COVID-19 gave companies yet another reason to move applications to cloud. Of course, plenty still have on-premises data centers and no plans of closing them anytime soon. However, with lessons in the value of speed, elasticity and OpEx pricing fresh in their minds, they’re demanding a more cloud-like experience on-prem, according to Sam Grocott (pictured), senior vice president of product marketing at Dell Technologies. 

Each company is a unique animal and must make its own choices about which workloads to move to cloud. Many are still figuring it out, dithering, running experiments and changing their minds. But there are some must-haves for all companies with a hybrid IT model, according to Grocott. 

“What they absolutely are clear that they want is a simple, easy-to-use, as-a-service experience regardless of if they’re on-prem of off-prem,” he said. 

They also want a single, consistent mode of operating that spans their entire environment. The question is: How is this possible when on-prem and cloud infrastructure are so different? 

Grocott spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the Dell Technologies World Digital Experience event. They discussed Dell’s goal of bringing a consistent, as-a-service model to hybrid IT, as well as what Dell customers can expect from Project Apex, which makes it easier for customers and partners to access Dell’s hyperconverged infrastructure products, personal computers, networking, servers and storage products on-demand. (* Disclosure below.)

Console in public preview with up-the-stack solutions to come

It is possible to make changes so that on-prem operations mirror those that cloud users have grown accustomed to, including consuming infrastructure — like storage — with an as-a-service, pay-as-you-go pricing model, according to Grocott. It’s also feasible to make moving workloads from on-prem to cloud and back smoother through a single web interface that provides full visibility across infrastructure. These are two of the features Dell Technologies is rolling into Project Apex, which it announced this week. 

At present, much on-prem infrastructure is simply too complex for modern business, Grocott pointed out. There are too many tools managing too many apps; it’s too rigid to scale; and procurement tends to be time consuming and mostly CapEx. It is hard to imagine on-prem procurement ever being as quick as buying cloud instances, but there is room for improvement.

“When you’re moving equipment on-prem, it’s not going to be a click of a button, but you should be able to buy or procure that with the click of a button,” Grocott said.

The main aim of Apex is to deliver on-prem technology as a service. This includes not just infrastructure — it’s storage offering will be available early next year — but also solutions, like SAP, vrtual desktop infrastructure, artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc.

“We’ll be moving up the stack as well to meet more of an application-integrated as a service experience as well,” Grocott said. 

The single web console — in public preview now — should be of interest to the many companies struggling with hybrid management. “You’re going to be able to have that single view of everything that’s going on across your environment and also be able to move workloads from on-prem and off-prem without breaking that consistent experience,” Grocott stated. 

Customers can expect further announcements early next year to round out the Apex offering. 

“We’re still frankly defining what that will look like, but we want to make sure that we deliver a solution that can span all segments from small business to medium businesses to the biggest enterprises,” Grocott concluded. 

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Dell Technologies World Digital Experience event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dell Technologies World. Neither Dell Technologies, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE