Effective Data Capital Creation Requires Scalable, Flexible Data Storage and Protection Infrastructure

White Paper Effective Data Capital Creation Requires Scalable, Flexible Data Storage and Protection Infrastructure

Sponsored by: Dell EMC and Intel Eric Burgener April 2019

IDC OPINION

As companies undergo digital transformation (DX), they are moving to new business models that recognize data as a key strategic asset to power applications and drive business decisions. To achieve this, it is necessary to transform the data that organizations collect and manage into a valuable capital asset referred to as "data capital." Traditional information technology (IT) infrastructure and workloads are not designed to drive data capital creation. The scale of data that must be captured, stored, protected, and made available for use, as well as the needs of the next-generation applications (NGAs) that IT organizations develop to drive data capital creation, goes beyond the capabilities of traditional infrastructure in the areas of performance, scalability, availability, flexibility, and manageability. To meet these more stringent requirements, most companies undertake an IT transformation (ITX) during their DX journey, modernizing infrastructure by updating primary storage, adding to or enhancing unstructured storage platforms, and investing in associated data protection.

There is a strong correlation between those organizations that emphasize security, automation, hybrid cloud, and the use of modern storage infrastructure and the ability to create and effectively leverage data capital to drive positive business results. Companies need to keep this in mind as they purchase new or refresh existing storage and data protection infrastructure because not all IT vendors offer an infrastructure portfolio that includes these capabilities. As a well-established, leading IT vendor with a broad storage and data protection portfolio, Dell EMC solutions powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors offer its customers the solutions and technologies that support efficient data capital creation.

IN THIS WHITE PAPER

The move to data-centric business models is geared to enable organizations to turn their data into data capital. Because of the more stringent performance, scalability, availability, flexibility, and management requirements of the data-centric model, these organizations must modernize their storage and data protection infrastructure through the process of IT transformation. This white paper defines data capital, describes how boosting data capital is a critical ingredient for competitive differentiation, and discusses the implications for data storage and data protection infrastructure. It then turns to an overview of the Dell EMC storage and data protection portfolio, exploring the benefits these solutions offer to organizations interested in crafting the most effective infrastructure to maximize the value of data capital.

April 2019, IDC #US45002519 SITUATION OVERVIEW

DX is the comprehensive transformation of business and organizational models to fully leverage evolving digital technologies and their impact across society in a strategic manner. DX is underway in most industries today, and modernized data storage and data protection infrastructure is a requirement for successful DX. With DX, the effective collection and use of data become critical to improving customer experience, defining new products and services, identifying new markets, uncovering business insights, and managing all aspects of the business. Digital platforms are a critical revenue source for many businesses, but even organizations that aren't using technology for direct revenue generation are digitizing internal processes to improve efficiency, save costs, and drive better overall business outcomes.

With DX, data becomes a key strategic resource. Successful companies will be the ones that can most effectively transform their data into data capital. Data capital is organizational wealth in the form of value derived from a company's data, and it is created by the realization that data is a capital asset. Data generates value when it is leveraged in workflows, powers applications, drives product and service delivery, and reveals insights through analytics. For these companies, the strategic nature of this data capital makes protecting data a paramount concern. There is a deluge of data expected over the next several years — IDC predicts that by 2025, the global datasphere (the amount of data captured per year) will grow to 163ZB (a zettabyte is a billion terabytes). Companies will be challenged to not only manage and protect data on this massive scale but also extract its value in a timely manner to turn it into data capital. The risk of failure is high.

The ability to manage, protect, and utilize data at this scale has significant implications for IT infrastructure. Requirements around performance, capacity expansion, availability, protection, ease of management, and cost are changing, and all of these will have to be managed at a scale that far exceeds what the typical IT organization is used to. Turning this wealth of data into data capital will drive the deployment of many NGAs specifically designed for this, which will put new demands on data storage and data protection infrastructure. DX is driving the need for ITX to meet new requirements, and that has significant implications for how IT organizations implement new IT infrastructure going forward. ITX Alters the IT Agenda Top motivators for ITX projects include the digitization of existing processes and workflows as well as the introduction of IT, cloud, and automation infrastructure that can better handle the scale and growth requirements of data capture, storage, and delivery; data protection; and big data and analytics. Security is in fact the most common project driving spending in IT infrastructure hardware (although not the biggest motivator of ITX projects). With the advent of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, and the changes that is expected to drive, compliance is another key concern and a challenge that becomes much greater as organizations collect and work with data on a massive scale.

