Dell expands data-protection product line

Dell Technologies has announced new products and services for data protection as part of its security portfolio.

Active data protection is often treated as something of an afterthought, especially compared to disaster recovery. Yet it’s certainly a problem for companies. According to Dell’s recent Global Data Protection Index (GDPI) research, organizations are experiencing higher levels of disasters than in previous years, many of them man-made. In the past year, cyberattacks accounted for 48% of all disasters, up from 37% in 2021, and are the leading cause of data disruption.

One of the major stumbling blocks in deploying data-protection capabilities is the complexity of the rollout. Specialized expertise is often required, and products from multiple vendors are often involved. Even the hyperscalers are challenged to provide multicloud data-protection services.

Dell’s GDPI survey also found 85% of organizations with multiple data-protection vendors want to reduce the number of vendors they use. It cost organizations that use a single data-protection vendor 34% less to recover from incidents than those that used multiple vendors.

Now Dell is looking to be that sole provider, starting with the announcement of a new PowerProtect appliance, enhancements to Dell’s APEX storage services, and an agreement to use Google Cloud for cyber recovery.

The Dell PowerProtect Data Manager Appliance is designed to offer AI-powered data protections in an enterprise IT environment, including consistent backup and restore functions, with support for Kubernetes and VMware hybrid cloud environments. The appliance is also aimed at helping to accelerate the adoption of zero-trust architectures.

The GDPI survey found that 91% of organizations are either aware of or planning to deploy a zero-trust architecture. So far, only 12% have fully deployed a zero-trust model.

With its PowerProtect Data Manager Appliance, Dell has embedded security features into the hardware, firmware and security control points to simplify zero-trust deployment complexity. Dell claims it can be deployed in under 30 minutes, offers 12TB to 96TB of storage, has VMware integrated, and is cloud-ready and cyber recovery-ready.

Dell also announced it would expand its APEX cloud services to include the data protections announced. Earlier this year, the company introduced backup services and recovery support for its pay-per-use storage consumption model.

Additionally, Dell has expanded its data-protection approach to include Google Cloud as a choice for cyber recovery. It already supports Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

PowerProtect Cyber Recovery for Google Cloud enables customers to deploy an isolated cyber vault in Google Cloud to more securely separate and protect data from a cyberattack. Access to PowerProtect’s management interfaces is locked down by networking controls and can require separate security credentials and multi-factor authentication for access.

Organizations can use their existing Google Cloud subscription to purchase PowerProtect Cyber Recovery through the Google Cloud Marketplace, or the service can be acquired directly from Dell and its channel partners.