Dell Technologies unveiled its NativeEdge platform that looks to ease the deployment and management complexities of edge devices for remote-focused enterprises, and updated its recently launched Private Wireless program with a new software partner.

NativeEdge replaces Dell’s Project Frontier, which was initially unveiled and launched last fall. The new platform is designed as an edge computing platform that provides customers choice around software, IoT, multicloud tools and operational technology to simplify, automate and manage edge infrastructure.

Gil Shneorson, SVP for edge computing offers, strategy and execution at Dell, explained in a press briefing that the NativeEdge platform provides secure device onboarding at scale, remote management of those devices in their locations, and multicloud application orchestration for edge devices, data centers and matching cloud properties “to make sure that the edge outcome end-to-end is deployed in lifecycle.”

It provides enterprises with a managed set of services — running on top of either Dell or other validated equipment — that can provide a consistent management layer, regardless of connectivity to those edge devices and locations. This includes the ability to support across manufacturing plants, retail locations and cell towers, and in support of multicloud and cloud-native technologies like Kubernetes and containers. It also provides a zero-trust architecture to ensure security of these deployments.

Shneorson said customers can select the breadth and depth of the service from a Dell catalog. Hardware pieces are drop-shipped from Dell to the end user, where they are digitally signed as belonging to that specific customer, and can then be onboarded automatically and provisioned once turned on. Selected applications are then automatically sent to and provisioned on the necessary hardware.

“What we're going to do is we're going to simplify our customers’ head operations by very new levels of automation that were not there before, from onboarding device to centrally managing and orchestrating application,” Shneorson said. “The optimization piece comes in because then they will need less [proof of concepts], they could consolidate multiple applications into the same architecture and yet we will keep it highly open for different [operation technology] systems, IoT frameworks, applications, many partnering opportunities, a lot of customer choice, including the right-sizing of the hardware required with the same experience.”

That application deployment can also take advantage of Dell’s updated ProDeploy service that now includes a “Flex” option. This allows enterprises to customize their edge deployment service needs using Dell’s long-standing ProDeploy model and its Edge Partner Certification Program.

“The edge business is predominantly vertical,” Shneorson said of how Dell targeted the market’s pain points. “People buy edge solutions to solve a specific problem and so the industries that are most prominent – industrial, retail, energy, definitely defense and others – but at the end of the day the making of a problem and the solution are very similar. There is a horizontal nature to what you're looking to solve for which is basically a distributed architecture where they deploy workloads to very many devices that are remote, that are challenged from a networking perspective, security perspective and have nobody at the end or insight to manage them with the right skills.”

Dell claims large customers with an average of 25 facilities that make a three-year investment in NativeEdge to manage 75% of their manufacturing edge assets could see benefits including:

• Up to a 130% return on investment
• Up to 20 minutes of onboarding time cut for each edge device
• A reduction in edge operation costs and configuration risks due to its zero-touch provisioning
• Up to 14 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions eliminated through the reduction of dispatches for site support

The NativeEdge platform will be available in 50 countries beginning in August.

Dell also added Druid Software to its recently launched Private Wireless program that Dell launched earlier this year. It includes prevalidated private wireless products that provide operators and enterprises with a choice of services that should work in a commercial environment out of the box.

Dell touted initial work with Airspan and Expeto, targeting medium and large enterprises that need to extend on-site and remote application support for 4G LTE and 5G technology running on private or public networks. It’s also working with Athonet to target small and medium businesses to deploy their choice of network architecture, radio vendor and spectrum needed for a private wireless product.

Shneorson said this update is targeted at “customers that need connectivity to their thousands of edge devices.” He added that it can be consumed as either a managed service from a cloud provider or a communication service provider.

This optionality echoes Dell’s recent deal with former subsidiaries VMware and AT&T to provide an enterprise-focused 5G mobile edge compute (MEC) package that can power on-premises private wireless services. AT&T is providing its cellular and 5G connectivity, Dell its edge processing and physical infrastructure offered through its Apex as-a-service model, and VMware with its telco-focused virtualization platform.

“We know that enterprises are looking for outcomes and really aren’t focused on science experiments anymore,” Doug Lieberman, senior director for global solutions and co-creation services at Dell’s Telecom Systems Business, said of that arrangement. “They really are looking for a kind of top-down, bottom solution that they’re able to build on top of and drive their enterprise business solutions on.”