Recent worldwide IDC research with Fortune 2000 companies across all vertical markets pinpoints the primary motivators of ITX projects (see Figure 1).

Making better use of cloud computing leads ITX project motivators, offering opportunities to streamline on-premises infrastructure, increase agility, and lower costs for certain workloads. Better enabling the use of data analytics and the business insights it can drive is the second most popular objective, and

▪ 49.2% of organizations have already deployed IoT technology, 30.2% are currently evaluating the technology, and 12.5% will consider IoT in the next 12 months. Among other uses, the better instrumentation that IoT provides for existing processes and workflows enables users to be more efficiently optimized as conditions evolve and can also drive lower costs for ongoing maintenance and resulting products and services. ▪ 32.2% of organizations have deployed workloads that leverage AI/ML, 34.1% are currently evaluating AI/ML, and 23.0% will consider using these technologies in the next 12 months. These methods not only allow organizations to better analyze and understand what has happened with the business in the past but also identify opportunities for improvements and provide a better ability to predict what will happen in the future. ▪ With real-time streaming analytics (which in many cases demands extremely high- performance storage infrastructure), 44.2% of organizations are using it today, 31.5% are evaluating it, and 18.2% will consider its use in the next 12 months. IDC has predicted that by 2020, 60–70% of the Fortune 2000 companies will have at least one real-time big data and analytics workload that they also consider mission critical to their business.

FIGURE 1

Primary Motivators in ITX Projects

Make better use of cloud computing 32.1% Better data analytics and insight 30.6% Automate IT service delivery 27.0% Improve operational processes 26.8% Improve personnel efficiency/productivity 26.5% Improve customer satisfaction 26.0% Improve business continuance/application availability 24.0% Reduce infrastructure costs 23.3% Improve agility/time to market for new projects 18.9% Standardize infrastructure reference architecture 17.1% Improve project time to market 16.8% Don't know 0.0%

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 (% of respondents) n = 1,040 Base = all respondents

Notes: This survey is managed by IDC's Quantitative Research Group. Data is weighted by country GDP.

Multiple responses were allowed.. Use caution when interpreting small sample sizes.

Source: IDC and Dell EMC's Data Protection for IT Transformation Survey, 2018

All of these changes are driving what data is collected and stored, how the data is protected, what types of applications are being developed, and what strategies and processes are put in place to turn the data into data capital. The infrastructure that is deployed to address performance, scalability, availability, and compliance requirements will have a substantial impact on an organization's ability to drive innovation. This change presents both a challenge and an opportunity for companies. Some companies will flourish, turning the influx of data into competitive differentiation. Others will be overwhelmed in a struggle to collect, store, protect, and transform that data into data capital and will miss out on opportunities to innovate and improve.

IDC studied the strategies, behaviors, and outcomes of organizations undergoing DX and ITX to understand the factors that lead to success and identified two distinct classes: thriving organizations ("thrivers") that have made the transition and shifted to data-driven decision making and struggling organizations ("survivors") that have been unable to successfully move to this new business model. The datacenter vision of thriver organizations emphasizes a focus on security, uses automation extensively to reduce management complexity and better enable scalability, leverages hybrid cloud strategies to reduce costs and improve agility, and consciously prepares their infrastructure for the future with the performance, availability, and functionality needed to drive data capital creation (see Figure 2).

FIGURE 2

How Thrivers Differ from Survivors Key Highlights: Thrivers Versus Survivors Thrivers: ➢ Enjoy operational costs that are 2.4x lower than Costs survivors.

Productivity ➢ Achieve 39% higher overall IT staff productivity.

➢ Develop and deliver new products and services Agility 46% faster.

➢ Demonstrate an ability to use data capital to drive higher revenue: they develop 74% more Sales Productivity deals and win 36% more deals.

Note: For more information, see Emerging Technology and Modern IT: The Key to Unlocking Your Data Capital (IDC white paper #US44402518, November 2018).

Source: IDC, 2018

Thrivers demonstrate a significantly stronger propensity to invest in modernized infrastructure as well, as shown in Figure 3.

