Dell upgrades enterprise storage

Dell Technologies has enhanced its PowerMax enterprise storage solution to improve AI-driven efficiency, increase cyber resiliency, and deliver multi cloud mobility. The new capabilities are optimised for mission-critical workloads, making it easier for customers to keep pace with changing business demands.

Upgraded PowerMax features include up to a 30% IOPS performance boost with PowerMax 8500, up to 3x faster GbE connectivity with new 100Gb Ethernet I/O modules, and up to 2x faster FC connectivity with new 64Gb Fibre Channel I/O modules.

Storage Direct Protection for PowerMax’s integration with PowerProtect enables efficient, secure, and fast data protection, delivering up to 1PB per day backups and 500TB per day restores.

AI-driven efficiency

The release offers AI-powered benefits that optimise performance, reduce management overhead, and prevent incidents before they occur. This is delivered by performance optimisation, predictive and proactive management, automated network fabric performance optimisation, and infrastructure optimisation.

Performance optimisation is driven by the integration of AI, which enhances system speed through dynamic cache optimisation. By employing pattern recognition and predictive analytics, Dell reduces latency and accelerates performance without manual oversight.

Predictive and proactive management is further enhanced with autonomous health checks that include intelligent threshold settings. This allows for corrective actions and self-healing capabilities, effectively addressing potential issues like storage capacity levels and loose cabling.

Automated network fabric performance optimisation ensures that PowerMax identifies and addresses Fibre Channel network congestion, such as slow drain. This capability isolates the root cause of issues, resulting in incident resolution that is up to eight times faster.

Infrastructure optimisation is simplified with Dell’s AIOps Assistant. Enhanced by Gen AI and equipped with natural language query capabilities, this tool facilitates fast and efficient infrastructure management, making optimisation processes both straightforward and effective.

Improved efficiency

The latest release introduces 92% RAID efficiency (RAID 6 24+2) to improve overall storage efficiency and industry-leading power and environmental monitoring capabilities. Customers can now track power usage at three levels: the array, the rack, and the data centre to improve power efficiency, manage energy costs, and effectively reduce energy consumption.

Enhancing cyber resiliency

PowerMax adds new cybersecurity features to increase the protection of customer data, reduce attack surfaces, and recover quickly from cyber-attacks, including:

• Cyber recovery services for PowerMax: Dell’s new Professional Service offers robust protection against cyberattacks. Using a secure PowerMax vault and granular data protection, this tailored solution ensures quick and efficient recovery while helping customers achieve stringent compliance goals.
• YubiKey multifactor authentication: Provides a strong and convenient security solution, offering enhanced protection against unauthorised access and simplifying the user authentication process.

Multicloud Agility

Dell now offers multicloud data mobility through simple options that enable live PowerMax workloads to be moved to and from APEX Block Storage. This capability allows for multi-hop OS conversions that modernise these workloads in one process, streamlining data operations and boosting efficiency.

PowerMax benefits from scalable cloud backups and restores with Storage Direct Protection. This feature provides simple, secure, and efficient data protection, empowering customers with the flexibility to choose their preferred backup destinations. Integration with major cloud providers is available, including: AWS, Azure, GCP, and Alibaba, APEX Protection Storage.

Dell APEX Subscriptions introduce a simplified consumption model where customers only pay for what they use. This approach streamlines invoicing, billing, and capacity usage monitoring, enabling better forecasting and scaling. By removing the need for substantial upfront capital investment, this model offers a modern consumption experience that simplifies lifecycle management and aligns with evolving business needs.

Mainframe innovation

PowerMaxOS 10.2 improves IOPS performance and reduces latency for unbalanced mainframe workloads, enhances cyber intrusion detection for mainframe (zCID) with auto-learning access pattern detection, and leverages IBM’s System Recovery Boost for faster recovery during planned or unplanned outages.

* Visit the PowerMax page on Dell technologies’ website here.