Dell NativeEdge remodels its Edge Operations

Dell Technologies presents Dell NativeEdge, an innovative software platform for edge operations. It is aimed at assisting businesses in optimizing and simplifying secure edge deployments. With this cutting-edge solution, customers can seamlessly manage and enhance operations across numerous devices and locations, spanning from the edge to core data centers and multiple cloud environments.

Realizing the Potential of Project Frontier: Introducing Dell NativeEdge, the Sole Edge Operations Software Platform Offering Scalable Secure Device Onboarding, Remote Management, and Multi-Cloud Application Orchestration

Dell NativeEdge stands out as the sole software platform in the industry that fulfills the vision of Project Frontier. It enables secure device onboarding at scale, remote management, and multi-cloud application orchestration, delivering on its promise. Purposefully designed to cater to diverse enterprise edge use cases, the platform ensures zero-touch deployment and boasts an open system design that seamlessly integrates with various hardware options available within Dell's comprehensive portfolio. With built-in Zero Trust capabilities, Dell NativeEdge effectively mitigates security risks by safeguarding customers' applications and infrastructure.

“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.”

“At the edge, CIOs can rapidly act on insights extracted from the vast amounts of data they have access to. Depending on how significant a role new-age technologies like IoT, AI, and automation play in operations, businesses will require efficient data management at the edge for their growth,” said Manish Gupta, Vice President, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies India. “The NativeEdge platform will add mileage to the edge computing revolution which is underway. We expect our solutions to change the way businesses operate at the edge, transforming outcomes and driving digital transformation,” he added.

“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

Take, for instance, a large manufacturer aiming to automate packaging and shipping processes across multiple factory sites spanning different regions. This endeavor entails connecting a multitude of technologies, such as IoT, streaming data, and machine vision, which necessitates dedicated devices to support numerous software applications across various locations.

Traditionally, testing and deploying the required infrastructure to run these applications could take months. However, by leveraging the power of Dell NativeEdge, the manufacturer can consolidate its technology stacks by leveraging existing investments. It significantly reduces the deployment time for edge assets and applications from months to weeks. 

With the platform's automation capabilities, edge operations are streamlined, enabling the manufacturer to swiftly and securely introduce new applications to all sites from a centralized location.

A Dell study1 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 nearly 250% 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 in 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 enhances its retail edge offerings by introducing the Dell Validated Design for Retail Edge, in collaboration with InVia Robotics' intelligent automation. Addressing the increased costs faced by retailers due to online ordering and curbside delivery; this solution optimizes last-mile processes by transforming existing warehouse and retail spaces into micro-fulfillment centers. By leveraging user-friendly technology at retail locations, retailers can empower their employees with improved pathfinding and order-picking capabilities; resulting in enhanced order fulfillment times and worker productivity across multiple retail locations.

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 can combine the Dell PowerEdge XR4000 server integrated with their choice in unified management. They deploy the solution to VMware Edge Compute Stack or Microsoft Azure environments. 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; 2 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

It 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

It is a scalable, open source-based networking operating system on Dell switches, that extends additional data center network features to edge deployments, including User Container Support (UCS) and streaming telemetry that provides 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 the lifecycle management of the network fabric and avoid vendor lock-in.

Dell ProDeploy Flex

It's 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. It delivers integrated edge infrastructure solutions to customers.

Vandana Singh, senior vice president of Secure Power North America, Schneider Electric, stated,“Dell Technologies and Schneider Electric’s decades-long relationship. It has provided customers with innovative solutions to solve their greatest IT challenges in a smart and secure, always-on, and managed fashion,” She further added, “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, of 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 center or cloud.”