Kris Walsh, Sr Principal Enterprise Technologist at Dell Technologies shares his thoughts on the value APEX is bringing to Dell customers today.
I know I’m extremely lucky to have your attention, so before someone taps you on the shoulder & pulls you away, here’s the juice…
I’ve worked with a bunch of customers on a deadline. They have a project or initiative that my hardware is going to support.
More often than not, it takes longer than they think to size, quote, order, ship & deploy their solution (Typically 3-9 months).
APEX is the answer to your prayers. If your latest project is on a deadline APEX can get you up and running in as little as 3-4 WEEKS! (with a really cool management interface to boot!)
Do yourself and your team a favor and take the next step to set your team up for success by contacting your Dell Sales team for more information.
Got more time? Still reading?! Yay! Well alright alright alright… Let’s flush this out… Cut me some slack… I’m from Austin. (:
As an Enterprise Technologist I’ve helped hundreds of customers build their private cloud from scratch. Many times under the pressure of a deadline. Most of those project or management imposed deadlines get blown out of the water once my customers realize how long it takes to properly size, quote, order, ship and deploy a given solution.
- Sizing takes longer than most people think
- The vast majority of my customers don’t have a ton of sizing experience. As a team, they attempt a sizing exercise once every 2-4 years, often flying by the seat of their pants and taking a “swag” at it. More often than not they end up oversizing by a LOT, ending up with a lot of underutilized resources.
- From spreadsheets to sizing tools, tribal knowledge to expert insights, I’ve seen, leveraged, been or used just about everything. I can honestly say, every interaction I’ve had has been unique in some way or another. There’s no doubt it has kept me on my toes. While my inner nerd finds this world fun and interesting, the experience I’ve gained has taught me this really isn’t the best approach.
- Quoting takes longer than most people think.
- Aligning the proper accounts, Bill To, Sold To, Ship To, contract codes and contacts
- Ordering: CAPEX expenditures tend to have more hurdles than OPEX.
- I’ve had situations where purchasing departments are incentivised based on how much lower they can push down PO amounts. Professional Services are often stripped out at this point which undermines project success.
- Building & Shipping can take a while (especially with COVID delays) Global supply constraints
- Deployment
- Coordinating schedules
- Defining scope
- Scheduling time
- Deployment execution
- Results: This whole process can take 3 months (if you’re extremely lucky) to 9+ months. If this isn’t frustrating for you, you’ve got a lot more patience than I do.
APEX is the latest component in the Hybrid Cloud evolution. As I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s a Hybrid Cloud World. Hybrid cloud means much more than having Public (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc) & Private Cloud (On-Prem) resources. Another component is also Hybrid procurement models. Dell created APEX, because customers told us they wanted “Public Cloud like” procurement options.
APEX is fast. APEX is easy. APEX has a catalog/self-service console. APEX is cool. Yes, I’m a proud nerd.
APEX can be delivered in as little as 14 DAYS! Let’s take a look at the same process with APEX…
- Sizing Simplified
- There are a number of tools to assist you, but the beauty of APEX is that once you define your workloads and the performance required, choosing your hardware template from the catalog is simple.
- Quoting is an extension of the sizing process and can be done in hours instead of days.
- Ordering OPEX purchases typically requires fewer speed bumps and internal approvals
- Building & Shipping is streamlined with APEX pre-built blocks.
- Deployment is streamlined
- Coordinating schedules
- Pre-Defined scope
- Scheduling time to deploy
- Deployment execution
- Results: Put all of these together and you can have an APEX solution completely deployed in less than 1 month!
APEX is not only MUCH faster to deploy, but it’s more reliable, because it leverages all of Dell’s best practices and expertise.
The end result is easier to manage and maintain with much more predictable outcomes. Who doesn’t want that?
Do yourself and your team a favor and take the next step to set your team up for success by contacting your Dell Sales team for more information.
My team and I are happy to engage with questions, comments, rebuttal, etc. in the comments section below. (:
