Dell Technologies Inc. and Red Hat Inc. are partnering to address the increasing demand for cloud-native applications infrastructure and virtualization within hybrid cloud environments. This latest collaboration between the two companies focuses on addressing the increasing demands of AI infrastructure and virtualization within hybrid cloud environments.

According to the announcement, Dell and Red Hat are providing high performance and flexibility for enterprise workloads by enabling Dell’s PowerEdge servers to support cloud-native applications running on Red Hat’s AI-optimized Linux platform. This collaboration aims to streamline the deployment of AI and cloud-native applications, addressing the challenge of navigating complex enterprise IT environments.

The partnership is designed to eliminate the complexities often associated with do-it-yourself solutions, according to Rob Strechay (pictured, left), principal analyst at theCUBE Research, highlighted that hat the partnership is designed to eliminate the complexities often associated with do-it-yourself solutions.

“You see that a lot of this ‘easy button’ stuff has really been put into that, and a lot of thought has gone into the APEX underlying foundational software as well to make it easy,” he said. “This is not like, ‘Hey, you just slap it on top.’ There is a lot that goes into it versus a DIY-type solution.”

Strechay joined Dave Vellante (right), chief analyst at theCUBE Research, at the Build Now and for the Future With Dell & Red Hat 2024 event. During this exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, Strechay and Vellante explored how Dell’s APEX Cloud Platform, combined with Red Hat OpenShift, helps enterprises manage cloud-native and AI workloads. (* Disclosure below.)

Streamlining cloud-native applications

AI’s escalating adoption across industries has prompted enterprises to shift from traditional virtualization to cloud-native containerized applications, according to Strechay and Vellante. The surge in containerization, driven by AI workloads, reflects this trend. Dell and Red Hat’s recent collaboration aims to simplify the management of containerized applications and provide a more efficient AI infrastructure.

“It’s safe to say that the two topics that are very hot in the community are AI infrastructure and, of course, virtualization,” Vellante said. “Containers is the simplifying infrastructure.”

As enterprises increasingly adopt AI and machine learning, there is a notable shift toward using container technology. This approach enhances the portability and governance of AI models, streamlining their integration and management.

“A lot of what is being built from an AI and machine learning perspective is actually in containers,” Strechay said. “What they’re doing for ease of use and being able to bring the portability of these models [is] containerizing those so that they can actually do governance on some of those models. There’s a lot of containers technology and Kubernetes technology being put into this AI/ML.”

By integrating Red Hat OpenShift with Dell’s APEX Cloud Platform, enterprises can gain the flexibility and scalability required to support AI and ML workloads, according to the analysts. This approach helps IT departments transition from legacy virtualization environments to more dynamic, cloud-native applications built on container-based solutions that are optimized for handling modern workloads and data processing demands.

“I think everybody’s leaning into the cloud-native containerized applications for these AI/ML applications,” Strechay said. “We think we’ve seen another uptick in AI/ML, and people are really trying to get to AI/ML succinctly.”

Enhancing AI with edge computing

It’s increasingly important for AI applications to be run in edge computing environments, where real-time decision-making is crucial, according to Strechay. Dell’s PowerEdge servers, equipped with Red Hat’s AI-optimized Linux platform, deliver low latency for AI-driven tasks by bringing AI inference to the edge.

“It seems like a perfect fit to put OpenShift AI on this platform because inference and being at the edge really is where a lot of the inference is going to run,” Strechay said. “Having these applications that can grow either in height or depth of storage or across with processing power really brings together some very interesting AI use cases.”

The ability of Dell’s technology to scale both storage and processing power ensures that AI workloads at the edge can keep pace with growing demand. This is particularly important for use cases that require low-latency responses to function effectively.

“I think looking at things like digital assistants performing speech recognition, doing that all at the edge where latency is really a key and critical factor for the success,” Strechay explained. “Because what we’ve been seeing is that you have to get the return on investment of AI out there, and how you get your return on AI is really a big piece of the factors that go into building these new applications.”

Optimizing data mobility and hybrid virtualization

In addition to addressing AI and edge computing, Dell and Red Hat’s solution also enhances data mobility across hybrid infrastructures, optimizing how cloud-native applications handle data and scale, according to Strechay. Virtualization is central to many enterprises, and the combination of the APEX cloud platform with OpenShift AI makes it easier for companies to manage data mobility and scale across complex environments.

“The mobility of data, especially if you’re going to use other services in a cloud on top of the Red Hat stack … maybe SageMaker with OpenShift AI … you can do that,” he said. “You can actually move that data with that entire stack underlying because of the Dell APEX platform solution.”

This level of integration allows enterprises to take advantage of cloud services while keeping control over their on-premises data. Virtualization, paired with cloud-native solutions, helps businesses optimize their infrastructure for flexibility and scalability.

“One of the most intriguing capabilities that they’ve added … is OpenShift Virtualization,” Strechay noted. “Because a lot of times, things don’t fit nicely into a container or into a micro-services architecture. You may have something that is already virtualized that you need to have with that application because locality of data is important.”

Here’s the complete analyst conversation, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of the Build Now and for the Future With Dell & Red Hat 2024 event:

Watch the full event discussion here:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the “Build Now and for the Future With Dell & Red Hat” event. Neither Dell Technologies Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE