Dell unveils AI-driven updates for PowerMax storage

Dell Technologies has unveiled updates to its PowerMax storage solution, focusing on AI-driven efficiency, enhanced security, and performance.

The newly introduced features include better power efficiency tracking, improved cybersecurity measures, superior performance capabilities, multicloud agility, and mainframe innovations. The updates are designed to enhance the system's capabilities for mission-critical workloads.

A key feature of the update is the AI-Driven Efficiency for Mission-Critical Workloads. The new AI-powered benefits aim to optimise performance, reduce management overhead, and anticipate potential incidents before they occur. The system uses AI for performance optimisation, leveraging pattern recognition and predictive analytics to reduce latency and increase speed, with minimal management demands.

Added predictive and proactive management capabilities include autonomous health checks with intelligent thresholds that offer corrective actions and self-healing features. This is further complemented by automated network fabric performance optimisation to rapidly resolve network congestion issues. Dell's AIOps Assistant is integrated with Gen AI natural language queries to enhance infrastructure optimisation tasks.

On the power efficiency front, the updates bring in 92% RAID efficiency and industry-leading power usage tracking capabilities. Customers can now monitor power usage at the array, rack, and data centre levels, improving energy management and reducing costs.

Enhanced Cyber Resiliency is another critical aspect of the updates. PowerMax now includes advanced cybersecurity features designed to protect customer data and provide swift recovery from cyber incidents. These features include Cyber Recovery Services for PowerMax, which utilise a secure vault and granular data protection, as well as YubiKey multifactor authentication for effective protection against unauthorised access.

Performance at scale has been boosted with the introduction of enhancements like a 30% increase in IOPS performance, markedly faster Ethernet and Fibre Channel connectivity modules, and improved data protection capabilities, such as up to 1PB of data backup per day.

The updates also focus on achieving Multicloud Agility. Customers are now provided with seamless multicloud data mobility options, allowing them to move live workloads to and from APEX Block Storage. This flexibility ensures efficient OS conversions and modernises workloads without disruptions. Additionally, comprehensive cloud backup capabilities are provided, allowing for integration with major cloud providers and offering a consumption model that simplifies billing and capacity monitoring.

In Mainframe Innovation, PowerMaxOS 10.2 introduces improvements in IOPS performance, latency reduction, enhanced cyber intrusion detection, and faster recovery performance through IBM's System Recovery Boost.

"Today, we're announcing significant enhancements to Dell PowerMax that improve AI-driven efficiency, increase cyber resiliency, and deliver seamless multicloud mobility," the company stated, emphasising the importance of these advancements for staying ahead in a digital transformation landscape.