 Welcome back everyone. It's theCUBE live at Dell Tech World, day three of our wall-to-wall coverage of this 2023 event. Coming to you live from Las Vegas, the Mandalay Bay, Lisa Martin and Dave Vellante. We've got some stuff to show and tell to you. We're going to be digging into Dell's XR class of servers and how and why they're purpose built for the edge. Two guests are going to help unlock all this knowledge on you. Kyle Ilgen joins us. Consultant, product management at Dell Technologies and Arno Langer Global Senior Product Director, Edge and IoT at Actos. Guys, great to have you. Thank you for having us. Good to be here. Talk us through the... What have we got here? Yeah, what have we got here? We've got some toys. Yeah, so with us today is actually the XR7620 and then we also have a gateway product line. So these two products are part of our broader edge portfolio. If you've been paying attention to anything at Dell Tech World, Edge is kind of the hot thing right now and so we're backing that up with not just the software and everything you've heard but we also have an extensive edge product portfolio line on our power edge servers that are purpose built from the ground up to operate in non-data center environments. So as data is being pushed out to the edge, we're trying to pull that data into a centralized location at the point of discovery rather than putting it all the way back to a data center. Got it. And that's what we have been really attracted to with Dell is the breadth of the portfolio of devices, right? When, because of what we're offering has, let's say, the entire chain of data, we're able to pick and choose the device we need or we want for either a small form factor to ingest a little bit of data or like a bigger one to do ingestion right at the edge. So that's why we've been collaborating for a long time with Dell on that. So we've been talking all week about Dell's strategy horizontal and then partner to go deeper into the verticals. Is that what's going on here? What's the relationship between your two firms? So with Native Edge that has been announced yesterday at Dell and we've been collaborating with that team for quite some time on the horizontal, let's say backbone of what you need for realizing business outcomes at the edge and having the capability to have the right hardware at the right place with the streaming data platform which is a Dell product as well to orchestrate the data streaming from one end to the other and have the analytics running on either that or a bigger cluster. That creates like the tool set you need to have an end-to-end value prop for your forward customers where we can ingest data, realize the business value, all that in a single box if you will. Okay, so can you take us through that a little bit more? So you're ingesting the data and then so double click on what people are actually doing with this. Is it AI inferencing at the edge? Is it processing data? Is it persisted? So when you do that. Yeah, so we're seeing a wild range of opportunities in space. So the edge is pretty fragmented in terms of what customers and industries and stuff but the interesting thing we've found and we went out and talked to hundreds of customers. Everybody on the edge space has very similar goals and similar limitations with their hardware and what they're trying to build it out. So even though you might have a manufacturer who needs to have real-time AI because their machine needs to shut down for safety reasons in a millisecond, you might also have a retailer who's trying to do facial recognition to garner better data for their rewards program based on how many times people will visit. So all of that is enabled by the hardware at the end of the day and if the hardware doesn't work then nothing else works but the use cases are wide enough that we had to build hardware that to our nose point you go from the data creation and the ingest all the way up to something big like the Sektar 7620 that can do a bunch of AI, ML or whatever else in between. And to directly on your question precisely on the artificial intelligence, well if you look at data ingestion we might want to look at something smaller to be like really spread in the field close to where the data is created and then you need like a server like the 7620 where we can have two GPUs to accelerate data processing on the stream of data that's created to have like a very strong and fast analytics on the AI, ML right at the edge. So these would complement each other in that example, is that right? Yeah, so we would have a set of so we would have like multiple of these that gather the data from different objects or data sources then then concentrate all that into either a set of these. Usually a cluster of three just for redundancy. That can be that one, that can be any other server of the Edge portfolio like the XR4000 which is also geared for the Edge and as a cluster but that would be like let's say dozens of this and three of those. And you persist the data at the edge, you send it back somewhere to a data center or the cloud or you wipe it out or is it ephemeral? The general answer is yes. Yes, yes, yes, yeah, okay. So we would have like either some onboard storage with some like distributed storage in a core or cloud but we try to keep everything on-prem to have like the fast and the speed to access the data and resolution of issues. Kyle, you mentioned talking with hundreds of customers. We've been talking with a lot of Dell folks and partners the last couple of days and then we keep hearing the same of big ears. Dell has big ears. In a good way. It's like a Dumbo in a just a loving way. But talk about, you mentioned some of the use because talk about some of the key industries because one of the stats that I saw was like 80% of customers have said Edge is one of the most important features to our success. Whether it's a retailer, a manufacturer, talk about some of the key industries where this is really going to be a game changer. So everywhere for one, I mean I can cop out and say every industry is going to be changed, right? And so Dell, of course we see retail and manufacturing as kind of the first movers in this space. They have instantaneous need because they're creating tons of data. So manufacturing is pretty obvious. You have tons of IT devices, OT devices, just all doing tons of different sensor data, et cetera. That makes a lot of sense that to the point of what do you do with the data? Right now you don't have the choice but to either consolidate it and ship it off to a data center or do it right on site. And so we allow that. But then retail also has the benefits but we're seeing a fast follow in a lot of other spaces like healthcare where they have tons of data sensors as well. Mining, really anywhere where you could have data created outside of a data center environment there is opportunity for edge growth and a compute instance in that space. And anytime we talk edge we got to talk security. So tell us what customers are asking you for and how you're responding to it. So in general everything that's built into our data center servers these are power edge servers first and foremost. So all of the secure supply chain that we have, the secure sockets, everything that's built into a Dell power edge server is baked into this. So we're one of the leaders in cybersecurity. You get that at the edge. On the edge of course there's other things that go on. So we actually have a couple features. There's a, if I open this and I'm not authorized there is a sensor that'll say hey this was open you're not supposed to have it. What's missing from here today is we also have a bezel that can go on the front and it has two fold, two reasons. The bezel is a dust filter bezel which is really cool because anywhere you go there's going to be dust but you can also put a bezel on here that's unlockable. So it's a lockable bezel and while if someone were to come in with a hacksaw and really just like go at it they may be able to get past it but they're going to create a lot of noise and it's not supposed to be there. So we've built in a lot of features and security features on the software side and the hardware side to make sure that everything's secure and you don't have bad actors working with your network. And to touch upon the software side I mentioned earlier we have been collaborating with Dell on the native edge platform. So that software stack that's running on top of the hardware actually starts at the manufacturing of these hardware meaning they are, they start to put like encryption keys on the hardware to ensure the authenticity of the hardware throughout cities life cycle. From manufacturing to deployment and through the life cycle to ensure there is no man in the middle that has been compromising the hardware itself and then that allows you to have zero trust, zero touch deployment and monitoring. So through this entire manufacturing and life cycle of the hardware with Dell you are able to have like an edge that's secured and therefore trusted. So full provenance all the way through the supply chain and then native edge is how you manage, configure, patch, et cetera. So I know we announced native edge today so everyone's really excited or yesterday. We're finally out of embargo. I was told I wasn't allowed to talk to it. Yeah, no it's not. We know that. The cool thing is that'll work on these and so we work with the native edge team. Everything they're doing is to work on the XR platform. So whenever we deploy that native edge the hardware works in it and with that comes all the security suite as well. And it's available, you said today? Yeah, so that's the exciting thing. So we're really proud to announce we announced these at Mobile World Congress with y'all way back in the day but the XR 4000 which is out in market since December that's been shipping for a while but the new XR 5610 and the 7620, this is the 7620, those are officially shipping today. So if you go on you can order and kick it off and have one in your door, whatever the lead time is. Arna, talk about Telco. You mentioned Kyle, we were all at MWC in Barcelona just a few months ago, lots of announcements there. But Arna, talk about this new powered series for Telco and what ATOS's involvement is in the partnership with Dell specifically for Telcos. Yeah, so one of the good things, so we don't have the 5610 here with us but this, the other model, the 5610 has been really designed for Telco core network operation. Therefore it is like optimized to create, let's say a 5G network at the base of the tower. That means that with these servers, and I mentioned earlier the breadth of the portfolio we are able to pick and choose the right machine for the right use case. This is the right example, right? The 5610 has been the one designed to operate network, so very high network speed to interact between the different nodes of the clusters and all that to operate a core network. That means that here you've got data collection, analytics, AI, ML inference, and core network for the other one. So we've been able to, that way, pick and choose from Dell's catalog depending on which use case we wanted to solve for our customers. And what's the state of these days of the 5G rollouts where this is going to be a good fit? I know they're spending trillion dollars or whatever it is on the rollouts, but we're waiting for that day when the 5G actually is true 5G. And hey. Well, if, I cannot answer your question by only saying, you see this server being released today that's going to help enable the 5G. Accelerate it. Accelerate it. So that's 5G needs the edge, while the edge needs 5G as well. So you have to have both kind of technology catch up in order for 5G to actually deliver on its promise, which is new use cases like VR, AR, and stuff like that calculated right at the base of the tower, which was not available before that. I mean, history shows that it will deliver on its promise eventually, right? We just can't wait. Well, we did just release a product this week as well that actually takes the XR4000 and pilots it and it has a private 5G sector as well. So we do have products out there and they were announced this week that do take that and consolidate it. So private 5G is one of the things that's really driving, especially in the manufacturing range, where you have a limited capability on your manufacturing floor and you need quick, quick, quick. That's driving some of that. But to Arno's point, it's kind of we're pushing back and forth on both sides. And I mean, for us, the beauty is you could potentially reduce your bandwidth if you have the compute on site. So you don't have to send so much stuff back out to the core. Kind of interesting walking around here, Lisa and I have been talking, just the