Interaction - Teja Manakame, Vice President, IT, Dell Technologies

Teja Manakame, Vice President, IT, Dell Technologies talks to us about AI, Multi-Cloud and as-a-service models.

About emergence and importance of as-a-service model

Teja Manakame - Enterprises and IT leaders today require technology solutions that make work easier, offer the most flexibility and scalability, and empower them to run their business on their terms.  Need for agility been more profound than in the past years as rapidly changing dynamics forced organizations to quickly adapt. Enterprises have increasingly turned to as-a-Service models to gain the agility and cost predictability required to stay competitive and scale quickly.

One of the main advantages of as-a-service model is that it allows companies to experiment, reduce their capital expenditures and shift to a more predictable, operating expense-based model. This can help businesses better manage their cash flow and reduce the risk of investing in technology that may become obsolete quickly.

Dell Technologies has earlier launched Project APEX, a breakthrough portfolio of as-a-Service offerings that simplifies digital transformation by increasing IT agility and control. Apex helps unlock the full promise of multicloud by design and unleash innovation, providing you with the public cloud agility you expect and the private cloud control you need. APEX is a radically simplified technology experience, delivering as-a-Service infrastructure wherever it is needed. Building on Dell’s IT as-a-Service expertise, Dell Technologies APEX reduces the time and complexity of acquiring, managing, maintaining, and servicing physical IT infrastructure. Customers can scale IT as needed to launch new applications, kickstart new projects, and address the changing needs of their organizations – all managed by Dell and accessed through a single console. We are focused on what we can control – execution, relative performance, prudent cost management and delivering for customers.

How do Smart technologies like IoT, Multi-Cloud, edge, AI/ML help in business acceleration?

Teja Manakame - Emerging technologies like IoT, AI/ML, Edge help industries re-evaluate their current business models and processes to make them more efficient, innovative, and cost effective.

• The Edge is a crucial component in achieving these goals, as it is changing how people and machines interact with digital systems. By processing data closer to where it is generated, the Edge enables new experiences, increases efficiency, and improves control for businesses. As the world becomes more connected and IoT, AI/ML becomes more prevalent, the Edge provides a significant opportunity for businesses to create new value.  
• AI and ML is becoming mainstream as companies seek to take advantage of the benefits these technologies offer, especially around automation. Use of AI/ML increases efficiency and operational productivity.  At Dell, we have been exploring this field and currently have multiple projects and products focused on using AI to improve our business. We are observing similar patterns among our customers, and in coming years, we expect to see more usage of Generative AI.
• We are also focused on helping our customers navigate the rapidly changing landscape of Multi-Cloud environment and take advantage of the opportunities it presents. As data-driven outcomes become more important, we see a growing need for multi-cloud services that can help companies leverage the best of different cloud providers. With a strong track record of delivering innovative solutions, Dell is well-poised to help customers navigate the multi-cloud world.

Considering the accelerated pace of digital transformation, a data-first, data-anywhere business model is required to capitalize on the opportunities in front of us. These technologies are also driving the need for specialized infrastructure to handle resource-intensive workloads, and at Dell, we are well-positioned to meet this need with our advanced servers and storage solutions.

How have AI and Multi-Cloud evolved in last 1 year to help each other's growth?

Teja Manakame - The biggest business opportunity for enterprises today lies in harnessing data for business insights to gain a competitive edge. At the same time, the data landscape is more distributed and fragmented than ever. Data is spread out across multiple environments including on-premises and various public clouds, thus complicating the ability to access and process data efficiently. Enterprises require solutions that enable a multicloud data strategy by design. That means leveraging data wherever it is stored, across clouds, with a consistent management, security, and governance experience to build analytical and AI/ML-based workloads.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation are dramatically reshaping industries and reinventing the future. AI allows organizations to improve productivity, reduce risk, move faster, gain deeper insights and value from their data. The right file structure is critical for collecting and storing bulky, unstructured datasets, such as those processed by artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics, streaming content services, high-throughput imaging, real-time language processing, write-intensive content creation, and other modern workloads. Multi-Cloud Data Services frees organizations from system management while delivering the benefits of enterprise-grade data security, performance, capacity, replication, and availability in the public cloud. With this, organizations can easily leverage multiple clouds of their choice and switch among them all at any time based on the application’s needs, maximizing the security, resiliency, and control of the organization’s cloud data.

At Dell, we store and process a large amount of the world’s data on our systems. We work together with our customers across the globe every day to accelerate time to value from their data. Dell is building an open ecosystem of partners who together can help address next-gen challenges in data management.

What is the rate of adoption of AI and Multi-Cloud across India in metro and non-metro locations and in large and medium enterprises?

Teja Manakame - Businesses and organizations have varying needs that influence their IT strategies, but they all share common goals of reducing costs, increasing flexibility, and creating new value. For organizations of all sizes, small to large, it is paramount for business success, more than ever before, that their data is protected and that they can easily leverage cloud for flexibility, agility, and economics. The utilization of AI and ML is becoming more widespread as companies seek to take advantage of the benefits these technologies offer.  Startups, Government’s and enterprises of all sizes are leveraging AI and ML to optimise their data analytics and draw insights which is core to any business.  These technologies help users engage in a conversation with an AI-powered systems to initiate and complete transactions in a safe and efficient manner. The rate of adoption is rapidly growing across all industries irrespective of the location. This is mainly because these technologies are provided as-a-service web based solutions, making it accessible to all.
At Dell, we have been leveraging this field and currently have multiple projects and products focused on using AI to improve our business. We are observing similar patterns among our customers as well.

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