Thrivers Lead by Far in Infrastructure Modernization Investments

46x more 50 likely 45

35 25x more 30 likely 23x more 25 likely 17x more 20 likely 11x more 15 likely 10

0 Software-defined Converged All-flash arrays Unstructured Modernized data storage infrastructure storage platforms protection

Thrivers increased propensity to invest in modernized infrastructure versus survivors Note: For more information, see Emerging Technology and Modern IT: The Key to Unlocking Your Data Capital (IDC white paper #US44402518, November 2018).

Source: IDC, 2018

The New Storage Realities for Digitally Transformed Organizations Historically, most companies used structured data to run their organizations, and data was used reactively rather than proactively to primarily determine what "had" happened (revenue growth or shifts, profiling existing customers, determining most profitable product lines, etc.). Data sets were relatively small and static, data was generally not widely shared even within organizations, and only a small percentage of applications were considered "mission critical" to the business. In the era of DX, all of that is changing, and these new market conditions are driving the need for a modernized storage infrastructure:

▪ Organizations are collecting and retaining at least 10x (if not 100x) more data than they were just a few short years ago. Applications, IT infrastructure, internal processes, and capital equipment are much more deeply instrumented using IoT technologies, and data is captured much more granularly and retained for much longer periods of time. Data is growing faster than ever before, demanding new capabilities not only to capture and store all of this data but also to distribute it while meeting security and privacy requirements, analyze it, make it recoverable, and ultimately turn it into insights that drive better products, services, and

©2019 IDC #US45002519 5 business decisions (i.e., data capital). Storage platform scalability must evolve from supporting hundreds of terabytes to supporting tens of petabytes over time. ▪ Many new NGAs are being developed to help transform data into data capital, and these workloads demand very different capabilities from the storage infrastructure. Performance requirements include the ability to deliver predictably consistent low latency under load, scaling throughput and bandwidth well beyond the capabilities of traditional storage infrastructure. Storage systems will need to be able to support newer storage technologies like NVMe, NVMe over Fabric, and storage-class memory as options. Many NGAs are also very well suited for scale-out, software-defined storage designs that offer simpler scalability and lower cost than more traditional array architectures. ▪ The type of data that organizations must store is changing. Historically, structured (i.e., block- based) data, housed in relational databases like Oracle and SQL Server, made up an organization's most important data. While most companies still heavily depend on these applications, most of the data being collected now and that will be collected going forward will be unstructured (i.e., file and object based). For efficiency and scalability reasons, this data will be stored using methods other than relational databases. Organizations now have to focus on building a storage infrastructure that can effectively handle all of these different data types (images, graphics, audio, video, logs and other sensor [IoT]-based data, etc.) as well as the text-based data that still drives many mission-critical workloads. ▪ As organizations undergo ITX, their businesses come to depend more on the services that IT delivers. Application availability requirements are on the rise, and the data protection and recovery methods that were effective with smaller, more static, and less distributed and demanding data sets cannot cost effectively meet evolving service-level agreements. Today, 42.2% of IT organizations define 26%+ of their workloads as mission critical (which for 76% of organizations means less than an hour of downtime per year). This stands in stark contrast to where most businesses were just five years ago. ▪ Moving organizations toward data-centric business models will change the mindsets around how data is used. Big data and analytics creates an ability to use data to better predict what "will" happen rather than just analyze what "has" happened. Predictive analytics will require IT and line-of-business groups to work more collaboratively than ever before to determine what type of predictions are of most interest to the organizations and what types of data need to be collected to inform those. This will drive broader sharing of data, not only within organizations but also with relevant constituencies outside them, and with privacy concerns on the rise, security requirements are becoming increasingly stringent. In meeting these requirements, IT organizations will need to deploy highly scalable infrastructure and consider a variety of new storage technologies and platform types, including all-flash arrays (AFAs); software-defined storage; scale-out architectures; block-, file-, and object-based platforms (as well as multiprotocol unified storage); emerging solid state storage offerings (e.g., NVMe, NVMe over Fabric, and storage-class memory); and cloud-based storage options. Data Protection Considerations for Digitally Transformed Organizations For organizations undergoing DX, the cost of downtime is on the rise. In response, IT management is updating data protection infrastructure to minimize data loss, shorten recovery times, incorporate cloud to lower the costs of disaster recovery, and better automate related operations. Recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO), which measure data loss exposure on failure (RPO) and recovery time (RTO), respectively, are used by 60.3% of organizations, making them the most popular metrics to manage availability to service-level agreement requirements. For their mission-critical workloads, 58.9% of organizations now manage an RPO of under an hour and 39.6%

©2019 IDC #US45002519 6 of organizations manage an RTO of under 30 minutes. 47.7% of organizations now have an hourly cost of downtime that is $10,000+ per workload when failures impact relevant infrastructure (see Figure 4).

