Dell’s AI suite: PowerStore Prime, PowerFlex and XE9680 – Business
As the artificial intelligence symphony nears its crescendo, it’s clear that companies must effectively combine storage, networking and compute to be effective, efficient and scalable.
Discussing Dell’s recent AI-focused announcements with the company’s Travis Vigil and Ihab Tarazi.
Dell Technologies Inc. is answering that demand with a comprehensive lineup of announcements, including its PowerStore Prime and PowerFlex storage offerings, as well as the XE9680 server class.
“The announcements around the AI Factory, the new systems, the new storage and the new networking have been fantastic and worthy of a Dell World [event] all by themselves,” said Travis Vigil (pictured, left), senior vice president of product management at Dell. “In addition, we have PowerStore Prime, the biggest release for PowerStore in the last four years. We had some PowerFlex announcements. It’s just been chock-full of innovation and really a culmination of the last year of focusing on generative AI first.”
Vigil and Ihab Tarazi (right), SVP and chief technology officer at Dell, spoke with theCUBE’s ’s Dave Vellante and Savannah Peterson at Dell Technologies World, during an exclusive broadcast , . They discussed Dell’s intentions to set the industry pace with AI-driven solutions, innovative networking strategies and modular server designs. (* Disclosure below.)
PowerStore Prime and PowerFlex for AI-ready storage
Among the notable product unveilings is PowerStore Prime, the most substantial release for the PowerStore line in four years. This development underscores Dell’s relentless pursuit of innovation in storage solutions, ensuring they remain at the forefront of technological advancements, according to Vigil. Additionally, updates to PowerFlex demonstrate Dell’s dedication to offering flexible, scalable solutions tailored to meet the evolving needs of modern enterprises.
Networking is evolving rapidly to accommodate AI workloads. Thus, Dell’s strategy now focuses on integrating networking with compute and storage, a critical need in the AI era. By partnering with Broadcom Ltd. and Nvidia Corp., it’s pushing the boundaries with high-performance switches and integrated systems designed for the rigorous demands of AI workloads, according to Tarazi.
“What we bet on is that networking needs to be integrated with compute and storage and be very high throughput,” he said. “We also bet on open-source and next-generation software. We are big partners of Broadcom, and we’re also working closely with Nvidia. The networking strategy we picked to get high-performance switches with significant throughput and fully integrate the stack with compute is exactly what AI needs.”
The launch of new components, including Broadcom’s Thor 2 and Tomahawk 5 switches, and Nvidia’s Spectrum-X and BlueField-3 DPUs, positions Dell favorably on the networking front.
Systems and compute are the next integral pieces. The XE9680 represents Dell’s most advanced server platform and is designed to support a variety of GPUs and CPUs with both air and liquid cooling options. This platform epitomizes modular innovation, allowing for rapid adaptation to new technologies, according to Tarazi. The recently announced 9680L, which took just nine months to develop, shows a proactive readiness for market response.
“We started to do that more than two years before gen AI came up, probably three,” Tarazi said. “Part of it was AI was just evolving and Nvidia was starting to work on those chipsets, the H100. But then what we announced today with the 9680L only took nine months. So, first process was two to three years of development; this one, nine months.”
Here’s the complete video interview, coverage of Dell Technologies World:
(* Disclosure: Dell Technologies Inc. Neither Dell .)