Dell Technologies storage software innovations bolster cyber resilience, advance IT efficiency

Dell Technologies advances software-driven innovation across its industry-leading storage portfolio, driving increased cyber resiliency, energy efficiency and automation to power customers’ multicloud journeys.

Dell’s commitment to software development has resulted in more than 2,000 storage portfolio advancements in the past twelve months across every category of the external storage industry. These advances are available at no additional cost to existing customers and are consumable through on-premises software or as-a-Service via Dell APEX.

“As data continues to pile up, and skilled IT talent often difficult to find, companies are finding themselves in a position to do more with less,” said Jeff Boudreau, president and general manager, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies. “We’re helping customers rise to this challenge by enabling them to make the most of their IT investments with storage software innovation that is more energy efficient, boosts productivity and strengthens cyber resiliency.”

Built to meet the most stringent security requirements across any industry

PowerStore, Dell’s intelligent all-flash data storage array, is delivering increased security to help today’s leading businesses adopt a Zero Trust model — a security architecture that provides continuous verification of users and resources to ensure the authorization of only known entities and actions.

Through PowerStore’s new security software enhancements, Dell is helping customers accelerate Zero Trust adoption to better protect, prevent and respond to cyberattacks. New advancements include:

• STIG-hardening – Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs) meet the most stringent configuration standards as defined by the U.S. federal government and the U.S. Department of Defense.  STIG hardening adds to PowerStore’s adherence with the NIST Cyber Security Framework standard, which is required for U.S. federal networks and other government entities worldwide.
• Secure and immutable snapshots – Prevents unauthorized deleting or modifying of snapshots before their expiration date. 
• Streamlined file permissions – Allows storage administrators to manage access directly from PowerStore to respond quickly to security threats.
• Increased file resiliency – Up to 4x more mounted snapshots per system, giving users more protection points for granular recovery if needed. 
• Multi-factor authentication – Protects administrative access to PowerStore by requiring increased verification of a user’s identity. 

Dell helps customers drive increased productivity while keeping costs down

New PowerStore software automation and multicloud advancements help customers make the most of their existing IT investments while keeping operational and energy costs down. These new PowerStore features include:

• Dell PowerProtect native integration – Organizations now have increased simplicity and choice driving their multicloud data protection strategies with convenient backup to the cloud capability through PowerStore’s deeper integration into Dell’s physical and software-defined data protection solutions. Backups can be configured in less than two minutes,⁶ directly from the PowerStore user interface, allowing customers to easily take advantage of PowerProtect appliances with up to 65:1 data reduction, DD Boost technology and other capabilities. The solution can enable cost-effective cloud archiving, reducing on-premises capacity requirements which can help reduce power and cooling costs.
• DevOps workflow enhancements – New integrations with Ansible and Terraform and new application mobility capabilities with Dell Container Storage Modules help PowerStore customers accelerate innovation with flexible storage automation. By supporting these open source solutions, PowerStore gives DevOps workers easy-to-use storage automation tools and the ability to build repeatable, automated processes across diverse environments to provision storage without low-level coding or help desk support. 

PowerStore delivers up to 60% more IOPS (input/output operations per second) per watt,¹ now available with ENERGY STAR certified configurations, providing dramatic increases in both density and performance per watt as the most energy efficient PowerStore system to date. With this advancement, Dell is addressing the increased need for energy efficiency and sustainability, one of the most important criteria for IT buying decisions according to a recent IDC survey.

“With Dell PowerStore’s compression technology, we reduced our old storage area network from as much as 20 systems, down to two—a 90% reduction in our footprint,” said Nathan Young, IT director, Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. “As a result, PowerStore has improved our energy efficiency while allowing us to innovate to meet changing demands from constituents and the increased expectations of our staff.”

Dell ramps up software-driven storage innovation

In addition to PowerStore, new software innovations address a wide range of advancements across the Dell Storage portfolio:

• Dell PowerMax, the world’s most secure, mission-critical storage, strengthens cybersecurity by enabling an operational airgap to allow customers to expedite recovery of compromised production data following a cyberattack.
• Dell PowerFlex, Dell’s software-defined infrastructure, speeds modernization with enhanced NVMe/TCP and security.​
• Dell ObjectScale, Dell’s software-defined object-storage platform, introduces faster enterprise S3 object storage performance with a simpler deployment and support experience.
• Dell CloudIQ, Dell’s AIOps software, extends its AI/ML-driven performance and capacity analytics and VMware integration to simplify and accelerate IT and DevOps.
• Dell Unity XT, Dell’s flexible hybrid storage platform, increases Ansible support to enhance storage automation, helping customers lower costs, reduce errors and increase productivity.

Availability

• Dell PowerStore and ObjectScale advancements will be globally available in June 2023.
• Dell PowerMax, CloudIQ and Unity XT capabilities are globally available today.
• Dell PowerFlex advancements will be globally available in the third quarter of 2023.