FIGURE 4

Cost of Downtime in Today's IT Organizations Q. What is the average hourly cost of downtime for workloads in your highest availability tier?

We do not measure this 6.1%

Less than $1,000 per hour 6.7%

$1,000 to $4,999 per hour 18.2%

$5,000 to $9,999 per hour 20.7%

$10,000 to $24,999 per hour 18.4%

$25,000 to $99,999 per hour 17.0%

$100,000 to $249,999 per hour 9.2%

$250,000 to $499,999 per hour 1.7%

$500,000 or more per hour 1.4%

Don't know 0.6%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% (% of respondents) n = 358 Base = all respondents

Notes: This survey is managed by IDC's Quantitative Research Group. Data is not weighted.

Use caution when interpreting small sample sizes.

Source: IDC's Server and Storage Infrastructure Availability Survey, 2018

The high cost of downtime is why so many IT organizations invest to improve data protection as part of infrastructure modernization efforts. 48.5% of ITX projects involve data protection changes and improvements designed to enhance data access and availability significantly, and data protection infrastructure drives a significant portion of ITX spend. For the typical organization undergoing ITX, almost one-third (31.1%) of the overall ITX budget is dedicated to data protection. With storage performance requirements on the rise in the data-centric era, data protection solutions must be able to provide backup and recovery options that do not impact production operations; can handle the much larger scale; are able to efficiently capture, retain, and recover many different data types; and provide the flexibility to meet stringent RPOs, RTOs, and cost objectives. Technologies organizations should look for as they modernize data protection infrastructure include data reduction features like compression and deduplication, snapshots, application-aware backup, replication, data tiering, cloud integration, backup automation, recovery flexibility, and acceleration options (to help speed backup and/or recovery), as well as an ability to support physical, virtual, and container-based workloads.

©2019 IDC #US45002519 7 The Dell EMC Storage and Data Protection Infrastructure Portfolio Powered by Intel Dell EMC is a $90 billion provider of IT infrastructure, offering solutions that incorporate a variety of server, storage, data protection, and networking technologies. Dell EMC is the market share leader by revenue in enterprise storage infrastructure with an extensive portfolio of products that cover a broad range of data storage and data protection requirements, and it is an industry leader in data protection solutions as well. Dell EMC offers storage platforms powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors for all the critical data types — block, file, and object — and backs them with a worldwide support organization that has been proven across hundreds of thousands of customers. Data protection solutions span data protection appliances as well as data protection and backup software. With significant experience on ITX projects across many industries, Dell EMC brings not only hardware and software products but also extensive integration and professional services to help customers achieve their DX, ITX, and data capital creation objectives. Dell EMC Enterprise Storage Platforms Dell EMC's storage portfolio includes a range of enterprise-class platforms that give organizations the freedom to choose the right blend of technologies and architectures to meet workload-specific requirements. All-flash systems are available across the product line, including the flagship NVMe- based PowerMax, the XtremIO X2 for virtual server and desktop environments, the massively scalable scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) Isilon, the value-priced unified storage Dell EMC Unity XT, the self-optimizing SC Series, and the entry-level PowerVault storage. The Dell EMC PowerMax and XtremIO X2 are only available in all-flash configurations, but hybrid flash and hard disk drive (HDD)- only options for the other platforms provide choice for those customers looking to optimize for low cost that don't need the performance of all flash. Hyperconverged offerings give customers the opportunity to use different hypervisor technologies, and the product line is rounded out by scale-out object platforms, based on Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS), and private cloud solutions based on VMware technology (Virtustream). Converged infrastructure offerings that leverage a variety of different Dell EMC storage options are also available. The Dell EMC storage portfolio is supported by Intel Xeon Scalable processors.

Multiprotocol support is featured across many of the systems for flexibility, but Dell EMC also offers platforms that are specifically optimized for certain protocols (e.g., XtremIO X2 for block, Isilon for file, and ECS for object). Multicloud integration is an important feature across the product line, with many systems supporting cloud-based tiering options, and some of the products (like Dell EMC Unity XT) come bundled with private cloud storage at no extra charge.

Key highlights from the Dell EMC storage portfolio are:

▪ Dell EMC PowerMax is the vendor's high-end all-flash storage array targeted for general- purpose mixed workload consolidation. Dell EMC PowerMax, powered by Intel Xeon multicore CPUs and Intel dual-port Optane technology, boasts up to 10 million IOPS, 4PB of effective capacity, 150GBps of sustained bandwidth, and sub-300 microsecond latencies under load. It offers an extensive set of mature, proven enterprise-class data services (including global inline compression and deduplication) and can support up to "six-nines" of availability (using stretch clusters). Designed around a multicontroller, active/active scale-out architecture, PowerMax features end-to-end NVMe technology in the array and is NVMe over Fabric and storage-class memory ready. The system also offers multiprotocol support for block, file (NFS and SMB), mainframe, and IBM i Series workloads.

©2019 IDC #US45002519 8 ▪ Dell EMC Isilon is a scale-out network-attached storage platform powered by Intel Pentium and Xeon Scalable processors that supports massive scalability and performance for unstructured (file-based) workloads. Available in all-flash, hybrid flash, and archive (HDD-only) nodes that can be mixed and matched as needed within a single cluster under a global namespace, it delivers up to 9 million IOPS, tens of petabytes of capacity (depending on node choices), and 540Gbps of bandwidth. Designed to be simple to manage and highly efficient with up to 80% storage utilization, it provides the operational flexibility to support a wide variety of file workloads including NFS, SMB, HTTP, FTP, and HDFS. Isilon also offers a wealth of features, including configurable levels of resiliency, automated storage tiering, robust security options, and inline data reduction (compression and deduplication). ▪ Dell EMC Unity XT is targeted for customers requiring a flash-optimized, unified storage solution powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors that emphasizes performance, storage life-cycle simplicity, and affordability. With simultaneous support for block, file, and VMware Virtual Volumes storage, the system is available in all-flash and hybrid flash configurations across four models, as well as a software-defined solution, and features a host of bundled, enterprise-class data services (including inline compression and deduplication for a data reduction ratio of up to 5:1, snapshots, encryption, and replication) that make these environments performant, highly available, secure, and easy to manage. Designed around an NVMe-ready dual-controller, active/active architecture, the Unity XT family features 12Gb SAS and scales to support almost 10PB of raw capacity. IDC's primary research in late 2018 indicated a strong return-on-investment (ROI) justification for deployed Dell EMC flash-based primary storage. For that study, IDC undertook seven in-depth interviews with end-user companies that had made the switch to Dell EMC all-flash storage. The results were impressive. On average, interviewed customers enjoyed $1.3 million of additional revenue per 100TB deployed, experienced a 331% three-year ROI, achieved 43% better performance, reduced the cost of primary storage operations by 32%, and realized 62% less unplanned downtime. To read the full IDC study, see The Business Value of Dell EMC Flash Storage (IDC white paper #US44229718, September 2018). Dell EMC Data Protection Solutions The ability to capture, store, and use data is only part of the challenge of creating data capital. As a capital asset, that data must also be protected and easily recoverable to meet relevant service-level agreements like recovery point objectives, recovery time objectives, and specific uptime requirements. Dell EMC offers a broad data protection portfolio, including the Data Domain appliance families, the Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA) family, and the new PowerProtect appliance, as well as PowerProtect Software and the Data Protection Suite (DPS), to provide a range of backup, recovery, and data management options for heterogeneous enterprises, midsize organizations, and remote offices (ROBOs). The Dell EMC Data Domain, IDPA, and PowerProtect X400 Appliance are powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors.

Dell EMC Data Protection and Backup Appliances ▪ Dell EMC PowerProtect X400 Appliance. The Dell EMC PowerProtect X400 Appliance provides a pre-integrated data management solution for data protection, replication, and reuse. The appliance, featuring Intel Xeon Scalable processors, is multidimensional with both scale-up and scale-out expansion, making it a good fit for environments with unpredictably high data growth. Available in both hybrid and all-flash options, PowerProtect X400 provides multiple levels of performance and initially supports usable capacity from 64TB to 448TB. The

