Dell makes artificial intelligence and machine learning real

Dell Technologies announces new 14th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge four-socket servers and Dell Precision Optimizer 5.0 to strengthen AI and ML capabilities. They have forged an alliance with Intel in AI and ML for Dell EMC Ready Solutions to enable customers to harness the power of data. New AI and ML solutions and partnerships drive smarter, better business outcomes by turning data into intelligent insights in real time.

According to the recently released update of the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) 2018 IT Transformation Maturity Curve Index, commissioned by Dell EMC, transformed companies are 18X more likely to make better and faster data-driven decisions than their competition. Additionally, transformed companies are 22X as likely to be ahead of the competition with new products and services to market.

“As India’s digital drive gets stronger with Digital India & Make in India mission creating a favourable environment, businesses across sectors are looking forward to moving to AI focused innovation. In fact, just talking about the financial sector, as per PWC report, over 36 per cent of the financial institutions have already invested in AI-focused technologies, and around 70 per cent plan to embrace it in the near future.  Dell EMC is committed to helping businesses apply AI and ML technology, turning their data into intelligent insights to drive a faster time to market and achieve better business outcomes”, says Ravinder Pal Singh, Director, Digital Cities & Mega Projects, Government Segment, Dell EMC Commercial

Delivering performance for ML workloads in the data centre

ML workloads require high performance and considerable capacity to rapidly manage and analyze structured and unstructured data, and then deliver consistent, fast results that enable competitive advantage. As a result, Dell EMC today unveiled two new four-socket servers – the PowerEdge R940xa and PowerEdge R840, part of the 14th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge server portfolio.

With exceptional performance density of Intel Xeon Scalable processors (up to 112 processing cores) and massive memory (up to 6TB of memory and NVDIMM options), these new servers deliver powerful performance and allow customers to:  

• Rapidly transform data insights into business outcomes with the Dell EMC PowerEdge R940xa, which is designed to accelerate databases for business-critical applications without cloud fees and security risks. It improves application performance by combining up to four CPUs with four graphics processing units (GPUs) in a powerful 1:1 ratio, and it enables low-latency with direct-attached non-volatile memory express (NVMe) drives.
• Drive faster insights to better engage with customers and accelerate innovation with the Dell EMC PowerEdge R840 server, which is designed for in-database analytics. The R840 server minimises latency with more direct-attached NVMe drives than other market available options and speeds data transfers with a fully integrated ultra-path interconnect (UPI). 

Unlike competitors’ four-socket offerings, these servers also support field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which excel on data-intensive computations. Both servers feature OpenManage Enterprise to monitor and manage the IT infrastructure, as well as agent-free Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) for automated, efficient management to improve productivity.

Dell EMC is also announcing its next generation PowerMax storage solution, built with a machine learning engine which makes autonomous storage a reality. Leveraging predictive analytics and pattern recognition, a single PowerMax system analyzes and forecasts 40 million data sets in real-time per array4, driving six billion decisions per day to automatically maximise efficiency and performance of mixed data storage workloads. PowerMax’s intelligent self-management capabilities allow organizations to refocus IT resources and personnel on more strategic business outcomes.

Driving critical advancements with Dell EMC Ready Solutions 

Dell EMC continues to identify and work with leading innovators to help customers harness the power of the massive amounts of collected data. Integrating partner technologies into Dell EMC Ready Solutions provides customers a simple, reliable path to identify and acquire tested and validated solutions so they can innovate more quickly, help reduce risk and help lower total cost of ownership. 

• The Dell EMC Ready Solution for HPC is a comprehensive hardware platform and software solution built on the PowerEdge R740 server, which now enables faster deployment and performance through the combination of Intel Xeon Scalable processors and customizable Intel FPGAs. Dell EMC will also join the Intel AI Builders program, an ecosystem of enterprise-focused technology partners to develop high-quality solutions on Intel AI products. Dell EMC and Intel have partnered to enable customers to benchmark their Deep Learning and HPC workloads at scale on Intel Xeon Scalable processors and Intel FPGAs in the Dell EMC Innovation Lab and the Dell EMC customer Solution Centers.

Driving speed and productivity in workstations through machine learning

Dell recently announced the new Dell Precision Optimizer 5.0 that uses AI to automatically adjust applications running on Dell Precision workstations to maximise performance by:

• Custom-optimising applications: Dell Precision Optimizer learns each application’s behavior in the background and uses that data to employ a trained machine learning model that will automatically adjust the system to optimized settings and deliver up to 394 per cent improvement in application performance. This results in true custom-optimisation of any workflow, including standard ISV applications or custom native executable programs.
• Automating systems configuration adjustments: Once activated and a supported application is launched, the software automatically adjusts system configurations such as CPU, memory, storage, graphics and operating system settings. This allows workers to quickly improve workstation performance when switching between applications and projects, like moving from detailed CAD design to high fidelity visualisation of the design.

Delivering support

Dell EMC Services is leveraging AI, machine learning and deep learning to transform support and deployment through technology. Through connected technologies, system issues can be proactively resolved faster than ever before. The result is an even better customer experience – deeper customer relationships, actionable insights and more predictive, personalised and effortless services.