Other announcements from Dell Technologies today include the expansion of Dell APEX Data Storage Services and the addition of isolated cyber vaults to Google Cloud, joining cyber vault support for AWS and Azure.
Rob Emsley, director of product marketing for Data Protection at Dell
Today, Dell Technologies is making a series of announcements around their data protection portfolio. The Dell PowerProtect Data Manager Appliance extends PowerProtect Data Manager to help drive their multi-cloud data protection strategy. Dell APEX Data Storage Services backup storage as-a-service, which was introduced earlier this year, has been enhanced. Dell has also added support for isolated cyber vaults to Google Cloud, which becomes the last of the three major public clouds to get this support.
“As well as the product news, we are also making available a new set of research findings,” said Rob Emsley, director of product marketing for Data Protection at Dell. The 2022 Dell Global Data Protection Index survey, which is based on information with about 1000 global IT admins, found that organizations have experienced higher levels of natural and modern disasters than in previous years, resulting in more data loss, downtime and recovery costs.
“The research tells us there are three main challenges: data continues to be very disparate; multicloud data sprawl is an issue; and cyberattacks still keep people awake at night,” Emsley said. “The ability to be cyber resilient is inadequate and getting back online after an attack is not as good as it should be. So now we refer more to our modern architecture, which is simple to deploy use and consume, and which needs to be resilient.”
The product news has three pieces.
“PowerProtect Data Manager Software, which was introduced in 2019, is our latest software platform in our portfolio, with over 1000 deployments around the globe,” Emsley said. “It’s where our future lies in data protection. To help the adoption of Data Manager, we are now introducing a Data Manager appliance.”
Emsley said the appliance will be targeted at medium-sized businesses.
“This is very much a channel-focused route to market, which is modern, secure and simple, and easy to deploy and manage,” he stated. “It is a dense form factor appliance, which can start as small as 12 TB and can grow to 96 TB. As we go forward, customers with larger capacity requirements will be able to add an expansion shelf with more storage. This will be available in the second half of next year.”
Emsley also noted that while appliances started out as a product for smaller customers, that is changing.
“We’ve seen it’s more of the mid-market that really appreciates appliances based on their limited IT resources and expertise, but now you are starting to see larger companies have interest in appliances, providing they have more scalability,” Emsley said.
PowerProtect Cyber Recovery for Google Cloud expands cyber-resilience by increasing the options available for deployment
“CyberRecovery Vault used to be on-prem, but over the last year we have added support for the public cloud, with AWS at Reinvent, and Azure at Dell World last year,” Emsley said. “We now have over 1300 customers in this part of our portfolio.”
Organizations can use their existing Google Cloud subscription for purchasing PowerProtect Cyber Recovery through the Google Cloud Marketplace, and the service can be acquired directly from Dell and its channel partners.
Dell APEX Data Storage Services is expanding to offer a Backup Target option to provide more secure backup storage in a pay-per-use, flexible consumption model.
“We originally introduced this APEX backup service, and now we are preannouncing for Q1 an expansion of our data storage services,” Emsley indicated. “This positions PowerProtect and target-based appliances as a service like block and file storage. Rather than buy an appliance, a customer can now decide on the outcome they want – how much performance and capacity, and what term they want, and use a pay-as-you-go flexible consumption model.”
Finally, in January, Dell intends to introduce a new Cyber Recovery Guarantee to provide assurance to customers that their data will be recoverable following a cyberattack. Dell will provide qualifying customers up to $10 million in reimbursement for expenses to assist in the recovery of data from ransomware and other cyber incidents in the event restoring data is not possible with Dell solutions.
For Canadians, and anyone else outside the U.S, this will not be available out of the gate, although Emsley said that will eventually change.
“Our intent is to make the Cyber Recover Guarantee available globally,” Emsley said. “We will start with the U.S. and expand it as soon as we can.”