©2019 IDC #US45002519 9 PowerProtect X400 leverages a next-generation data management platform with the integration of Dell EMC PowerProtect Software. ▪ Dell EMC Integrated Data Protection Appliance. The Dell EMC IDPA, powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors, provides a pre-integrated, flash-accelerated, turnkey data protection solution targeted for mission-critical and other workloads. The IDPA's strengths are simple management, easy capacity scalability, lowest cost to protect, and fast deployment — the system can be deployed up to 10x faster than more traditional multivendor solutions. The IDPA supports extensive monitoring, workflow automation, backup reporting, and analytics, along with built-in search that speeds and simplifies file-level recovery and helps optimize data protection operations. The system also supports extensive native cloud tiering and cloud disaster recovery capabilities. Configurations start as small as 8TB and can grow up to 1PB of usable capacity in a single appliance. ▪ Dell EMC Data Domain appliances. Dell EMC Data Domain appliances, featuring Intel Xeon Scalable processors, provide high-performance backup targets supporting a variety of different access methods and can be used to back up and recover the entire enterprise as well as protect archive data. Data is compressed and deduplicated prior to storing it, with data reduction ratios of up to 55:1 on average, resulting in significant cost savings. The Data Domain Data Invulnerability Architecture goes to extreme lengths to ensure that data is stored efficiently, protected at rest, and always accurate and recoverable. Data Domain appliances are also cloud enabled with native support for cloud tiering for long-term retention to public, private, and hybrid clouds (Amazon Web Services [AWS], Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba Cloud, Virtustream, and Dell ECS, among others). Built around a scale-up design, Data Domain is available in five different models, ranging from an entry-level 4TB usable capacity system to a 1PB usable capacity system, offering customers options to select the model that best fits their performance, scalability, and cost requirements. In addition, the Data Domain Virtual Edition (DD VE) provides software-defined data protection that scales up to 96TB usable capacity and can be deployed on-premises and/or in the public clouds (Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, AWS GovCloud, and Azure Government Cloud, among others). Dell EMC Data Protection and Backup Software ▪ Dell EMC PowerProtect Software is Dell EMC's next-generation data management platform. PowerProtect is software defined with built-in data reduction, offers self-service operations for application and data managers that conform to IT governance requirements, is multicloud optimized with built-in private and public cloud tiering options and disaster recovery, and leverages a new, modern services-based architecture that enables new features to be added by Dell EMC much more quickly than traditional software development methodologies allow, resulting in a seamless user experience. PowerProtect Software is a new distributed software platform that features extensive VMware integration, supports replication and application- aware backup, and provides excellent options for data reuse with high-performance, instant- access technology. ▪ Dell EMC Data Protection Suite delivers a comprehensive range of data protection software, offering significant flexibility in how data is protected and recovered. It protects using technologies ranging from snapshots to replication to backup to archive, featuring Dell EMC's proven data protection solutions including Avamar, NetWorker, Data Protection Advisor, RecoverPoint for VMs, and the new PowerProtect Software. IDC's primary research in late 2018 indicated a strong ROI justification for deploying Dell EMC Data Protection solutions. For that study, IDC surveyed 1,000 medium-sized and large organizations worldwide and then followed that up with a series of 16 in-depth interviews with end-user companies

©2019 IDC #US45002519 10 that had made the switch to Dell EMC Data Protection solutions. The results were impressive. On average, interviewed customers experienced a 225% five-year ROI, realized a 50% lower cost of data protection operations, enjoyed a 33% improved frequency of backup resulting in lower RPOs, achieved a 71% faster data recovery window, and improved the efficiency of data protection operations by 45%. To read the full IDC study, see The Business Value of Data Protection in IT Transformation (IDC white paper #US44241418, September 2018). Dell EMC Converged Infrastructure Solutions Converged infrastructure solutions are also available featuring preconfigured, rack-mounted systems that include server, storage, networking, data protection, and virtualization, available under a single SKU from Dell EMC. An integrated management interface provides comprehensive, unified administration for all components plus integration with VMware tools for a cloud operating model. These systems have become popular because they are easy to order, prevalidated to work together, fast and simple to deploy, and provide streamlined life-cycle management and support processes. Dell EMC draws upon its server, storage, and software-defined datacenter technology and expertise to create converged infrastructure solutions that can also include Cisco and/or VMware networking technology.

