'We offer reliability & scalability to Dell's systems'

BANGALORE, INDIA: After being predominantly into infrastructure support and development, Dell's Application Development division was brought back into the main fold of IT services recently.

"Now, it has a lot of shared services and its primary function as a delivery unit is two-fold: offering Dell's strategic program roadmap, and ensuring reliability and scalability of systems - in support of Dell Services business," says J.P. Sarkis, vice-president, Application Development, Dell IT, in an exclusive interaction with CIOL.

The Dell IT Application Development function leads all efforts related to strategy, design and development and maintenance of application solutions, including package, custom and cloud. Moreover, it is responsible for guiding the execution of projects for the part of the IT portfolio to deliver business value.

As far as their custom development is concerned, Sarkis points out that they work on different platforms like .Net and Java, and for packages, employ Oracle EBS, Siebel CRM, PeopleSoft HRMS, Oracle SFPC, SAP and others. And he reiterates their strong desire to standardize costs in all packages. "Our organization's standard today is not merely based on technology, but to align with business capabilities. At times, customization may not be truly necessary; the less we can customize, we are better off."

Its custom application development process supports multiple mobile device types and includes requirements assessment, collaborative architecture and design, comprehensive testing and deployment, and full roll-out support. So, what Dell Services does is either renew your existing applications or develop custom-made applications to align with your business needs.

On cloud, Sarkis says that they have leveraged a lot of varied solutions and have also integrated some third-party solutions, including Salesforce.com. Last year, Dell added to its Cloud Business Applications portfolio, eSignature and eDocument solutions - Adobe EchoSign and AppExtremes' Conga Composer - delivered as subscription services over the Web. These solutions are closely integrated with CRM applications, allowing documents and data to be shared and stored in a single unified repository.

Their most recent, integration cloud, Boomi AtomSphere, allows one to connect any combination of cloud, SaaS, or on-premise applications with no appliances, software or coding. "A lot of applications can be connected on a large scale using a software for both on-premise and public cloud offerings through Boomi. We have integrated 2030 TB of databases to Compellent and EqualLogic," explains Sarkis.

In the space of mobility apps, Dell Mobility Services helps enterprises build and implement customized mobility solutions for their businesses. "From consulting to execution, the our consultants will collaborate with your internal IT experts as a single-source partner to help address mobility issues."

Sarkis adds that they are also socially active and get a lot of feeds from the networks. "Internally, we use a lot of social tools to reap benefits and an exclusive team addresses feedback and resolves issues in a timely manner," he elucidates.

As for the related security issues with mobility apps, he says that their software group helps them have better control over BYOD security.

Their application development team - approximately around 1,500 - is one of the biggest in the IT division of Dell and Sarkis believes that the Indian team can develop end-to-end solutions, with them being dispersed across Bangalore and Hyderabad, besides global destinations like Brazil, Malaysia and Austin.