but if you look at those solutions in detail, the hardware may be modular in nature, but the software stack they have its usually proprietary," he said. "Dell's is based on open standards."

Although the software-defined world downplays the role of hardware, Wong Ka Vin, MD, 1-Net, a Dell customer which operates data centres, explained that there is still differentiation. "When everything is componentised, how do you choose a vendor?" he asked, naming long term viability and a global supply chain as key.

Dell has been willing to adjust pricing through customising the mix of components delivered in its hardware, and can work with customers anywhere in the world with a global supply chain they can depend on, Wong pointed out. "Price is not no. 1 but price is no. 3," he added. "Finding a vendor that can provide (these things) to you is important."

Need the big picture? Read the TechTrade Asia blog posts about the rest of the Dell Solutions Tour:

Dell sees synergy with Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative
Dell’s new storage portfolio
Networking for data centres goes future-ready
PowerEdge packs more of a punch