Dell EMC's converged infrastructure offerings include a variety of different configurations targeted for different customer requirements. Dell EMC VxBlock Systems offer block- and/or file-based storage that can be used with all types of workloads. Storage options in VxBlock systems include Dell EMC PowerMax, Dell EMC XtremIO X2, Dell EMC Unity XT, and Dell EMC Isilon, as well as a broad suite of Dell EMC Data Protection solutions. Dell EMC VxRack systems offer software-defined storage options built around Dell EMC's VxFlex OS, a block-based scale-out solution that can be deployed in either a hyperconverged infrastructure or a disaggregated mode. And for customers working in artificial intelligence and machine learning environments, Dell EMC offers the Dell EMC Machine and Deep Learning Ready Bundles, which feature Dell PowerEdge Servers, NVIDIA GPUs, and either Dell EMC PowerMax or Isilon storage. All converged infrastructure solutions mentioned are powered by Intel processors. Dell EMC Future-Proof Loyalty Program Dell EMC offers blanket coverage across all of its platforms that goes beyond just support. The Dell EMC Future-Proof Loyalty Program offers a customer experience advantage that delivers real value to end-user customers. Bundled with standard maintenance contracts, this program includes a three-year satisfaction guarantee, storage efficiency (i.e., data reduction) guarantee, inclusive software bundling at no extra charge, a nondisruptive data migration guarantee, hardware investment protection through trade-in credits, and guaranteed fixed maintenance costs (at a component level) for the life of the storage platform. Some platforms, like the Dell EMC Unity XT, also include bundled cloud storage capacity on Virtustream Enterprise Cloud.

Programs like Dell EMC's Future-Proof Loyalty Program are instrumental in improving the customer experience. They lower costs relative to traditional approaches, offer peace of mind around transitions like technology refresh, and provide a more positive and more predictable customer experience at all stages of the storage life cycle. IDC has recommended to IT organizations that they look for programs of this nature, since they clearly offer better value to customers for on-premises infrastructure than more traditional "maintenance only" programs.

As organizations undergo DX and modernize existing infrastructure, end users need to stay focused on enabling the IT agility necessary to cost effectively accommodate more dynamic, data-centric business models. Organizations will need to determine if they want to keep block-, file-, and/or object- based workloads on separate platforms or consolidate them onto multiprotocol platforms. Key multitenant management features will be required to ensure that consolidation can be safely pursued without putting workload performance, availability, security, and scalability at risk. It will also be important for platforms to support newer storage technologies like NVMe over Fabric and storage- class memory, making it easier to add these if and when their performance is required. Most customers will need at least several types of storage platforms to meet ITX requirements. Storage vendors that offer a comprehensive portfolio of storage options can help simplify the purchase process and reduce vendor management overhead.

The thriver organizations identified by IDC have shown the value organizations can reap by creating and using data capital. They have demonstrated the relationship between ITX and leveraging modern technologies like software-defined storage, converged infrastructure, AFAs, unstructured storage platforms, and new data protection solutions, as well as the ability to create data capital. CIOs would also do well to take note that successful thriver organizations emphasize a focus on security, automation, hybrid cloud, and agility as they evolve their IT infrastructure over time.

CONCLUSION

The DX journey is underway in most IT organizations today, with the end objective of moving their companies to new, more data-centric business models that leverage data capital to service customers, optimize workflows and processes, rapidly identify and respond to changing market conditions, and uncover business insights to drive better business decisions. Data capital creation demands levels of performance, scalability, availability, protection, and recovery in the storage and data protection infrastructure that transcend the capabilities of legacy designs. ITX means infrastructure modernization, but for those organizations successfully pursuing it, ITX also means a heightened focus on security, automation, hybrid cloud, and agility as strategic objectives.

With its broad portfolio of primary and unstructured storage, data protection, and converged infrastructure platforms, Dell EMC and Intel offer modernized solutions that support the creation and use of data capital for companies of all sizes. Extensive primary research done by IDC has proven the value of data capital in successful thriver organizations that have digitally transformed their business, as well as the high financial value that modernizing IT infrastructure around Dell EMC technologies delivers. Whether it's on technology refresh or when standing up NGAs to directly support DX, IT organizations can look to Dell EMC and Intel to help them implement the type of modernized infrastructure required to drive the data capital creation and use that are necessary to become a successful thriver organization in this new, much more data-centric world.

Message from the Sponsors

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To learn more about Intel Enterprise Solutions, go to www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/business/overview.html

©2019 IDC #US45002519 13 About IDC International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact- based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,100 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For 50 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company.

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