Dell 'all over' SDN, CEO tells conference

Michael Dell tells delegates of his firm's love for SDN and end-to-end offerings. Jessica Meek reports

Dell has fully embraced software-defined networking (SDN), CEO Michael Dell told the Dell Security Peak Performance gathering in Orlando, Florida during his keynote address.

The audience, made up of security resellers and other providers, heard that the Round Rock, Texas firm is in full swing with open networking.

"We're all over software-defined storage [and] software-defined networking," Dell told delegates.

"The way I think about this is that virtualisation started in computers and if you think of all the Layer 3 through 7 services becoming essentially applications - they're virtualised and running a virtual machine. We've absolutely embraced this area [with] Big Switch Networks [and] Cumulus in the software-defined networking space."

He said the firm's whole networking portfolio is now embracing the notion of open networking. "We think it's going to take some time, but I think you're going to see these become mainstream much faster," he added.

The fact that systems like Microsoft Storage Spaces or VMWare VSAN are software means they work "extremely well" on Dell platforms, the CEO told the audience.

He added that such systems are very accessible to SMBs. "And because it's software, we can embrace them all," Dell (pictured) told delegates.

The mega-trend that is emerging is converged infrastructure, Dell said.

Whether that is private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud, or converging infrastructure making it easier to take the problem up to a higher level, it is becoming a lot easier with the right security, he added.

Delegates also heard Dell's recently hyped end-to-end strategy is in full throttle.

Just a week after Dell took to Twitter to take a swipe at HP for announcing it was splitting its business, he told delegates that end-to-end was what customers needed.

"If you look at the industry it's a bit simplistic but you can divide it up into hardware, software [and] services. Depending on a country's level of development or maturity, you might have a little more of this, a little less of that."

He pointed out that, for example, emerging markets have three times as much hardware and fewer software services than developed markets, which have much more in the way of software services.

This is an area where the firm saw that customers required more capabilities, he said.

"If we showed up and said 'hey, we've got this brand new, fantastic hardware and it's all integrated specs', the customer would then want to know how to manage it, how to integrate it, and how to secure it. The customer wanted more capability."

He pointed out that Dell has acquired around 40 companies and that those 40 companies have themselves acquired about 100 companies, adding significant capability to Dell's overall organisation.

"So we are now an organic engine and so we have this end-to-end capability from the hardware and the client datacentre to the software, to data protection, operation management security, EPO services, application development, and so on.

"We've been able to accelerate our growth rate materially. And what we have seen is the need to participate in the full spectrum," said Dell.