Anytime, Anywhere Data Security With Seamless Access Makes Dell EMC

Be it telecom companies, BFSI, IT organizations, Manufacturing or any other type of organization the dependency on IT infrastructure has become momentous. The urge of accessing data anytime anywhere leads to a challenge of ensuring data security at any time, anywhere environment at a seamless experience. For such critical task, we have organizations like Dell EMC which have bought solutions that are continuously protecting data everywhere. Faiz Askari of SMEStreet and Ripu Bajwa Director & General Manager, Data Protection Solutions, Dell EMC discussed the criticality of Data security, commitments of a seamless experience, the role of SMEs in advanced technology adoption and Dell EMC’s strategic focus towards the market in an exclusive interview.

Edited excerpts:

Faiz Askari: Dell is a notable name when it comes to the IT industry and after the merger with EMC, there have been a lot of changes. How have been these initial few years of Dell EMC Journey, especially in the terms of security and safety landscape going through manifold changes? How will you articulate the restructured approach of Dell EMC towards the Market?

Ripu Bajwa: Over the past few years, the industry is changing at a fast-paced scale. Dell EMC is working closely with our customers not only in India but globally to help them achieve their digital and security needs. With all the disruption happening in the data protection domain, customers increasingly realize the importance of protecting their data. They are disrupting themselves with the new technology with data being the new oil. This is something that we focus on at Dell EMC. Everyone is now transacting data across and within the organizations due to the proliferation of devices.

Also, there is a need to access data while traveling, while interacting, ensuring we are within the new norms of data and security policies. These are the challenges that our customers have been facing. At Dell EMC, we provide holistic solutions that cater to various security needs related to the identification of data, response, detection or recovery.

As you may know, the Supreme court has also come up with privacy as a fundamental right.

This ensures your data is protected and privacy norms are adhered to by all organizations who are custodians of customer’s data. So be it telecoms, banks, IT organizations, they all have seen a new standard when it comes to guidelines been given as to how the aggressive needs to be done. Yes, we have to have a balance, we have to allow people access to data in a way which is seamless, what we call in Dell EMC, protecting data everywhere. Customers want continuous data protection, continuous backup, to archive for long-term retention on either cloud or tapes. One should be able to access that data seamlessly. For that to happen, you have to make sure that data is in a readable format, it is accessible and doesn't take too long to recover. Hence, the challenge borne with increasing data growth is that more complexities will be added to virtualization, applications will need a faster turnaround and faster access.

We offer all such solutions which can adhere to all the needs of a software and hardware customer. The solutions give comfort and confidence to the customers. Confidence that tells them that if they deploy applications, their users can safely use the data and they are adhering to the norms and making the cloud more efficient for their use as well. Today cyber-attacks are common, people have been hacked without even knowing it. We have to find a new way of protecting where the customers can be self-helpers and can protect their data on their own and make them independent.

Faiz Askari: Data privacy has become a major and wider issue in the recent times. As an organization, what is the role that you serve and do you also think that the government is coming with the right policies from today’s perspective?

Ripu Bajwa: Yes, we play a major role by interacting and working closely with the government bodies who are in the policymaking. We also organize seminars where we invite eminent policymakers in the seminars. We also have a special government team which only caters to the government securities, led by experts who are not only solution experts but also deals with the special needs required by the government. We don’t directly step into policymaking, as we are a product and solution company. We offer our capabilities and best practices to such authorities and then they consider what is useful to them.

Faiz Askari: In terms of Indian enterprise domain, SME sector has become big in India. So how does Dell EMC look at the SME sector in India?

Ripu Bajwa: Today, even the small and middle size organization’s needs to protect their data are the same as the large ones and at the same time adhere to the level of sophistication of a large enterprise. For example, we have launched an integrated data protection appliance for mid and small sized customers. The deployment is not complex and is easy to get started with. We are coming with products and services which can be easily deployed in their environment. It can protect a lot of information because it brings so much efficiency, and are easily affordable, with better protection and with the same technology. The number of SME in India is humongous and they are looking for an easy way to protect their data at a very affordable cost.

Faiz Askari: There are SMEs which are doing good business but they don't understand the importance of data criticality, content management, IT management etc. So how do you address such issues with the market?

Ripu Bajwa: We address that gap and help by bringing simplicity in our solutions, by saving them the time and energy to learn complex methodology. We ensure that the agencies are secure, we ensure that they are provided with such kind of security that our large enterprise customers have easy access to. We ensure that the data can cross to any cloud and can come back easily, allowing the data to come back to its premises, safely. We offer an IT infrastructure which is robust and flexible enough to help us with the same.

Dell technology’s vision is to come up with innovation for human progress and hence we are taking major initiatives with regards to this for all the customers. We are now associated with more infrastructure-oriented companies where it's critical to ensure that data in safe hands. Emerging technologies like deep learning and IOT plays important role in the workforce as well as digital transformation so that customers can perform their work smoothly from edge to core to cloud. Dell technologies being number one in infrastructure, provides an engine or the running machinery at the device level, at the digital core, at the data center and even at the cloud.

Faiz Askari: With times forging ahead, do you see a scope of non- IT based channels to progress and do well?

Ripu Bajwa: Most of our channel partners today are in process of transforming themselves, they are redefining themselves. The regular system channel that we have are well rationed to take advantage of this because they know the technology element, they know the software services. So they become partners in this transformation journey for various needs.

Faiz Askari: How does Dell EMC see the coming year of 2019? What will all be the key areas of focus for the company this year?

Ripu Bajwa: We see big growth in Dell EMC in the entire SME segment, in infrastructure oriented technologies, modernization etc. Talking from a perspective of SMEs, they are looking at the adoption of smarter ways of going ahead. They are looking at simplicity and performance given they are handling large amounts of data. Therefore, innovating for their need is the key. In the next year or so we are seeing ourselves well poised to address such needs for which security remains of paramount importance.