Enhancing Enterprise Storage: Dell Technologies Unveils PowerMax Innovations

By Brian Henderson, Director of Primary Storage and ISG Portfolio Messaging at Dell Technologies

In an era where data is the lifeblood of businesses, the need for robust, efficient, and secure storage solutions has never been more critical. Today, Dell Technologies is excited to announce significant enhancements to its flagship storage solution, PowerMax. These advancements are designed to improve AI-driven efficiency, bolster cyber resiliency, and facilitate seamless multicloud mobility, ensuring that organizations can keep pace with the ever-evolving demands of the digital landscape.

AI-Driven Efficiency for Mission-Critical Workloads

As businesses navigate the complexities of the digital age, the ability to anticipate and respond to storage needs is paramount. Dell’s latest PowerMax release harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to deliver a suite of benefits that optimize performance and minimize management overhead.

Performance Optimization

One of the standout features of this release is dynamic cache optimization powered by AI. By utilizing pattern recognition and predictive analytics, PowerMax can significantly reduce latency and enhance speed without adding management complexity. This means that organizations can expect faster data access and improved application performance, crucial for mission-critical workloads.

Predictive and Proactive Management

PowerMax now includes autonomous health checks with intelligent threshold settings. This feature allows the system to perform self-healing actions, addressing potential issues before they escalate. For instance, it can monitor storage capacity levels and detect loose cabling, ensuring that businesses can maintain optimal performance without constant manual oversight.

Automated Network Fabric Performance Optimization

The new automated network fabric performance optimization (FPIN) feature enables PowerMax to quickly identify and resolve Fibre Channel network congestion, leading to incident resolution that is up to eight times faster. This capability is vital for organizations that rely on uninterrupted access to their data.

Infrastructure Optimization

Dell’s AIOps Assistant, equipped with generative AI natural language queries, simplifies infrastructure optimization. This tool allows IT teams to quickly assess and enhance their storage environments, making it easier to adapt to changing business needs.

Improved Efficiency

The latest PowerMax release also introduces a remarkable 92% RAID efficiency (RAID 6 24+2), which enhances overall storage efficiency. Additionally, Dell has implemented industry-leading power and environmental monitoring capabilities, allowing customers to track power usage at the array, rack, and data center levels. This feature not only helps in managing energy costs but also contributes to sustainability efforts by reducing overall energy consumption.

Enhancing Cyber Resiliency

In a world where cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated, enhancing cyber resiliency is essential for all organizations. The new PowerMax release includes several features aimed at bolstering data protection and recovery capabilities.

Cyber Recovery Services for PowerMax

Dell’s new Professional Service offers robust protection against cyberattacks. By utilizing a secure PowerMax vault and granular data protection, this tailored solution ensures quick and efficient recovery while helping organizations meet stringent compliance requirements.

YubiKey Multifactor Authentication

To further enhance security, PowerMax now supports YubiKey multifactor authentication. This feature provides a strong and convenient security solution, protecting against unauthorized access while simplifying the user authentication process.

Superior Performance at Scale

PowerMax continues to set the standard for high performance at scale, ensuring that organizations have the capacity to meet both current and future demands. The latest enhancements include:

• Up to 30% IOPS Performance Boost: The PowerMax 8500 delivers a significant increase in input/output operations per second, enhancing overall performance.
• Faster Connectivity: New 100Gb Ethernet I/O modules offer up to three times faster GbE connectivity, while new 64Gb Fibre Channel I/O modules provide up to two times faster FC connectivity.

Additionally, the integration of Storage Direct Protection with PowerProtect enables efficient, secure, and ultra-fast data protection, allowing for backups of up to 1PB per day and restores of 500TB per day.

Achieve Multicloud Agility

As organizations increasingly adopt multicloud strategies, the ability to move data seamlessly across different environments is crucial. The latest PowerMax release facilitates multicloud agility through:

Seamless Multicloud Data Mobility

Dell now offers straightforward options for moving live PowerMax workloads to and from APEX Block Storage, the industry’s most resilient and flexible cloud storage. This capability allows organizations to modernize workloads while performing multi-hop OS conversions in a single, smooth process.

Scalable Cloud Backups and Restores

Storage Direct Protection for PowerMax provides simple, secure, and efficient data protection, enabling organizations to choose the best backup destinations. By integrating with major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP, and Alibaba, APEX Protection Storage helps avoid vendor lock-in, allowing businesses to select the cloud vendor that best meets their needs.

Simplified Consumption Model

With Dell APEX Subscriptions, customers can pay for what they use, streamlining invoicing, billing, and capacity usage monitoring. This modern consumption experience eliminates the need for large upfront capital investments, making it easier for organizations to manage their storage lifecycle.

Mainframe Innovation

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

Start Benefitting from Smarter, More Flexible, and Secure Enterprise Storage

Dell Technologies is committed to helping organizations stay ahead of digital transformation. With the latest enhancements to PowerMax, businesses can leverage AI-powered efficiency, new cyber recovery services, and multicloud data mobility to meet their evolving storage needs.

To learn more about how PowerMax can transform your enterprise storage strategy, click here.

In conclusion, the advancements in Dell PowerMax represent a significant leap forward in enterprise storage solutions, providing organizations with the tools they need to thrive in a data-driven world.