Dell and Rackspace strengthen edge pitch

Even in the middle of a pandemic, the channel needs to keep an eye on where technology is driving opportunities, with it becoming increasingly clear that more vendors see growth at the edge.

Last week, Schneider Electric increased its support for partners that were trying to deliver support for customers at the edge, co-developing with Aveva industrial edge reference designs, including solutions from Lenovo and Stratus, that should help the channel roll out IT/OT deployments more easily. That has been followed with more announcements from other manufacturers this week.

Dell and Rackspace have both revealed they are taking steps to make sure their channel is armed with the right products and services to back up an edge pitch.

Dell’s answer has been to launch a couple of VxRail systems, with a ruggedised model made available, along with the introduction of AMD EPYC processors.

The ruggedised model should appeal to customers that are operating in harsh and difficult environments. Verticals including oil and gas, industrial and manufacturing are all targets of the offering.

The introduction of AMD EPYC processors is designed to increase performance and ease the concerns of customers who fear lagging systems at the edge of their network.

“More data is being created at the edge, and more companies are moving their data management infrastructure closer to where data is created,” said Tom Burns, senior vice-president and general manager, Dell Technologies Integrated Products & Solutions.

“But sometimes the edge is a 100-degree rooftop, not a temperature-controlled traditional datacentre. With the new ruggedised VxRail systems, location and conditions don’t matter.”

Over at Rackspace, the focus is on extending security to the edge, with the firm deepening its tie-up with Cloudflare.

The combined efforts of the vendors has produced a managed edge security solution that is designed to calm the fears of those worried that technology at the fringes of the network is vulnerable to attack.

The Cloudflare Edge Security solution includes a web application firewall, DDoS protection, DNS services and a global content delivery network.

Lisa McLin, global channel chief and alliances at Rackspace Technology, penned a blog post to explain the latest benefits of the Cloudflare partnership, which has been running since 2017.

“Here at Rackspace Technology, we’re continuing to focus on how we can better support our customers’ multicloud journeys by providing comprehensive solutions across the entire technology transformation lifecycle,” she said. “Our expanded strategic partnership with Cloudflare will give our customers additional security and compliance services to further the adoption of multicloud solutions.

“Customers also ask how to ensure the end-user experience is optimised and secure. It can be challenging to implement effective security measures to maintain PCI compliance in websites and applications without sacrificing the overall site performance and experience. On top of all this, IT modernisation timelines are only accelerating in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, and new security threats are emerging seemingly daily.”