Jeff Woolsey, principal program manager at Microsoft Corp., and Kenny Lowe, technical staff and cloud platforms evangelism and enablement lead at Dell Technologies Inc., join theCUBE’s Savannah Peterson and Dave Vellante at Dell Technologies World 2025 to explore the deepening alliance between Dell and Microsoft. The discussion reflects on 35 years of partnership and how it’s evolving to support modern work, hybrid cloud, and AI innovation.
Woolsey and Lowe discuss the technical integration of services such as Dell PowerScale in Azure, Microsoft’s AI offerings and the Dell AI system for Azure Local. Their insights spotlight joint engineering efforts aimed at delivering seamless performance across diverse IT environments.
The conversation emphasizes the value customers gain from consistency, security and simplified management across hybrid deployments. Woolsey explains how Dell AX solutions for Azure Local and Microsoft’s global footprint help enterprises manage systems with greater efficiency and resiliency.
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Jeff Woolsey, Microsoft & Kenny Lowe, Dell Technologies
In this insightful episode, Savannah Peterson and Dave Vellante of SiliconANGLE Media, Inc. delve into the remarkable collaboration between Dell and Microsoft at Dell Technologies World 2025. They are joined by industry leaders Jeff Woolsey of Microsoft and Kenny Lowe of Dell as they discuss their longstanding 35-year partnership and its current focus on modern work, hybrid cloud solutions, data, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Woolsey and Lowe share their expertise on how Dell and Microsoft foster innovation through deep technical collaboration and extensive engineering investments. With the event hosts from theCUBE, they explore the partnership's impact on their mutual customers and the seamless integration of their services, such as Dell Powerscale in the Azure Cloud, Microsoft's AI services, and the Dell AI system for Azure local.
The conversation also highlights the key benefits customers gain from the partnership, including consistency across cloud and on-premises solutions, enhanced security and streamlined management. Woolsey states that the collaboration enables customers to manage their systems more efficiently by utilizing Dell AX solutions for Azure Local. Additionally, insights from Microsoft's global Azure footprint provide enhanced protection for on-premises systems.
Jeff Woolsey, principal program manager at Microsoft Corp., and Kenny Lowe, technical staff and cloud platforms evangelism and enablement lead at Dell Technologies Inc., join theCUBE’s Savannah Peterson and Dave Vellante at Dell Technologies World 2025 to explore the deepening alliance between Dell and Microsoft. The discussion reflects on 35 years of partnership and how it’s evolving to support modern work, hybrid cloud, and AI innovation.
Woolsey and Lowe discuss the technical integration of services such as Dell PowerScale in Azure, Microsoft’s AI o...Read more
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What are the current approaches to integrating AI with data management across different environments, such as cloud and on-premises?add
What are the challenges related to management and ensuring a consistent experience when integrating on-premises solutions with cloud services, particularly in the context of hardware and cost efficiency?add
What are the features and capabilities of the Microsoft Premier solution for Azure Local?add
What are the key areas of focus and developments mentioned regarding the partnership and AI innovations in the upcoming projects?add
Jeff Woolsey, Microsoft & Kenny Lowe, Dell Technologies
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Savannah Peterson
>> Good afternoon, nerd fam, and welcome back to beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada. We're here midway through day two of Dell Tech World. My name's Savannah Peterson. Delighted to be bringing you the stories from all the execs and smart folks here with Dave Vellante. Dave, this is another fun partnership conversation we get to have right now.
Dave Vellante
>> The industry changed when these guys got together.
Savannah Peterson
>> And there's not a lot of partnerships you could say that particular sentence about.
Dave Vellante
>> That's true.
Savannah Peterson
>> Here to discuss a partnership as old as I am. Just about here. We've got Kenny and Jeff. Thank you both so much for taking the time. Really appreciate y'all.
Jeff Woolsey
>> Thank you so much.
Kenny Lowe
>> It's a pleasure.
Savannah Peterson
>> So 35 years running Dell and Microsoft, so cool. Talk to me a little bit about the partnership. Jeff, I'll start with you.
Jeff Woolsey
>> Like you say, it's a 35-year partnership, and the thing that excites me is it spans and encompasses so much.
Savannah Peterson
>> Totally,
Jeff Woolsey
>> Whether it's modern work, whether it's I need to deliver distributed hybrid cloud solutions, whether it's data and AI. These are just some of the areas we are working on together, but the things that are most important in top of mind for our mutual customers, and that 35 years of partnership means we get to work together and collaborate on new and cutting edge innovation together.
Savannah Peterson
>> That's got to be a really exciting time to be co-innovating. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Kenny Lowe
>> Yeah, I mean, Dell and Microsoft, when we get together, great things happen. It's always been the case over 35 years, like you said, innovating together. We have a tremendous amount of engineering investment together. So this isn't what I would term a paper partnership. This is a very real technical partnership with deep innovation in engineering. And Jeff, did you know that Dell has over 47,000 Microsoft certifications across our staff? 47,000.
Savannah Peterson
>> 47,000? Holy moly.
Dave Vellante
>> Yeah, that's where the rubber meets the road.
Jeff Woolsey
>> That's really awesome because that shows you, it's not just hardware, it's not just software, but it's the certifications that bring it all together.
Savannah Peterson
>> Yeah, that as well, and that's how you enable people to optimize their use and experience with your hardware, your software, and whatever you're doing. So just sitting there for a second, because I'm so curious when here I am using copilot on my Dell PC. First thing I did with it was design my nails, by the way, in case we're wondering.
Jeff Woolsey
>> Very nice.
Savannah Peterson
>> Custom nails. Thank you. Thank you all for making hardware that can play into my vanity and creativity at the same time, but I'm curious, like we were saying this is going be one of the coolest times to be co-innovating. So at what point were you all together and said, "Hey, we've got to completely change the way that people interact with AI and bring it to them on device, the way that we get to experience here." Go for it, Kenny.
Kenny Lowe
>> Yeah, I think there are two ways that we're approaching AI just now. So we really want to bring AI to the data. That's the way that we look at this.
Savannah Peterson
>> Of course.
Kenny Lowe
>> But the data is going to live in different places. So data may live in the Azure Cloud, it may live on premises there. So right now we are bringing, for example, Dell Powerscale to the Azure Cloud so people can have their unstructured data running in Azure and use Azure AI services on top of that. We can have that consistently running on premises as well. So you have your Powerscale running on-prem with a consistent one FS namespace, same Azure AI services running across both. So that's kind of how we're bringing a bit of the on-prem to the cloud there. But we are also bringing just enough Azure on-premises as well with our Dell AI system for Azure local here. So bringing a bit of Azure to on-prem to run where you need it to again, bring Azure services where you want to run them. And actually at Microsoft build this week, Microsoft just announced the bringing of Azure AI Foundry on Azure local as well to run in customer data center as well. So brand new hot off the press announcement there.
Savannah Peterson
>> Congratulations. That's exciting.
Jeff Woolsey
>> Kenny, you nailed it. I couldn't say it much better myself. So let me add just a couple things. Yeah. When it comes to the AI journey, as one of my coworkers, Bob Ward over in the SQL team likes to say, data is really the fuel for AI. Okay. And you've seen that. You saw it in Michael Dell's keynote, you've seen it throughout the week here at Dell Technology World. And we firmly believe that. And as organizations look, they have many times, years if not decades worth of data from interactions, customers, all sorts of things. And they want to be able to look at that data and realize, is there a way I can mine it so I can deliver better services? How do I improve my offerings for my customers, whether they're internal customers or whether they're you servicing external customers out there. So really having that AI and data focus is something that both Dell and Microsoft have in common.
Dave Vellante
>> So when you put Powerscale into the Azure Cloud, you're sort of almost guaranteeing us an exact identical experience, whether it's on-prem or in the cloud. So the developer, the user, they don't care. They don't know.
Kenny Lowe
>> Yeah, exactly.
Dave Vellante
>> And that's what you've achieved there. My question is when I remember when Google first started doing search, it was like, yeah, they're just using commodity components. Everything's the same, just drive breaks, they throw it out. And over the years we've seen custom hardware and all the cloud players are developing their own silicon. And so how do you ensure that you have that cost efficiency and that same facile experience? Because I would imagine you remember the old days of hosting, you'd walk into a data center, that was one of everything and it was hard to manage. So have you guys written an abstraction layer to sort of deal with all that and to hide that from customers? How do you deal with that?
Jeff Woolsey
>> Let's get to the core of what you just said. The big challenge is management. Customers have come to us over the years. I've been at Microsoft over 22 years and I've seen for decades now the consistent complaint from customers is like, I've got stuff everywhere. And it's not just one data center. I've got multiple data centers, lots of branch offices, lots of edge locations. I have no visibility or insight into any of those. And now by the way, I'm adopting cloud, I'm doing Azure, I'm doing Azure virtual desktops, I'm doing Azure SQL, I want some Dell storage in the cloud. Help me. And this is where that again, that Dell and Microsoft partnership comes together. It's a consistency around management. So for example, with the Dell AX solutions for Azure Local, these are systems that you're deploying on premises, but you're managing it from the cloud. And so we have customers that are now deploying not just one, not two, but dozens if not hundreds of solutions that they can manage all in one place and they can see them wherever they reside around the planet. And so it really helps solve that big challenge, which is I want to do more, but how do I do it in a way that allows me to manage them in a consistent way?
Kenny Lowe
>> And consistency is the right word there. And it's not just consistency of management that we get from this as well. It's actually consistency of licensing and support and services and unifying how you run everything from this to cloud and everything in between as well, which is great for the people that actually have to run it and manage it.
Savannah Peterson
>> I was just going to say, as you're describing this, I'm feeling the relief of the community of developers and folks who are optimizing this, and this is unique, right? Very unique. So that's an exciting part of this whole shebang. So let's talk a little bit about how your partnership and these certifications that you have, I'm sorry, 47,000, which is wild. How does that help accelerate the success of your community when you deploy these new products?
Kenny Lowe
>> Yeah, I mean, it's an investment into the Microsoft knowledge base there and into understanding the Microsoft ecosystem. So our support staff, our engineers, our deployment people, everyone is deeply expert in the products that we are supporting, deploying and managing for our customers there. Again, not a paper partnership, a very real technical one where we really understand and help co-develop some of the solutions that we're delivering here as well.
Jeff Woolsey
>> And when you get a Dell AX system for Azure Local, you're getting an architected system that, again, you've got professionals for deployment, for service, for support, but you know it's been architected to last. Customers want to know, hey, I want something that's going to last me for a durable long period timeframe, and again, give me that consistency of management so that I can do both on-prem as well as cloud together.
Dave Vellante
>> So let's talk about the reality here is data has gravity. It's going to be if there's data in the cloud, keep it in the cloud, ideally. If it's on-prem, great. Edge? And if I understand it, Azure Adaptive Cloud is what allows you to have that consistent experience.
Jeff Woolsey
>> Correct.
Kenny Lowe
>> It's basically decoupling the Azure services from the Azure data center location. So bringing the Azure service where the data center is and their data center centric services here. So like Azure SQL managed instances, bring that to your data, Azure Postgres hyperscale, bring that to your data, Azure AI Foundry, bring that to your data.
Jeff Woolsey
>> Azure virtual desktops.
Kenny Lowe
>> Exactly.
Jeff Woolsey
>> One of the benefits of adaptive cloud is these services, these Azure Cloud services that are actually running on-premises. Virtual desktops was actually one of the first ones we did because there was so much customer demand for it. We delivered AVD in the cloud and we had a lot of people deploy it. But we had folks like in healthcare came to us and they said, look, when it comes to patient care and patient services, we need that running on-premises. If there's a citywide outage, okay, that's okay. Our generators fire up and we continue to provide services for all of our patients without any disruption at all. So that's why again, you have this value of delivering cloud services on-premises.
Dave Vellante
>> What does that consistency do for the security model? What have you observed?
Jeff Woolsey
>> Oh, the fact that you have visibility means that you can better protect, better secure, and provide better consistency and governance for all of your resources. A perfect example, I know of an organization that they had 150 manufacturing sites around the world. They were all running random different hardware running by different teams. They were in North America, South America, Europe, Australia, Asia. They basically said, look, we're going to go with an Azure local solution for all of these. Now, for the first time ever, they can see all 150 sites running around the world. They know that they've got defender endpoint protection. They know that they've got everything backed up. They know that all of their applications are healthy and monitoring. And again, this is stuff that's still running on-premises, but they're able to manage it and see it all in a consistent way from the cloud.
Kenny Lowe
>> But it's also true to say that Microsoft gets tremendous insight into attack vectors around the world by virtue of running Azure, this massive cloud, and they're able to bring this insight to the on-premises world as well. So if you run a SQL Advisor agent on your on-premises systems, you get all that insight from Azure and what's happening from an attack footprint there, and they are better able to protect your SQL workloads on-prem.
Jeff Woolsey
>> And there's one more thing I have to add from a security perspective, if you're using a Dell AX system for Azure Local. Azure Local gives you an awesome new feature that we just released in Windows Server 2025, which is hot patching, which is the ability to patch a server in real time without a reboot, without any disruption. It can be your most mission-critical AI workloads, your most mission-critical SQL workloads. You can patch it just like that and you get that included with Azure Local at no additional cost.
