Today’s businesses generate swathes of enterprise, customer and product data — but the challenge lies in operationalizing the resource. With data loads still growing at the enterprise level, is the data lakehouse the missing piece in the puzzle?

“I think people need a better answer — I think that better answer is basically an easy button that works with their data gravity versus against it,” said Vrashank Jain (pictured, left), product manager at Dell Technologies Inc. “Then they need help from an expertise perspective. They need a bench of people who just know exactly what they’re doing. They can come in and help customers stand this up, run and manage at scale. I think that’s a big challenge.”

Jain and Harrison Johnson (right), vice president of technology partners and business development at Starburst Data Inc., spoke with theCUBE Research analyst Rob Strechay during a conversation from SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio in Boston, Massachusetts. They discussed the Dell Data Lakehouse, the tie-in with Starburst, the evolving landscape of data lakes and the pressing need for modern data management solutions. (* Disclosure below.)

Empowering platform and data engineers with simplicity and choice

The proliferation of data presents a dual challenge: the need for a modern data platform that simplifies data management while offering flexibility and scalability. However, the prevailing options — cloud migration or on-premises DIY solutions — fall short, underscoring the urgent demand for a more viable alternative, according to Jain.

“I think what customers have started to do is have more of a platform thinking versus a piece-part thinking,” he said. “People need a platform that does two things: one, give them a lot of ease of use and scale and ability to modernize as they go along, but also gives them choice [so] that if tomorrow a new technology comes along, they should be able to use it.”

The collaboration between Dell and Starburst emerged from a shared vision of embracing distributed data ecosystems. Recognizing the inevitability of data existing in multiple locations, the partnership aims to offer a solution that seamlessly integrates federated data access and high-performance centralized data analytics.

By combining Dell’s infrastructure with Starburst’s expertise in data access and governance, the Dell Data Lakehouse promises to break down the barriers between disparate data sources, empowering organizations to leverage their data assets effectively.

“I think the Dell Data Lakehouse, powered by Starburst, couples world-class architecture and Dell’s market-leading infrastructure solutions, particularly their AI and analytics compute-powered solutions [and] their object store offering with Starburst governance and access layer,” Johnson said. “The ‘why Dell’ specifically for Starburst was the commitment to building a simple streamlined offering that would allow [companies] to successfully operate in their current state, drive business value and then be able to evolve comfortably.”

As artificial intelligence takes center stage in driving business innovation, Dell’s infrastructure plays a crucial role in supporting strategies. The convergence of data and AI underscores the significance of a modern data strategy, according to Johnson and Jain. By offering a platform that seamlessly integrates AI workflows with diverse data sources, Dell empowers organizations to unlock actionable insights and drive a competitive advantage, Jain added.

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Jain and Johnson:

(* Disclosure: Dell Technologies Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Dell nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE