This week Dell Tech World is being held in Las Vegas. The Day One news was all about cloud. You can check out the press release here, and the official blog post introducing the Dell Technologies Cloud here. Let’s break down what this announcement contained.

VMware Cloud Foundation now available on VxRail

The thing that’s really great about VxRail is that Dell EMC takes care of the lifecycle management of the components. IT seemed only natural to allow one of the components to be VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), aka VMware’s Software Defined Datacenter (SDDC) stack. The official Dell EMC blog post is here.

VCF is what makes it possible to have consistent architecture, and that is what helps you have consistent operations. Combining it with the lifestyle management and power of VxRail really seems like a no-brainer.

VMware Cloud on Dell EMC

Also announced today at Dell Tech World was the project I’m currently working on: VMware Cloud on Dell EMC. This was previously known as Project Dimension (Kit Colbert does a great job of explaining all of this in his blog post). VMware Cloud on Dell EMC is part of the Dell Technologies Cloud – it is their Data Center as a Service offering.

This is a cloud service managed by VMware. Once you subscribe to the service, Dell ships hardware that’s been loaded with VMware’s SDDC stack to your physical location. Once the stack has been connected to VMware’s Hybrid Cloud Control Plane, VMware becomes responsible for monitoring, managing, and resolving incidents involving this platform. You’re responsible for the data and the applications. You get a blank canvas on which to build a virtual environment. Migrate legacy apps, build a modern automated environment for new apps, your choice! But with this service, you won’t have to worry about managing the infrastructure because VMware will do that for you.

Cool Microsoft Announcements at Dell Tech World

I have to admit, I was pretty blown away to see Microsoft CEO Satja Nadella on the Dell Technologies World stage with Michael Dell and Pat Gelisinger.

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They announced a partnership with Microsoft that will deliver a fully native, supported, and certified VMware cloud infrastructure on Microsoft Azure as well as extending the capabilities of Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop leveraging VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure.

We Live in Incredible Times

We are in a time where apps are being created at a rapid pace to try and turn all the data we’ve managed to create into real information. And traditional infrastructure companies are truly embracing the cloud. I’m looking forward to more announcements like this that break down barriers between companies – what about you?