Kenny Lowe
>> But you know what else you get included with Azure Local at no additional cost is over 300 security baseline settings out of the box there. So you went and deployed, let's say Windows server. You could go and manually apply many security settings there and then have to understand how to maintain those through the lifecycle of that product there, not fun. With Azure Local, we apply over 300 security baselines out of the box and then maintain them for the entire lifetime then as well as updates come out.
Jeff Woolsey
>> Not only is it not fun, but it's highly error-prone.
Kenny Lowe
>> Yeah, exactly.
Dave Vellante
>> Exactly.
Savannah Peterson
>> No, it's a whole thing. Talk to me about the Microsoft Premier solution.
Kenny Lowe
>> Oh, so we've just elevated our Dell AX system for Azure Local to a premier solution there, which is the most feature-rich and extensive capability in the Azure Local ecosystem there. So it enables us to basically-
Savannah Peterson
>> Congratulations.
Kenny Lowe
>> Thank you.
Savannah Peterson
>> That's exciting. Very exciting.
Kenny Lowe
>> It enables us to do seamless deployment of the Azure Local system from the Azure portal. So again, that consistency of deployment and management from Azure on the Azure Local system there. We do full-stack lifecycle management of that system. We have a tremendous amount of Dell hardware in Microsoft engineering where we're co-testing all of the updates there. So when Microsoft releases a new update, it's already tested on our hardware so customers can apply it immediately with confidence. We have enabled Powerflex storage for this system as well, so we can do disaggregated scalable storage, the only solution for Azure Local that can support external storage here as well. A whole plethora of different features there enabled in the premier solution there. We're very proud of our AX systems, but the really cool thing is, maybe I shouldn't say this, but when we elevated the AX system to Premier, we didn't increase the price. So all our customers get great new benefits, same price as it's always been.
Savannah Peterson
>> Well, that's a refreshing change from a traditional system.
Dave Vellante
>> That's really awesome.
Savannah Peterson
>> And it's nice to be able to serve them at that level of quality and optionality all at once. Very exciting for you. Congrats. That's a nice little milestone for y'all. Okay, I have one final question for you, brilliant individuals. When we're hanging out at Dell Tech World 2026, what do you hope to be able to say then that you cannot yet say today?
Jeff Woolsey
>> I think I got to be careful because I know stuff.
Savannah Peterson
>> Well, that's what I'm trying... Tell me the stuff. I want to know this stuff.
Jeff Woolsey
>> I'll put it this way. I think you're going to see that partnership continue to flourish around modern work, around AI and around data center modernization. You're going to see us, I think the wind is really hitting our sails. You're going to see us doing a lot more and really doubling down in our hybrid Azure Local solutions, as well as that AI innovation. As we talked about, we've announced lots more AI running on premises. In fact, this week we're announcing SQL Server 2025 is in preview.
Savannah Peterson
>> Yes, we talked about it yesterday.
Jeff Woolsey
>> A massive AI focus, so I'm sure we'll be talking a lot about that for Dell 2026.
Savannah Peterson
>> Awesome. I'm holding you to that. I can't wait to have the chat. What about you, Kenny?
Kenny Lowe
>> I think we'll be talking about Azure Local Disconnected for our customers then. So we're working on this process of enabling Azure Local to be fully disconnected, bringing enough of the Azure management experience into the system itself to be able to run in dark sites, fully disconnected environments. I'm looking forward to just being able to talk a bit more about that.
Dave Vellante
>> Air gaps.
Kenny Lowe
>> Exactly. Air gaps.
Dave Vellante
>> Oh, very cool.
Kenny Lowe
>> With the same Azure portal experience in an air gap environment.
Dave Vellante
>> Okay.
Kenny Lowe
>> Looking forward to that. Yeah.
Savannah Peterson
>> Love it. Well, we look forward to having both of these exciting conversations. Jeff and Kenny, thank you so much for taking the time on a busy week.
Kenny Lowe
>> Thank you so much.
Jeff Woolsey
>> It was our pleasure.
Savannah Peterson
>> Really appreciate it. Thank you, Dave, and thank all of you for tuning in to our three days of coverage here at Dell Tech World in Las Vegas, Nevada. My name's Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leading source for enterprise tech news.
Savannah Peterson
Dave Vellante