diversity of the ecosystem. You know, Edge is one of the more prominent areas and booths that we've seen the discussion different than say five years ago, dramatically different, isn't it? Absolutely. I mean, what we see on our side is customers are more and more asking for a private 5G deployment. Probably I would say 10 to 20 times more than a private 4G deployment. And then that means that the 5G and because of the new capabilities from a software and application perspective brings new ideas to end customers. And that means that we're not even talking about 6G yet. I mean, I heard that yesterday and I was like, let's just deliver on 5G first and make sure that we take the full benefit of that. I mean, as you mentioned, trillions have been invested in 5G worldwide. So let's make sure that we have the right application there and there is a deep transformation. Manufacturing is probably one of the industries that will benefit it most, but that's for private 5G. The rest of the world will really benefit and probably more on the end consumer side for the actuality of the value and the application that can be on the public 5G. Is the reason or no, that the interest is so much higher in 5G? I mean, not what's standing as 5G, but the distributed nature of 5G, it's just more of a greater affinity for that type of deployment. Right, I think that the first time we see the network actually able to deliver value more than just connectivity. Up until 4G, network was purely connectivity. Now we are able, and that brings a whole new dimension with orchestrating application deployment at the base of the tower. Because for example, I mean, if you have like ads coming on your map right away because you are scanning the buildings around you and you have like a restaurant, you see a restaurant over there, that means that that needs to be compute at the base of the tower, of the cell tower you are connected to. That brings value, but that means that there is a chance that needs to happen in the entire industry for advertising, for use cases, new applications being developed, AR, VR, all that has to take place. And that's why the whole, let's say, adoption of 5G is taking a lot of time because there is so much change brought by this new technology which is actually a breath of different technologies. It's interesting you mentioned beyond connectivity. I mean, the Telcos have really done a good job of selling connectivity, but that's pretty much all they've sold. I mean, that's all they've made money. Over the top vendors, obviously have greatly succeeded. Do you think that the Telcos, I mean, they've said it, we saw this at MWC, they're like, we can't let that happen again. Are you skeptical? Well, I think Telcos are really good at selling connectivity and the transformation of 5G is so deep that they themselves have to reinvent themselves. Like we've been partnering with a few Telcos and each of them is like, all right, so we need to do edge because we try to sell 5G, therefore we need edge. How do we do edge? It's a complete new mindset for them, right? Like how do we orchestrate applications that's not network-based? How do we orchestrate, let's say, value added? How do we sell that value? How do we orchestrate business-oriented applications? So that's a very different mindset from them too. So that's why it's, in my opinion, that's why it's taking time to be adopted. But they own that infrastructure so that should give them an advantage if they can move fast enough. I mean, they're certainly incentive to do so. Interesting conversation. So we talked about the big years before, but I presume that you guys have been engaging with a lot of folks here at Dell Tech World 23. What's been some of the feedback in terms of what you're delivering and a partnership? I mean, selfishly, I think we nailed it. So I really do think- Yeah, they did. They dropped the mic. Exactly. No, we were really getting a ton of good feedback in this space because we listened and I really want to iterate that. We could have taken, and let's be clear, Dell has always worked on the edge. We've had servers out on the edge. We have an OEM team who does a lot of edge deployments. We've worked with partners like ATOS and others for a long time. So this isn't new to us necessarily. The demand, the sheer demand is new. So taking what we've heard from customers and starting from the ground up and building servers that are purpose-built for what they're meant to do, that's a defining factor of our hardware, maybe compared to some of even our competitors. We have competitors who have done stuff in space. They're great boxes, but at the core of what we've done, we've taken the fact that we are the leader or one of the leaders of servers in the world and our sheer scope and supply chain built that together for something that will work for our edge customers. So overall feedback has been very good and if it wasn't, I would be getting in trouble. But I think so far we have it and I think the other thing is the breadth of portfolio we have. So as Arnaud was saying, this is our smallest gateway. You can ingest the data here and then you can run it with an XR7620. This can hold two A100 GPUs compared to the big bohemath we showed yesterday or this morning, the eight-butt one. You can imagine putting that in something about this big and I know you can't see the depth here, but it's pretty small. It's a really interesting proposition and it opens the door for innovation with our customers to where they're starting to think about use cases they never thought of before. This will enable it. The innovation cycle within Dell and Agile just reads that innovation cycle within customers. Thank you so much, Kyle and Arnaud for coming here doing your show and tell and really talking about the tremendous value that you're delivering with these technologies and the benefits that's going to enable so many different industries. We appreciate you all your time, your show and tell and your insights. Thank you so much. Our pleasure. For our guests and Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. We have a great final segment coming up. You're going to want to stick around a great customer story from Cuba alum Keith Bradley. We're going to be really talking about he's the VP of IT at Nature Fresh Farms and how they're really enabling a cyber resilient organization. Stick around and we'll be right back.