Dell Pivots To as-a-service Model, Launches Cloud Console, Platform

Abhisheik Shandilya

3 months ago

Dell Technologies has just unveiled its strategy of moving its products to the as-a-service model at its Dell World Experience, its customer conference that is being held virtually this time around. The products will be unified and migrated to as-a-service model under the newly launched Project Apex. The new project will bring together Dell Technologies on Demand and Dell Technologies Cloud under one offering.

Other than the launch of Project Apex, the US-based company also announced the launch of a cloud console, which will act as a control layer for on-premise, multi-cloud, and edge environments. The console has been named as Dell Tech Cloud Console and is available in preview for US as of now. Dell stated that users can use the console to easily browse the Dell Marketplace and select the company’s cloud services and as-a-service hardware offerings as per their requirements. Further, the console will also provide management capabilities by offering cloud workload deployment, management of multi-cloud resources, and real-time cost monitoring.

Speaking at the virtual event, Jeff Clarke, the Vice Chairman and COO at Dell, stated, “we’re building upon our long history of offering on-demand technology with this initiative. Our goal is to give customers the freedom to scale resources in ways that work best for them, so they can quickly respond to changes and focus less on IT and more on their business needs.”

Coming back to Project Apex, it is also available in preview for users. Among the first services being offered under Project Apex is the newly launched Dell’s storage-as-a-service, which offers on-premises scalable and elastic storage resources. The company plans on horizontal integration of other as-a-service offerings and vertical integration of SAP as-a-service as well as VDI offerings with Project Apex in the future. Overall, Dell plans on integrating its flexible on-demand pricing, multi-cloud management, and other plans into Project Apex.

Sam Grocott, the senior VP of Dell Technologies Business Units Marketing, stated, “we’re going to shift to everything as a service.” Talking about Project Apex, he also stated that the future will witness “a rolling thunder of releases up and down the portfolio.”

Lastly, other than the pivot to as-a-service strategy, the company also announced the launch of Dell Technologies Cloud Platform, which brings pre-configured instance-based offerings to users. The company also announced a managed cloud security solution called PowerProtect for Multi Cloud. It promises to use a special low-latency connection to safeguard data and application on public cloud environments.