Cyber resilience enhanced: Dell’s next-gen data protection solutions

Cyber resilience has emerged as a critical imperative for organizations worldwide, particularly in the face of escalating cyber threats and security breaches.

In today’s digital landscape, where news of cyberattacks is a daily occurrence, organizations must continuously enhance cybersecurity readiness to mitigate risks effectively. This necessitates a holistic approach, encompassing an organization’s data, processes, ecosystems and exposures, according to Travis Vigil (pictured, left), senior vice president of product management at Dell Technologies Inc.

“Dell is expanding our industry-leading portfolio of data protection appliances, software and as-a-service offerings, which help customers strengthen their cyber resiliency capability in the face of increasing AI-fueled cyberattacks,” Vigil said.

Vigil and Rob Emsley (right), director of data protection marketing at Dell Technologies, spoke with theCUBE Research chief analyst Dave Vellante at the “Building Cyber Resilience on Trusted Data Protection Infrastructure” launch event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed Dell’s suite of solutions designed to empower organizations and the company’s cyber resilience strategies in the face of current cybersecurity challenges. (* Disclosure below.)

Dell’s Travis Vigil and Rob Emsley talk to theCUBE about the latest in cyber resilience.

Expanding data protection capabilities

At the core of Dell’s strategy is the expansion of its industry-leading portfolio of data protection appliances, software and services. With cyberattacks increasingly fueled by artificial intelligence, Dell’s new offerings aim to address the evolving threat landscape. The introduction of the Dell PowerProtect Data Domain models, specifically designed for large enterprises, underscores Dell’s commitment to providing advanced solutions to combat cyber threats effectively, Emsley pointed out.

“One challenge that customers often talk to us about is operational complexity,” he said. “Once you move data from Dell storage onto the PowerProtect data and the main appliances, you then have the ability to provide secure data integrity through immutability and also optional cyber vault integration, whether or not that be on-premises or through our multicloud option that we’ve made available.”

The enhanced performance of these appliances, with faster backups and restores, is crucial in minimizing downtime and ensuring business continuity in the event of a cyber incident. Moreover, the integration of innovative technologies into Dell PowerEdge servers, such as Intel Xeon scalable processors and compression technology, enhances both performance and efficiency, offering significant benefits to organizations, according to Emsley.

“There’s one thing that we haven’t seen a lot of the data protection market talk much about, which is the importance of protecting AI workloads,” Emsley said. “AI workloads and the infrastructure that is used to run them is just another attack surface that the bad actors can go after.”

Leveraging AI for streamlined data protection and cyber resilience

In addition to hardware advancements, Dell introduced APEX Backup Services for AI, an integrated AI assistant for backup and recovery processes. There is great transformative potential of AI in simplifying data protection processes and enhancing efficiency, according to Emsley. Through interactive reporting, guided troubleshooting and intelligent responses, APEX Backup Services for AI empowers organizations to streamline data protection workflows and adapt to evolving cybersecurity challenges.

“We’re introducing APEX Backup Services AI, which is an integrated gen AI assistant for backup and recovery, which allows customers to make their data protection processes more streamlined and effective,” Vigil added. “I think it’s a great example of Dell Technologies’ approach to generative AI.”

Dell’s comprehensive AI strategy underscores its commitment to leveraging AI across its product portfolio. By embedding AI capabilities into its products and providing infrastructure for gen AI, Dell enables organizations to harness the power of AI for enhanced cybersecurity, according to Emsley.

“AI creates a lot of data. It expands the attack surface, so you’ve got to think about protecting it a lot,” he said. “We hear a lot about data that’s being generated for specific purposes. It’s really valuable data, so you want to be able to protect that. But speed is increasingly important as well in cyber recovery. The time it takes bad actors to get in, steal stuff, wreak havoc: It’s really compressed to hours, if not minutes.”

Extending protection to mission-critical infrastructure

Dell extends its data protection capabilities to mission-critical infrastructure with Storage Direct Protection in PowerProtect Data Manager to support Dell PowerMax, delivering one of the world’s most secure storage solution, according to Emsley.

“One of the things that we’ve been tracking quite closely is the number of cyberattacks that affect the backup infrastructure,” he said. “Ninty-four percent of organizations that have been impacted by ransomware in the past year said that cyber criminals attempted to compromise their backups drawing an attack. The ability to protect your backups has never been more important. If the backups are gone, then the bad actors can go after your production environment and you really have no defense.”

This extension enables faster backup and recovery times, providing organizations with valuable efficiency gains. By simplifying operations, centralizing management and orchestrating backup and recovery processes, Dell empowers organizations to enhance cyber resilience while reducing operational complexity, Emsley added.

“It’s part of the core,” he said. “It’s no longer even adjacency. It’s a fundamental component of your infrastructure, and it feels like there’s constantly reporting in the news: ‘Cyberattackers, they’re getting through. Ransomware payments are being made.’ These appliances, they’re another brick in the wall.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of the “Building Cyber Resilience on Trusted Data Protection Infrastructure” launch event:

Watch the full event episode here:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the “Building Cyber Resilience on Trusted Data Protection Infrastructure” event. Neither Dell Technologies Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE