Dell Technologies expands AI Innovations at the Edge and Cybersecurity, plus advancements in AI Factory with NVIDIA

As enterprises look to adopt more AI use cases, Dell Technologies has made adoption easier with the Dell AI Factory.

Dell Technologies has made a series of AI innovations announcements in its portfolio over the past week. These announcements indicate the continued innovation Dell is championing in providing customers with better AI capabilities to not only improve productivity and efficiency but also prepare them for better AI deployments.

When it comes to AI, the Edge represents one of the core areas that organizations want to deploy, scale and use. Dell Technologies addressed this with the Dell NativeEdge operations software platform. The platform, which simplifies how organizations can deploy, scale and use AI at the edge is the industry’s only edge operations software platform that delivers secure device onboarding at scale, remote management and multi-cloud application orchestration.

Dell has now announced multinode high-availability (HA) clustering for NativeEdge Endpoints, such as Dell PowerEdge servers, OptiPlex and Precision workstations and Dell Gateways. According to Dell, the clustering by Native Edge will enable endpoints to act like a single system so organizations will be able to provide high-availability capabilities to maintain critical business processes and edge AI workloads, despite network disruptions or device failures. Organizations can also easily adapt to changing workload demands across diverse environments, from retail stores to utility companies.

Moreover, organizations are able to integrate NativeEdge Endpoints with external storage solutions, such as Dell PowerStore and Dell PowerVault. This supports the training and deployment of AI models with the versatility of single, two-tier or three-tier solutions at the edge.

According to Gil Shneorson, senior vice president, solutions and platforms at Dell Technologies, AI is accelerating new edge workloads and opportunities at an unprecedented rate, and organizations across industries are asking for simpler and more reliable ways to use AI at the edge.

“Our NativeEdge expansion automates the deployment and management of edge AI workloads, with features to support business continuity, so organizations can continually use the latest AI advancements at the edge to drive revenues and positive customer outcomes,” said Shneorson.

Dell is also offering a comprehensive catalogue of more than 55 pre-built Dell NativeEdge Blueprints that automate the deployment of an organization’s choice of AI applications and frameworks for faster time to value. Implementing AI inferencing at the edge is regarded as one of the most tedious and time-consuming processes to deploy AI applications and solutions across edge locations by organizations. NativeEdge Blueprints provide customers an easy button to assemble and deploy new use cases and AI inferencing capabilities at the edge, while reducing manual set up time and errors.

The Dell NativeEdge advancements will be available by January 2025 and Dell NativeEdge customers can purchase and activate NVIDIA AI Enterprise licenses for NVIDIA GPUs directly from Dell to simplify NativeEdge deployment and support.

Strengthening cybersecurity strategies for Microsoft customers

AI in cybersecurity continues to see innovations simplify cybersecurity processes. However, cybercriminals are also now leveraging AI to launch more sophisticated cyberattacks, especially with more businesses relying on the cloud for to run their workloads and such.

Given these challenges, Dell Technologies introduces AI innovations that help Dell and Microsoft customers simplify AI adoption, speed deployment and power demanding workloads in multi-cloud environments. Data protection, cyber resiliency and security advancements help joint customers strengthen their cybersecurity posture.

For Arthur Lewis, president, Infrastructure Solutions Group at Dell Technologies, as organizations modernize their IT strategies to support emerging workloads, like AI, they need solutions that help them innovate faster, control costs and protect data across multi-cloud environments.

“Our storage software, data protection and services advancements help customers in Microsoft environments accelerate their transformation efforts quickly and securely,” said Lewis.

Dell APEX File Storage for Microsoft Azure will soon offer a Dell-managed option for organizations seeking a simplified deployment and management experience. Customers can easily meet the needs of AI workloads in multi-cloud environments using the enterprise-class performance, scalability and data services of Dell PowerScale. The service delivers burst capacity for performance-intensive AI workloads, reduced management complexity and faster time-to date-driven insights by native integration with Microsoft AI tools.

At the same time, Dell is introducing new services designed to help organizations simplify AI adoption and create custom AI solutions. These include accelerator services for Copilot+ PCs, services for Microsoft Copilot Studio and Azure AI Studio as well as implementation services for Microsoft Azure AI Service.

For data protection, Dell APEX Protection Services for Microsoft Azure will deliver Dell-managed, AI-powered cloud data protection and cyber resiliency across edge locations, remote offices and data centers. The service improves operational efficiency and resource usage while ensuring robust data protection using advanced data reduction capabilities.

Apart from this, Dell has also introduced new security services for Microsoft environments. The first is the Advisory Services for Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) for Microsoft. This helps customers align their cybersecurity posture with CMMC guidelines through specific recommendations for Microsoft solutions. The other is Managed Detection and Response with Microsoft that allows customers to focus on their core business while Dell experts monitor, detect, investigate and respond to threats 24/7 across their IT environment.

The Dell AI Factory

As enterprises look to adopt more AI use cases, Dell Technologies has made adoption easier with the Dell AI Factory. The Dell AI Factory helps businesses accelerate AI innovation by offering a portfolio of products, solutions and services tailored for AI workloads and designed for fast, repeatable outcomes.

Versatility is at the core for the AI factory as it allows operation across various environments, be it cloud, data centers, workstations, AI PCs or edge locations. Looking at the infrastructure, the Dell Integrated Rack Scalable Systems (IRSS) program is a turnkey factory integration program that delivers fully loaded, plug-and-play rack-scale systems with Dell Smart Cooling.

To ensure maximum energy efficiency, Dell has expanded the program to include the Dell PowerEdge XE9685L (pictured below) and Dell PowerEdge XE7740 servers in the standard 19-inch Dell Integrated Rack 5000 (IR5000). The Dell IR5000 is designed for high-density applications in a space-efficient form factor and delivers high performance without compromising energy efficiency.

The Dell PowerEdge XE9685L is a dense, 4U liquid-cooled server designed for AI, machine learning, high performance computing (HPC) and other data-intensive workloads. On the other hand, the 4U air-cooled Dell PowerEdge XE7740 allows enterprises to right-size their server configuration for the workload at hand, from fine-tuning or inferencing generative AI models, to extracting value from large datasets. Both servers run on NVIDIA’s HGX 200 and H200 respectively.

At the same time, Dell is also planning to support NVIDIA’s upcoming GB200 Grace Blackwell NVL4 Superchip with a new Dell PowerEdge XE server designed for the Dell IR7000. This new integration will be supporting up to 144 GPUs per rack in a 50OU standard rack. The IR7000 rack supports large-scale high-performance computing (HPC) and AI workloads requiring high power and liquid cooling with the ability for near 100% heat capture.

The partnership with NVIDIA for Dell AI Factory delivers accelerated performance and reduced time-to-outcomes for AI operations and use case deployment. Apart from that, the Dell Agentic RAG with NVIDIA, which is part of the Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA, allows customers to perform complex queries and accelerate their retrieval augmented generation (RAG) operations.

For developers, the Dell Validated Designs for AI PCs are open-source guides designed to boost the development of AI applications on Dell AI PCs with NPU technology. This enables developers to easily customize the modular designs to integrate features like LLMs, vision, text and speech into applications. The AI applications can be deployed across multiple platforms, regardless of silicon. Businesses can automate routine processes, save time, reduce costs and improve data security with on-device AI through this scalable approach.